FUR-SFAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 7 



to found authoritative reports from year to year as to any chaujoje, increase, or. 

 (liniinutiun of the seal life. It ia therefore very important that the Government' 

 shouUl have an aj^ent in charge of these novel and valuable interests who is capable, 

 by virtue of education aud energy, to correctly observe and rejjort the area and 

 position of the rool<;eries year by year. 



Therefore, in the light of the foregoing, you will observe that although 

 I was unable to detect, myself, any danger to or diminution of the seal 

 life on the Pribilov Islands after three seasons of close study in the 

 field, ending with the season of 1874, yet I was deeply impressed with 

 the need of an intelligent, careful search every year for the signs of, 

 or real existence of such danger; and I urged the Department to select- 

 men who were fit to make such a search: men who could be trusted to 

 do it honestly and thoroughly. I made this request on the IGth of 

 November, 1874, as I gave in my detailed report above cited, to the 

 Secretary of the Treasury, who ordered it i»ublished at .once aud caused 

 it to be widely circulated by the Department, 



In 1872-1874 I observed that all the young male seals needed for 

 the annual quota of 75,000, or 90,000, as it was ordered in the latter 

 year, were easily obtained every season between the 1st of June and 

 the 20th of July following, from the hauling grounds of Tolstoi, Lukan- 

 non, aud Zoltoi Sands — from these hauling grounds adjacent. to the rook- 

 eries or breeding grounds of Tolstoi, Lukannon, Eeef, and (iarbotch — 

 all of these points of supi^ly being not more than H miles distant from 

 the St. Paul village killing^grounds: the Zoltoi drive being less than 

 GOO feet away. 



At Northeast Point on this island Webster got all the seals desired 

 toward filling the above-cited <piota of 90,000 from that sand reach 

 between the foot of Cross Hill and the Big Lake sand dunes on the 

 north shore beach. 



• Then that immense spread of hauling ground covered by swarms of 

 young male seals at Zapadnie, at Southwest Point, at English Bay, 

 beyond Middle Hill, west, at Polavina, and over all tliat81ong miles of 

 beach and upland hauling ground between Lukannon Bay and Web- 

 ster's house at Novastoshnah — all of this extensive sealing area was 

 not visited by sealing gangs or spoken of by them as necessary to be 

 driven from. In this connection it is proper to say that the name of 

 Middle Hill was not known or given to that or any other particular point 

 in English Bay or elsewhere when I surveyed the island in 1872-1874: it 

 was not so iianied until a few years afterwards; and was never known 

 as a sealing drivers' title until then. 



Therefore, when attentively studying in 1872-1874 the subject of 

 what was the effect of killing annually 100,000 young male seals on 

 these islands (90,000 on St. Paul and 10,000 on St. George), in view of 

 the foregoing statement of fact, I was unable to see how any harm was 

 being done to the regular supply of fresh blood for the breeding rook- 

 eries : since those large reservoirs of surplus male life above named, held 

 at least just half of the young male seal life then belonging to the islands. 

 These large sources of supply were never driven from : never even vis- 

 ited by the sealers : and out of their overwhelming abundance I thought 

 that surely enough fresh male seal life must and did annually mature 

 for service on the breeding rookeries. 



Thereupon, when recapitulating in my published work of 1872-1874, 1 

 was positive in declaring that although I was firmly convinced that no 

 increase to the then existing number of seals on these islands would 

 follow any effort that we might make (giving my reasons in detail for 

 so believing), yet J was as firmly satisfied that as matters were then con- 

 ducted nothing was being done Avhich would injure the regular annual 



