SEAL LIFE ON THE PRIHILOF ISLANDS. 347 



MR. PHELP'S ARGUMENT BEFORE PARIS TRIBUNAL. 



I. 



On April 4, 1893, Mr. Phelps made to the Tribunal the following 

 statement in regard to Mr. Elliott's report of 1890: 



This paper was produced and furnished to the British commissioners during their 

 session at Washington and remained in their possession as long as they cared to keep 

 it. It will thus be seen that there has been no disposition on the part of the United. 

 States Government to withhold or to conceal this document. 



II. 



The report is of little value as an authority and quite as likely to 

 mislead as to guide. The author is utterly untrustworthy as an 

 observer. 



(1) His field notes show this on their face: A field note should be a 

 bare and clear and uncolored record of facts observed. These are a 

 record not only of facts, but of conjectures, opinions, predictions, 

 reflections, emotions, etc. 



An observer should be severely objective. Elliott is always sub- 

 jective. It is his own conjectures and reasonings which he is most 

 concerned with. A perusal of pages 236 and 237 (entry of July 10) will 

 afford amusing proof of this. 



(2) It is the misfortune of Mr. Elliott and of those who rely upon 

 him that he has written at different times on the subject of fur seals, 

 and his representations of the facts at these different times vary 

 in some cases according to the theories which he was interested to 

 establish. 



Thus, in 1872-1874, he observed that a certain detached rock or islet 

 was then covered with the forms of fur seals; but in 1800, writing with 

 the purpose of showing that injurious redriving was practiced, he repre- 

 sents that the presence of seals at this place was a wholly recent 

 phenomenon, occasioned by a too severe working of the neighboring 

 sealing grounds. 



(3) His assertions of important matters of fact are shown to be errone- 

 ous by evidence far better than his. For instance, in his report for 

 1890 he represents certain places which on his earlier visits he found 

 abounding in young seals to be absolutely destitute of them, whereas 

 it is proved by the records of the islands that at those very times young 

 seals were driven and killed from those same places. 



Thus he writes July 19, 1890: "Not a single holluschak on Zoltoi 

 Sands this morning and not one had hauled "there this season/ 7 The 

 official records for 1890 (British case, Appendix, Vol. Ill, United States, 

 No. 2. 1890, pp. Ill, 23) show: (a] That on that very day 3,956 seals 

 were driven from Zoltoi in connection with Reef rookeries, of which 

 number 55(> were killed; (b) that a drive had already been made from 

 those same places June 24, on which occasion 426 seals were killed. 



(4) Mr. Elliott appears to be guilty of great inaccuracy in quoting 

 statements which have been made to him. Thus he attributes to Daniel 

 Webster the following: 



He says that ever since 1876-77 he has observed a steady shrinking of the hauling 

 grounds at Northeast Point. 



In the United States case (Appendix, Vol. II, p. 181), Daniel Webster 

 makes, however, a sworn statement which is wholly at variance with the 

 above : 



My observation has been that there was an expansion of the rookeries from 1870 up 

 to at least 1879. In the year 1880 I thought I began to notice a falling off from the 



