102 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



> -V .. - 



EL A BRIEF 11EVIEW OF OFFICIAL REPORTS UPON THE CONDUCT OF 



AFFAIRS ON THE SEAL-ISLANDS. 



19. SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS OF LIEUT. WAS QB URN MAYNARD, U. S. N. 



A SYNbPSis OP LIEUT. MAYNARD'S REPORT. In closing this biology of the seal-life on the Pribylov islands, it 

 it is not superfluous on ipy part to present to the reader a brief review of the writings which have been ordered by 

 the government upon the condition of the subject at the islands. I have previously called attention to the fact 

 that prior to my work in 1872 and 1874, inclusive, a singular absence of a business-like and succinct method of 

 comprehensive information existed in the archives of the Treasury Department, which is charged by law with the 

 absolute control of these interests, and is responsible to Congress for the same. In order, therefore, that this 

 statement of mine shall not pass as a mere assertion on my part, I deem it due to the history of the subject of this 

 memoir, at the present writing, to give a brief abstract of the labors of those officials of the government who have 

 made the fur-seals of Alaska the thesis of their publications and correspondence. These papers are so scattered that 

 a combination here of their substance may not be uninteresting. I shall comment only upon those documents which 

 have a direct reference to the Pribylov islands. 



SPECIAL REPORT OF LIEUT. WASHBURN MAYNARD, U. S. N. Before touching upon the specjal labors 

 of the treasury officials, I wish to direct the attention of the reader to the following synopsis of an exceedingly 

 concise and interesting contribution to the subject of the business on the seal-islands. It is from the pen of Lieut. 

 Washburn Maynard, U. S. N., and was submitted by him to the Secretary of the Navy on the 30th of November, 

 1874. His work of investigation was in obedience to the order of Congress expressed in an act approved April 22, 

 1874. The occasion of this gentleman's labor arose directly from the constant and reiterated charges, made more by 

 insinuation than by specific writing, against the correctness of my published position in regard to the conduct of the 

 business on the seal-islands, and he proceeded to that field of duty conscious of the fact, and determined to settle 

 it as far as he was able to, by a thorough and personal scrutiny of the whole subject. He did so ; and I now desire 

 to embody the substance of his communication above referred to. 



The only fault which can be found with Lieutenant Maynard's report is, that it is exceedingly brief, though 

 explicit. I should say here that he evidently did not consider this writing, from which I shall quote, more than 

 a simple statement of fact, and made it in the nature of an answer to the order of a superior officer. 



20. SYNOPSIS OF LIEUT. MAYNARD'S INVESTIGATIONS. 



THE SUBSTANCE OP LIEUT. MAYNARD'S REPORT. The islands of St. Paul and St. George, or the seal-islands, 

 as they are more commonly called, are the principal ones of the Pribylov group; the other two, known as Otter and 

 Walrus, are merely outlying islets. They are situated in Bering sea, between the parallels of 56 to 58 of north 

 latitude and 169 to 171 of west longitude. St. Paul has an area of 33 square miles, while St. George claims but 

 29, with, respectively, 42 and 29 miles of shore-line each. 



CLIMATE. They are enveloped in summer by dense fogs, through which the sun rarely makes its way, and are 

 surrounded in severe winters by fields of ice driven down by the Arctic winds. They have no sheltered harbors 

 beyond slight indentations in the shore-line that afford a lee for vessels and tolerable landing places for boats when 

 certain winds are blowing. 



SHORES AND VEGETATION. The shores are bold and rocky, with strips of sand-beach, and are covered by 

 broken rocks at intervals between them. The interior of both islands is broken and hilly ; neither tree nor shrub 

 grows upon them, but they are clothed with grass, moss, and wild flowers. For nearly one hundred years fur-seals 

 have been known to visit them annually in great numbers for the purpose of bringing forth and raising' their young, 

 which circumstance gives those islands their great commercial impoBtance. 



HABITS OF THE SEAL. These seals occupy the islands from the breaking away of the ice in the spring until it 

 surrounds their coasts again in early winter, that is, from the middle of May until December. In milder hyenial 

 seasons, when there is little or no ice about the islands, a few seals have been seen swimming around in the water 

 throughout the entire year, but these exhibitions rarely occur. The fur-seals are not known to haul up on land 

 elsewhere within the limits of the North Pacific ocean, except at Bering and Copper islands, lying in Bering sea 

 near the Asiatic coast, and Bobbin's reef, a small rock on the coast. They certainly go from those landing places 

 to the southward in the fall, for they are frequently seen in the sea, either solitary or in shoals of thousands, and 

 are killed in the water all the way from Sitka to the straits of Fuca. In 1833, 54 were taken by the Russians on 

 the Farralone islands, off seaward from the entrance to the bay of San Francisco. There seems to be no reason 

 why they cannot remain in the water during the entire time they are absent from the islands, for they eat their food 

 there at all times, and are able to sleep upon its surface. 



CLASSIFICATION qf THE SEALS. They may be divided into two classes, the breeding and the non-breeding 

 seals; the former comprise the full grown males or bulls, the adult females or cows, and their young or pups; the 



