50 



ALASKA. 



from the earliest knowledge of these regions, been carried on to a 

 very limited extent by the Indians who inhabited the coasts for 

 the purpose of obtaining food for themselves and skins for their 

 clothing, and which had made a limited draft upon the herds in 

 that way — it was found that this practice was beginning to be 

 extended so as to be carried on by whites, and in large vessels 

 capable of proceeding long distances from the shore, of encounter- 

 ing the roughest weather, and of carrying boats and boatmen and 

 hunters, armed with every appliance for taking and slaughtering 

 the seals upon their passage through the seas. That practice 

 began, I think, in the year 1876, but at first, its extent was small. 

 The vessels were fitted out mostly from a port in British Colum- 

 bia, and confined their enterprise to the North Pacific Ocean, not 

 entering Bering Sea at all; and their drafts upon the seals even in 

 the North Pacific Ocean were at first extremely small, only a 

 few thousands each year. But the business was found to be a 

 profitable one, and, of course, as its profit was perceived, more and 

 more were tempted to engage in it, and a larger and larger invest- 

 ment of capital was made in it. More and more vessels prose- 

 cuted the fishery in the North Pacific Ocean, and in 1883, ^o^the 

 first time, a vessel ventured to enter Bering Sea. 



The learned arbitrators will perceive that up to this time, during 

 the whole of the Russian and the whole of the American occupa- 

 tion of these islands, there had been no such thing as pelagic 

 sealing, except in the insignificant way already mentioned by the 

 Indians. Those two nations had enjoyed the full benefit of this 

 property, the full benefit of these herds of seals, in as complete a 

 degree as if they had been recognized as the sole proprietors of 

 them, and as if a title in them, not only while they were ashore 

 and upon the breeding islands, but while they were absent upon 

 their migrations, had been recognized in them during that whole 

 period, or as if there had been some regulation among the nations 

 absolutely prohibiting all pelagic sealing. Up to the period 



