378 



HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



AN EXHIBIT OF VALUES GIVEN BY VENiAMiNOV. Pt. i: Zapieskie, <&c., p. 83, showing the rela- 

 tive importance, commercially, of the land and marine furs taken from the Oonalashka district (and 

 sold) in 1833, by the Russian-American Company. (This district embraces the Pribylov Islands.) 



* * * " The country (Alaska) is divided up into five districts : Sitka, Kadiak, Oonalashka, 

 Atka, and the North." * * * 



This whole country is under the control and government of the " Russian American Company." 



* * * The business is conducted with a head, or a colonial governor, assisted by officers of the 

 Imperial navy (Russian), and those of the company's fleet, and other chiefs ; in every one of the 

 districts the company has an office, which is under the direction of an office chief (or agent), and 

 he in turn has foremen (or "bidarsheeks"). 



* * * " The company on the island of Saint Paul killed from 60,000 to 80,000 fur-seals per 

 annum, but in the last time (1833?), with all possible care in getting them, they took only 

 12,000. On the island of Saint George, instead of getting 40,000 or 35,000, only 1,300 were killed." 



* * * [Veuiarninov: Zapieslcie, &c., Pt. i : chap, xii, 1840.] 



The table and extracts which I quote above give me the only direct Russian testimony as to 

 the value of the Pribylov fur-seal catch when the skins were in scant supply. It will be seen that 

 they were worth then only $10 each. 



I now append a brief but significant extract from Techmainov significant simply because it 

 demonstrates that all Russian testimony, other than Veniaminov's, is utterly self-contradictory in 

 regard to the number of seals taken from the Pribylov Islands. Techmainov first gives a series 

 of tables which he declares are a true transcript and exhibit of the skins sold out of Alaska by 

 the Russian-American Company. The latest table presented, and up to the date of his writing, 

 1862, shows that 372,894 fur-seal skins were taken from the Pribylov Islands, via Sitka, to the Rus- 

 sian markets of the world, in the years 1842-1862, inclusive; or giving an average catch of 18,G44 

 per annum (p. 221). Then, further on, as he writes (nearly one hundred pages), he stultifies 

 his record above quoted by using the language and figures as follows : 



* * * " In earlier times more were taken than in the later; at present (1862) there are 

 taken from the island of Saint Paul 70,000 annually without diminishing the number for future 

 killing; on Saint George, 6,000. * * * From 1842 to 1861 there were taken from the island of 

 Saint Paul 277.778 seal-skins; blue foxes, 10,508; walrus teeth, 104 poods; from Saint George, 

 31,923 fur-seals; blue foxes, 24,286." [P. Techmainov, Ecstorechesl;oi Olozerainia Obrazovania Rus- 

 sian-American Company, pt. ii, p. 310, 1863, St. Petersburg .\ Further comment is unnecessary upon 

 this author, who thus writes a " history of the doings of the Russian- American Company." Still, 

 since Veniaminov's time, 1838-1840, it is the only prima facie testimony that we have touching these 

 subjects while under Russian domination. 



