SEAL LIFE ON THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 147 



Deposition of Daniel Webxter. 



ALASKA, UNITED STATES. 



St. Georyc Itilaml, Pribilof Group, *#." 



Daniel Webster, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I am CM years 

 of age, and am a resident of Oakland, Gal.; my occupation is that of 

 local agent for the North American Commercial Company, and at pres- 

 ent I am stationed on St. George Island, of the Pribilof group, Alaska; 

 I have been in Alaskan waters every year but two since 1 was 14 years 

 of age. 1 first went to Bering Sea in 1845, on a whaling voyage, and 

 annually visited these waters in that pursuit until 1868, at which time 

 the purchase and transfer of Alaska was made to the United States; 

 since that time I have been engaged in taking of fur seals for their 

 skins. In 1870 I entered the employ of the lessees of the Pribilof 

 Islands, and have been so engaged ever since, and for the last thirteen 

 years have been the company's local agent on St. George Island, and 

 during the sealing season have, a part of the time, gone to St. Paul 

 Island and took charge of the killing at Northeast Point, which is known 

 to be the largest fur seal rookery in the world. For ten years prior to 

 1878 I resided most of the time at Northeast Point, having landed and 

 taken seals there in 1868. I have had twenty-four years' experience in 

 the fur-seal industry as it exists in the waters of the North Pacific and 

 Bering Sea, -and have made a very careful study of the habits and con- 

 ditions of this useful animal. During this period it has been my duty 

 as a trusted employee of the lessees to observe and report, each year, 

 the condition of the rookeries. My instructions were explicit and 

 emphatic to never permit, under any circumstances, any practices to 

 obtain that would result in injury to the herds. These instructions 

 have been faithfully carried out by myself and other employees of the 

 lessees of the Islands, and the laws and regulations governing the per- 

 petuation of seal life have been rigidly enforced by all the Government 

 agents in charge of the islands. 



In my twenty-three years' experience as a whaler in Bering Sea and the 

 North Pacific, during w r hich time I visited every part of the coast surround- 

 ing these waters, and my subsequent twenty- four years' experience on the 

 seal islands in Bering and Okhotsk seas, I have never known or heard 

 of any place where the Alaskan fur seals breed except on the Pribilof 

 group in Bering Sea. These islands are isolated and seem to possess 

 the necessary climatic conditions to make them the favorite breeding 

 grounds of the Alaskan fur seals, and it is here they congregate during 

 the summer months of each year to bring forth and rear their young. 

 Leaving the islands late in the fall or in early winter, on account of the 

 inclemency of the weather, they journey southward through the passes 

 of the Aleutian Archipelago to the coast of California, Oregon, and 

 Washington, and, gradually working their way back to Bering Sea, 

 they again come up on the rookeries soon after the ice disappears iroiii 

 the shores of the islands; and my observation leads me to believe that 

 they select, as near as possible, the places they occupied the year 

 before. The young seals are born on the breeding rookeries in June 

 and July. The head constitutes the greater part of this animal at this 

 time, and they are clumsy and awkward in all their movements, and if 

 swept into the water by accident or otherwise would perish from inabil- 

 ity to swim a fact that I have often observed, and one which is well 

 known to all who have paid any attention to the subject. Practically, 

 they remain in this helpless condition, though taking on fat rapidly, 

 until they are from 6 to 7 weeks old, when they commence to go into 



