80 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



isted, such as have long been available for men, it would have been 

 easy to calculate just what number of males of fixed ages might be 

 killed annually without interference with the reproductive power 

 of the herd, and computations of this character were made and sub- 

 mitted by the American commissioners, based upon the best available 

 data, showing that the average number taken upon the Pribilof 

 Islands during the past twenty years could not have been greatly in 

 excess of safety. 



But in sealing at sea discrimination as to sex is impossible. It 

 was affirmed that by far the greater number of seals killed at sea 

 were females, an assumption justified by an examination of the 

 skins of a large number of seals taken from the- water, as well as by 

 other evidence not less conclusive, though more circumstantial. In- 

 deed, the British commissioners admitted that at least one half of 

 those killed at sea were females, making it extremely difficult to 

 understand how they could argue themselves into the belief that the 

 herd could ever reach its maximum dimensions while pelagic sealing 

 existed, or why the growth of the latter would not necessarily lead 

 to its practical extermination. Finally, it was submitted that if the 

 truth of these two propositions was agreed upon it was impossible to 

 avoid the following conclusions: That the restoration of the sealing 

 industry to its normal condition, so far as relates to the Pribilof 

 Islands, requires the entire cessation of killing, both on the islands 

 and at sea, for a period of years not less than five, and to be ex- 

 tended if competent examination of the rookeries so indicated. 

 When killing was resumed it should be restricted to selective killing 

 on land, under the most rigid inspection, and pelagic sealing should 

 be perpetually prohibited. 



In submitting these propositions as the logical outcome of the 

 facts as determined, the American commissioners were adhering to 

 both the letter and spirit of the convention, in which they were 

 directed to investigate and report upon " the measures necessary for 

 the proper protection and preservation " of seal life. They did not 

 believe it to be their duty to consider how such measures would 

 affect the interests, business or political, of the subjects of either or 

 any nation. They believed with Lord Salisbury that it was " equally 

 to the interests of all the Governments concerned in the sealing in- 

 dustry that it should be protected from serious risks of extinction," 

 and that the discussion of compensatory measures, equivalent ad- 

 justments, methods of enforcement, etc., was not the duty of a 

 commission organized to ascertain facts and conditions, determine 

 causes, and suggest remedies. They also fully realized that they 

 were tolerably certain to be thought ingenious rather than ingenu- 

 ous, because the remedies which they suggested were apparently 



