18 FUR-SEAL FISHEKIKS OF ALASKA. 



laudiiis', and inoiKt, fogj^y air which they had missed since they left the 

 storm-beaten coasts far l)eh>w. 



In the Antarctic waters of the Eastern Hemisphere seals were found 

 at Tristan da Acnnha, principally on Little ISTio-htin^ale Island; the 

 Crozets group, all small rocks, as it were, over which violent storms 

 fairly swept; then we observe the great rookeries of Prince Edward's 

 Groiip and Desolation Island — where perhaps nine-tenths of all the 

 oriental fur seals congregated — thence over to a small and insignificant 

 islet known as the Royal Company, south of Good Hope. This list 

 includes all the known resting pla(;es of the fur seal in those waters. 



In the oSTorth Pacific, during prehistoric times, a legend from Si^anish 

 authority states that fur seals were numerous or abundant on the Santa 

 Barbara and Guadaloupe Islands, off the coast of California and the 

 peninsula to the southward. A few were annually taken from these 

 islands up to 1835, and irregularly found there until 1874, an interreg- 

 num of some ten years : and, a few hundred skins were taken from there 

 in 1885. None have been secured since. Also, fur seals were wont to 

 si)ort and rest on those celebrated rocks off the harbor of San Francisco 

 known as the Farralones; l)ut, no tradition locates a seal rookeiy any- 

 where else on the northwest coast, or anywhere else in all Alaska and 

 its islands, save the Pribilov group: while across and down the Asiatic 

 coast, only the Commander Islands and a little rocky islet known as 

 Robbeus Ileef (right under the lee of Sakhalen Island, Okotsk Sea) 

 are known as the resort of this animal. The crafty savages of that 

 entire region, the hairy Aino, and the Japanese themselves have 

 searched in vain during the last hundred years for other ground fre- 

 quented by these fur seals. 



In the light of the foregoing renuirks is it not natural, when we 

 reflect upon the immense area and the exceedingly favored conditions 

 of climate and ground frequented by the fur seals of the Southern 

 Ocean, to say that their number must have been infinitely greater as 

 they were first apprehended, suri)assing all adequate description, when 

 compared to those which we did regard as the nuirvel and wonder of 

 our age — the breeding rookeries of the Pribilov group? 



It is a great pity that this work of extermination in the Antarctic 

 and senseless destruction should have progressed, as it has, to the very 

 verge of total extinction, ere anyone was qualified to take note of and 

 record the wonderful life thus eliminated. The Falkland Islands and 

 the Shetlands at least might have been placed under the same restric- 

 tions and wholesome direction which the Russians established in the 

 north seas, the benefits of which accrue to us until now, and will forever, 

 if the evils now rampant are at once remedied. Certainly it is surprising 

 that the business thought, the hardheaded sense, of those early English 

 navigators should not have been ecpial to that of the Russian Promy- 

 shleiiiks, who were renowned as the most unscrupulous and the greediest 

 of gain getters. 



Tlie Antarctic islands offered natural advantages <»f protection by 

 land far superior to those found on the Pribilov or Commander groui)S. 

 They had harbors and they laid outside of the track of commerce: 

 advantages Avhich are not all shared by our islands. At Desolation 

 Island perhaps the dititicultics were insuperable on account of the great 

 extent of coast, Avhich is practically inaccessible to man and nearly so 

 to the seals; but the South Shetlands might have been farmed out by 

 the British Government at a trifiing outlay and with exceedingly good 

 results, for millions upon millions of the fur seals could rest there to-day, 

 as they did a hundred years ago, and be there to-morrow, as our seals 

 do and are in Bering Sea. But the work is done. There is nothing 



