106 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 







Secretary of the Treasury by Congress to change the ratio on each island to a correct basis. In consideration of 

 being the only company allowed to take fur-seals on the islands, it has agreed to pay a yearly rental for the use of 

 them, and a tax or duty upon each skin taken and shipped from them; not to kill more than the stipulated number 

 of seals, and seals of a particular kind ; not to molest them on the rookeries or in the water, and to do nothing 

 \vhich would tend to frighten them from the islands, to provide for the comfort, maintenance, education, and 

 protection of the native inhabitants, and neither to furnish nor allow any of its agents to use distilled spirits or 

 spirituous liquors, or to supply them to any of the natives. . 



EMPLOYES OP THE ALASKA COMMERCIAL COMPANY. The company employs on St. Paul an agent who has 

 general charge of the business on both islands, three assistants, a physician, a school teacher, three carpenters, 

 a cooper, a steward, and a cook; and on St. George, an agent, a physician, a school teacher, and a cook. 



CONDUCT OF THE SEALING. The great work of the season, the taking and curing of seal-skins, begins the first 

 week in June, and is pushed forward as rapidly as possible, as the skins are in the best condition early in the 

 season. This year 90,000 skins were taken on St. Paul by eighty-four men in thirty-nine days. The natives do 

 all the work of driving, killing, and skinning the seals, and of curing and bundling the skins, under the direction 

 of the company's agents and of their own chiefs. The first operation is that of driving the seals from the 

 hauling- to the killing-grounds. The latter are near the salt-houses, which are built at points most convenient 

 for shipping the skins, and all the killing is done upon them, in order not to disturb the other seals, and to 

 save the labor of carrying the skins. The seals suitable for killing (which are the young males from two to 

 six years old) are readily collected into droves upon the hunting-grounds by getting between them and the 

 water, and are driven as easily as a flock of sheep. They move in a^clumsy gallop, their bellies being raised entirely 

 from the ground, upon their flippers, which gives them, when in motion, the appearance of bears. They are 

 sometimes called "sea-bears" on account of this resemblance. In driving them care is taken not to hurry them, 

 for if driven too fast they crowd together and injure the skins by biting each other, and also become overheated 

 and exhausted. They are driven from one-half mile to five miles in from three to thirty-six hours, according to the 

 location of the hauliug-grounds. After reaching the killing-grounds they are allowed to rest and coo] for several 

 hours, particularly if the drive has been a long one. The drives vary in number from five hundred to as many 

 thousand, as there happen to be few or many seals upon the hauling-ground where the drive is made. In each 

 drive there are some seals that are either so large or so small that their skins are not desirable, and sometimes a 

 few females are driven up, not often, however, as they seldom stray from the rookeries. All such are singled out 

 and permitted to escape to the water. The killing is done with a blow on the head by a stout club, which crushes 

 the skull, after which the skins are taken off and carried into the salt-houses. During the first half of the month 

 of June, from five to eight per cent, of the seals in the drive are turned away, being either too small or too large, 

 and from ten to twelve per cent, during the latter half. In July the percentage is still greater, being about forty 

 per cent, for the first and from sixty to seventy-five per cent, for the latter half. About one-half the seals killed are 

 about three years old, one-fourth four, and the remainder two, five, and six. No yearlings have been killed up to 

 the present time, though allowed by the lease, as their skins are too small to be saleable in the present state of the 

 trade, but by some change in it they may become desirable in the future and would then be taken. This would, however, 

 injure the fisheries, because the yearlings of both sexes haul together, and it would be almost impossible to separate 

 them so as to kill only the males. There has been a waste in taking the skins, due partly to the inexperience of the 

 company's agent, and partly to accident and the carelessness of the natives. In making the drive, particularly if 

 they are long, and the sun happens to pierce through the fog, some of the seals become exhausted and die at such 

 a distance from the salt-houses that their skins cannot well be carried to them by hand, and are therefore left upon 

 the bodies. This was remedied during the last killing-season, by having a horse and cart to follow the drive and 

 to collect such skins. Some skins have also been lost by killing more seals at a time than the force of men 

 employed could take care of properly. Good judgment and constant care are required in taking the skins, as fifteen 

 minutes' exposure to the sun will spoil them, by loosening the fur. Another source of waste is by cutting the skins 

 in taking them off' in such a manner as to ruin them. It was very difficult at first to induce the natives to use 

 their knives carefully, and several hundred skins were lost in a season by careless skinning; but by refusing to 

 accept and pay for badly-cut skins, the number has been greatly reduced, so that the loss this year on St. Paul 

 was but one hundred and thirty from all causes. The salt-houses are arranged with large bills called kenches, made 

 of thick planks, into which the skins are put, fur-side down, with a layer of salt between each two layers of skins. 

 They become sufficiently cured in from five to seven days, and are then taken from the kenches and piled up in 

 "books", with a little fresh salt. Finally they are prepared for shipment by rolling them into compact bundles, two 

 skins in each, which are secured with stout lashings. The largest of these bundles weigh sixty four pounds, but 

 their average weight is but twenty-two. The smallest skins, those taken from seals two years old, weigh about 

 seven pounds each, and the largest, from seals six years old, about thirty. 



COUNTING THE SKINS. The skins are counted four times at the island, as follows: by the company's agent and 

 the native chiefs when they are put into the salt-houses, the latter giving in their accounts, after each day's killing, 

 to the government agent; again when they are bundled by the natives, who do the work, as each is paid for his 

 labor by the bundle; by the government agents when they are taken from the salt-houses for shipment, and the 



