84 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



has naturally done as little as could well be managed to aid in the 

 enforcement of the arbitration decree, and indeed how could the 

 most sanguine millenarian, with any knowledge of national history 

 or traditions, imagine that the British navy would be spurred to 

 great activity in running down schooners flying the British flag, 

 manned by British subjects, while engaged in the profitable pursuit 

 of an industry which another nation claims as its own? 



During the past two years, under the efficient direction of Dr. 

 Jordan, elaborate investigations, including something like an actual 

 count, have been made to ascertain the number of seals frequenting 

 the Pribilof Islands. Other studies have strengthened the conclu- 

 sion that the number has greatly diminished within the past decade, 

 and is now greatly and rapidly diminishing. In spite of the regu- 

 lations of the Paris tribunal pelagic sealing has increased enormously, 

 while legitimate killing upon the islands has been largely discon- 

 tinued. That was a charming thrust of Lord Salisbury's when he 

 said that the English interest in the fur-seal industry had for some 

 years exceeded the American, for it is beginning to be apparent that 

 while the Americans have busied themselves arranging for arbitra- 

 tions, seeking international co-operation, and organizing scientific 

 commissions to prove again what had been proved before, their 

 sleepless adversaries were quietly gathering in the profits, realizing 

 that the business must soon be closed up anyhow. In the report of 

 1892 the British commissioners had no intention of indulging in 

 humor when they suggested as one of the most desirable measures 

 the setting apart of at least one of the two seal islands entirely for 

 the purpose of breeding seals for pelagic sealers, no land killing to 

 be allowed there. 



Is it not time for the people of the United States to ask whether 

 the game is worth the candle? Two considerations call for the 

 preservation of the Alaska seals, the sentimental and the commer- 

 cial. The former may be dismissed, as it has been in cases of far 

 more intimate contact between man and the species exterminated. 

 The commercial consideration is one that ought not to be difficult 

 to deal with. In fact, all are agreed that the " preservation " of the 

 fur-seal species is important to mankind, and it is only necessary to 

 determine how important or how large a proportion of mankind is 

 deeply concerned in this. If the continued existence of any in- 

 dustry or material product is of extreme importance to the com- 

 fort, health, or general well-being of a large part of mankind, ex- 

 treme measures may justly be resorted to to insure its permanence. 

 It is not difficult to imagine conditions under which the care and 

 preservation of the buffalo might have been forced upon the people 

 of the United States, wisely and justly. 



