46 ALASKA. 



seals in almost equal multitudes. They were on uninhabited 

 islands. They were in places where no protection could be 

 extended against the capture of them. They were in places where 

 no system of regulations limiting drafts which might be made 

 upon them could be established, and the consequence was that in 

 a few short years, they were practically exterminated from every 

 one of such haunts and have remained ever since practically, in a 

 commercial point of view, exterminated, except in some few places 

 over which the authority of some power has been exercised, and 

 where regulations have been adopted more or less resembling 

 those adopted upon the Pribilof Islands, and by which means the 

 race has to a certain extent, although comparatively small, been 

 preserved. 



That was the condition of things when these islands passed into 

 the possession of the United States under the treaty, between 

 that Government and Russia, of 1867. At first, upon the acqui- 

 sition by the United States Government, its authority was not 

 immediately established and, consequently, this herd of seals 

 was exposed to the indiscriminate ravages of individuals who 

 might be tempted thither by their hope of gaining a profit; and 

 the result was that in the first year, something like 240,000 seals 

 were taken, and although some discrimination was attempted and 

 an effort was made to confine the taking, as far as possible, to males 

 only, yet those efforts were not in every respect successful. That 

 great draft thus irregularly and indiscriminately made upon them 

 had undoubtedly a very unfavorable effect; but <the following 

 year, the United States succeeded in establishing its authority and 

 at once readopted the system which had been up to that time pur- 

 sued by Russia and which had been followed by such advantageous 

 results. 



In addition to that, and for the purpose of further insuring the 

 preservation of the herd, the United States Government resorted 

 to national legislation. Laws were passed, the first of them as 



