Fur -bearing Animals of the Pacific Slope. 191 



the killing in canoes, going but a short distance from the shore, was 

 continued. Three men engaged in this trade, James Warren, 

 Hugh Mackay, and W. Spring, perceiving that far larger profits 

 might be gained by engaging in the business on a larger scale, in 

 schooners that could steam out farther to sea and were able to 

 reach the narrow passages between the Aleutian Islands, through 

 which it was known that the seals passed in great numbers. They 

 purchased suitable vessels and went into the business systematically. 

 In the year 1879 they had four vessels engaged in the business, 

 the catches averaging from 1500 to 2000 skins per vessel in the 

 season, and, although the London sales, that govern to this day 

 the prices on the coast, even in the most remote Indian settlement, 

 had then not yet experienced the important rise which presently 

 came, the profits were large enough to attract other British 

 Columbians. In 1883 there were nine Canadian vessels, and on 

 one of these I made a short trip up the west coast of Vancouver 

 Island to see how sealing was conducted. Victoria has always 

 been the headquarters of the business. In 1886 quite a number 

 of vessels were added, and the American naval circles in the 

 Puget Sound cities (U.S.) began also to fit out a number of 

 sealers. In that year, too, the first seizure by the U.S. cutters 

 were made, three Canadian and one American "poacher" being 

 taken ; in 1887 six Canadian and ten American sealers ; and in 

 1889, which was the last year seizures were made, four Canadian 

 and two American vessels were seized. When America's rather 

 far-fetched claim to the ownership of the Behring Sea and to a 

 portion of the North Pacific was disposed of by the Paris arbitrators, 

 public attention at once fastened upon the hotly discussed but 

 little understood pelagic sealing. All reasonable and uninterested 

 persons from both sides versed in the details of the business at once 

 recognised that it was a question which should be decided solely on 

 the ground and upon the facts of natural history. That Canadian 

 rights to pursue a marine industry to which they had every right, 

 and in which much capital was sunk, had to be respected, went 

 without saying. 



