THE FUli SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 



345 



fur-seals on Saint George; in fact, never as many as there are to-day, insignificant as the exhibit is, 

 compared with that of Saint Paul. They say that, at first, the sea-lions owned this island, and 

 that the Russians, becoming cognizant of the fact, made a regular business of driving off the 

 " seevitchie," in order that the fur-seals might be encouraged to land.* Touching this statement, 

 with my experience on Saint Paul, where there is no conflict at all between the fifteen or twenty 

 thousand sea-lions which breed around on the outer edge of the seal-rookeries there, and at South- 

 west Point, I cannot agree to the Saint George legend. I am inclined to believe, however, indeed it 

 is more than probable, that there were a great many more sea-lions on and about Saint George before 

 it was occupied by man a hundredfold greater, perhaps, than now ; because a sea-lion is an 

 exceedingly timid, cowardly creature when it is in the proximity of man, and will always desert 

 any resting place where it is constantly brought into contact with man. 



The scantiness of the Saint George rookeries is due to the configuration of the island itself. 

 There are five separate, well-defined rookeries on Saint George, as follows: 



ZAPADNIE ROOKERY. Directly across the island, from its north shore to Zapadnie Bay, a 

 little over 3 miles from the village, is a point where the southern bluff walls of the island turn 



ZAPADNIE 



ROCKY FLATS 



* This statement of tin; natives has a strong circumstantial backing by the published account of Choris, a French 

 gentleman of leisure, and amateur naturalist and artist, who lauded at Saint George in 1820 (July) ; he passed several 

 days off and on the land ; he wrote at short length in regard to the sea-lion, saying "that the shores were covered with 

 innumerable troops of sea-lione. The odor which arose from them was insupportable. These animals were all the time 

 rutting," &c., yet nowhere does he speak in the chapter, or elsewhere in his volume, of the fur-seal on Saint George, 

 but incidentally remarks that over on Saint Paul it is the chief animal and most abundant. Although this writing of 

 Choris in regard to the subject is brief, superficial, and indefinite, yet I value the record he made, because it is prinia 

 facie evidence, to my mind, that had the fur-seal been nearly as numerous on Saint George then as it was on Saint Paul, 

 he would have spoken of the fact surely, inasmuch as he was searching for just such items with which to illuminate his 

 projected book of travels. The old Russian record as to the relative number of fur-seals on the two islands of Saint 

 George and Saint Paul is clearly as palpably erroneous for 1820, as I found it to be in 1872, 1873. No intelligent steps 

 toward ascertaining thai ratio were ever taken until I made my survey. Voyage Pittoresqve autour d^l Monde, lies 

 Ale'outiennes, pp. 12, 13, pi. xiv. 1822. 



