THE WHALE FISHERY. 205 



exterminated. However, from one hundred and fifty to two hundred whales a year are killed on 

 the Mourraan coast by Norwegian whalers, who have their oil-works in Fiumarken. How profit- 

 able whaling is will be seen from the fact that all the expenses of the trade are covered by the 

 sale of the secondary products, such as whalebone, &c., and that the oil, of which each wha ] e 

 yields some 1,000 roubles' [$750] worth [from 30,000 to 72,000 pounds of blubber], forms the clear 

 profit of the whaler. At present there is a company with a considerable capital being started in 

 St. Petersburg, which intends next year to start whaling along the Mourman coast. 



" We have no information as to the number of whales in the eastern part of the Arctic and in 

 the Bering Straits. Putting aside the products got by thejnhabitants of the Arctic coast, which, 

 at any rate, is of some consequence, and only counting the products of regular whaling and seal 

 fishing, we remark the very extraordinary fact that the wide-spreading Arctic Ocean, with its 

 many gulfs, and the White Sea, yield a great deal less than the smaller Caspian does by nothing 

 but its seals. As there are more animals (even seals) than in the Caspian, this can only be accounted 

 for by the thorough way in which the business is carried on in the Caspian, where it is aided by 

 natural conditions, by the comparative ease of killing seals, and by the presence of capital and 

 enterprise. In the north, on the contrary, the danger and difficulty of the trade, and the absence 

 of a population, counteract the possibility of its yielding as great a quantity of useful products as 

 it might well do without destroying the natural abundance. 



"In consequence of this, one cannot help wishing that whaling, &c., would increase in the 

 north, and that more care would be taken in seal fishing in the Caspian, where seals may be com- 

 pletely exterminated in a considerably short time. We may remark that as many very valuable 

 animals, for example, the Greenland whale, Eamtchtulal otter, &c., are gradually dying out, and 

 are iu danger of the fate of their cousin, the sea cow (Rhytina Stelleri), and as it is next to impossible 

 for one state to prevent it, it is very desirable that a committee should be formed for the working 

 out of a set of rules for hunting, trapping, &c., which would be binding on all countries."* 



RUSSIAN WHALING AT ALASKA AND THE OKHOTSK SEA. In discussing the condition of the 

 territory of Alaska prior to its cession to the United States, Mr. Petroff says of the whale fishery : 



" The American whalers frequenting the Bering Sea previous to entering the Arctic through 

 Bering Strait had frequently been the object of complaint to the Russian Government by the 

 Russian-American Company. It was claimed that these whalers made a practice of landing on 

 the Aleutian Islands to try out blubber, and that the offensive ^moke and stench resulting from 

 this operation had the effect of driving away the precious sea otter from the coast. In 184:3 Chief 

 Manager Etholin reported that in his tour of inspection throughout the colonies he had encoun- 

 tered several American whalers close inland, but that they refused to answer his questions or to 

 obey his orders to leave the Russian waters. Some of the whalers learned that iu 1841 fifty ships 

 from New Bedford and Boston had been in the vicinity, and that they had succeeded in capturing 

 from ten to fifteen whales each. From 1842 these complaints concerning the whalers were renewed 

 every year, and during Tebenkof's administration he proposed to the company to go into the whal- 

 ing business in the waters of Bering Sea and the North Pacific as the best means of keeping out 

 foreigners. His plan was to hunt whales in boats from the harbors of Aleutian Islands, and to 

 engage at first a number of American harpoouers and steersmen until the Aleutians had been suf- 

 ficiently trained to do the work. 



"Under the terms of the treaty with England and America no vessel of either of those two 

 nations was allowed to hunt or fish within 3 marine leagues of the shore; but as there was no 

 armed Government craft in the colonies the provisions of the treaty were totally disregarded by the 



* Dr. O. GRIMM : Fishing and Hunting on Ruasiau Waters; St. Petersburg, 1883. 



