THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA 109 



21. EPITOME OF SPECIAL EEPORTS UPON THE SEAL-ISLANDS IN THE ARCHIVES OF THE 



TREASURY DEPARTMENT. 



THE OFFICIAL FILES OF THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT. The first direct reports received by the government 

 from its agents were those of Charles Bryant and H. H. Mclntyre, each dated November 30, 1869, and addressed 

 to the Secretary of the Treasury; they were published by order of Congress January 26, 1870. (See Ex. Doc. No. 

 32, 41st Congress, 2d session.) The references made to the seal-life in these documents are very brief and general. 



On the 30th December, 1870, the next communication from the seal-islands touching the condition of the 

 animals, etc., was received by the Treasury Department from its agent, Mr. S. N. Biiynitsky; it is a very brief 

 review of the whole state of affairs. (See Ex. Doc. No. 83, 44th Congress, 1st session, pp. 41 and 44 inclusive.) 

 This is followed on November 10, 1871, by another report upon the same subject by Charles Bryant, still brief and 

 general. (Ex. Doc. No. 83, 44th Congress, 1st session, pp. 59 and 60 inclusive.) It is a mere synopsis of the 

 success of the sealing season, and is followed by another routine report by the same author, dated August 15, 1872, 

 of the same vague and general tenor. 



A series of brief annual reports of this character by the agents of the Treasury Department have been annually 

 received by the government from Messrs. Bryant, Morton, and Otis, respectively, up to date, being all restricted to 

 short business recapitulations of the season's work in sealing, condition of the natives, etc.; they are supplemented 

 and illustrated by the reports made by the assistant special agents of the Treasury Department, who address their 

 communications to the treasury agent in charge, or chief special officer of the government. 



The last two annual reports of Colonel Otis, special agent Treasury Department, are elaborated in regard to 

 the details of sealing-labor and figure's of the progress of the work itself. He gives no special attention to the life 

 and habits of the fur-seal in his communication to the Secretary. 



I. ILLUSTRATIVE AND SUPPLEMENTAL NOTES. 



22. THE RUSSIAN SEAL-ISLANDS, BERING AND COPPER, OR THE COMMANDER GROUP. 



EXTRACTED FBOM PROFESSOR XORDEXSKIOLD'S REPORT ix REFERENCE TO BERIXG ISLAXD. 



[Translated by Capt. G. Niebaum.] 



ARRIVAL OF NORDENSKIOLD : LOCATION OF BERING ISLAND. The Vega anchored on the 14th August, 1879, 

 in a rather poor, open harbor on the northwest coast of the island. Bering island is the most westerly of the 

 Aleutian islands, and is situated nearest Kamtchatka; it does not belong, nor does the neighboring Copper island, 

 to America, but to Asia, and is controlled by Russia; nevertheless, the American Alaska Company have obtained 

 the hunting privilege, and maintain here a not inconsiderable trading station, which consists of about 300 

 inhabitants, supplying them with provisions and manufactured goods, and from them in turn receiving their labor, 

 principally rendered in taking skins of the eared-seal, or sea-bear (Otaria ursina); between 40,000 and 100,000* of 



* These figures are in error ; the table given at the close of this translation will show it. It is well known that the fur-seal, as it bred, 

 was first seen and desciibed by Steller, who wrote his description on this islaud, when shipwrecked there with Bering, in l741-'42. 

 Steller's account and the stories of the survivors drew a large concourse of rapacious hunters to the Commander islands ; they appear, as 

 near as I can arrive at truths, from the scanty record, to have quickly exterminated the sea-otters, and to have killed mauy and harrassed 

 the other fur-seals entirely away from the island ; so that there was an interregnum between 1760 and 1786, during which time the Russian 

 prouiyshleniks took no fur-seals, and were utterly at loss to know whither these creatures had fled from the islands of Bering and Copper. 

 When they (the seals) began to revisit their haunts on the Commander islands, I can find no specific date ; but I am inclined to believe 

 that they did not reappear on Bering and Copper islands to anything like the number seen by Steller, until 1837-'38; perhaps have not 

 done so until quite recently. At least, in 1667, the Russians did not think more than 20,000 skins could be secured there annually, while 

 they declared 100,000 could be taken readily at the Pribylovs; again, since 1867 the capacity of the Commander group has gradually 

 increased from 15,000 to 20,000, then to 40,000 and 50,000 " holluschickie " per annum. Now, this striking improvement is due, doubtless, to 

 the superior treatment of the whole business by the Alaska Commercial Company, which had also leased these interests from the Russian 

 government in 1871 for a term of 20 years. 1 think, therefore, that when the fur-seals on the Commander islands became so ruthlessly 

 hunted and harrassed shortly after Steller's observations in 1742, then they soon repaired, or rather most of the survivors did, to the 

 shelter and isolation of the Pribylov group, which was wholly unknown to man ; and it remained so until 1786-'87. Then succeeded a 

 period between, up to 1642-'4o, when the unhappy seals had but little rest or choice between the Commander and the Pribylov islands, 

 and must have sadly diminished, as the record shows, in numbers. 



The unfortunate overland journey of Steller, which alternately starved and froze him into a low fever that ended his yonng and 

 promising life in a yourt on the Siberian steppes, November 12, 1745, six years prior to the first publication of his celebrated notes on the 



