VIII. 



The Fur Seal and Other Fisheries. 



Mr. James C. Carter, in his oral argument on behalf of the 

 United States, before the Tribunal of Arbitration, at Paris, 1893, 

 gives the following concise sketch of the fur-seal controversy: 

 " During most of the eighteenth century, as all are aware, the 

 efforts and ambitions of various European powers were directed 

 toward the taking possession, the settlement, and the coloniza- 

 tion of the temperate and tropical parts, of the American Con- 

 tinent. In those efforts, Russia seems to have taken a compara- 

 tively small part, if any part at all. Her enterprise and ambi- 

 tion were attracted to these northern seas, seas which border upon 

 the coasts which in part she already possessed, the Siberian coast 

 of Bering Sea. From that, coast explorations were made by 

 enterprising navigators belonging to that nation, until the whole 

 of Bering Sea was discovered, and the coasts on all its sides 

 explored. The Aleutian Islands, forming its southern boundary, 

 were discovered and explored, and a part of what is called the 

 Northwest Coast of the American Continent, south of the Alaskan 

 Peninsula and reaching south as far as the fifty-fourth or fiftieth 

 degree of north latitude, was also explored by Russian naviga- 

 tors, and establishments were formed upon it in certain places. 

 The great object of Russia in these enterprises and explorations 

 was to reap for herself the sole profit and the sole benefit which 

 could be derived from these remote and icebound regions; namely, 

 that of the fur-bearing animals which inhabited them and which 

 were gathered by the native inhabitants. To obtain for herself 



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