FUR-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 33 



feet of average depth, making ground for 140,500 far seals — bulls, cows, 

 and pups; (larbotcli rookery has (July 10, 1800) 2,400 feet sea margin 

 with 70§ feet of average depth, malving ground for 81,802 fur seals — 

 bulls, cows, and i^ups; thus declaring a tot-al for this reef peninsula of 

 only 225,302 seals against the total of 481,000 wliich existed here in 

 1872-1874, and which were massed upon this ground as indicated on the 

 accompanying map. * 



LAGOON ROOFERY (1872-1874). 



[//s co)tdition and appearance July, 1374.'] 



We now pass from the reef up to the village, where one naturally would 

 not expect to find breeding seals within less than a pistol shot's distance 

 from the native houses; but, it is a fact, nevertheless, lor on looking at 

 the sketch map of the Lagoon rookery herewith presented, it will be 

 noticed that 1 have located a little gathering of breeding seals right 

 under the village hill to the westward of that place called Nah Speel. 

 This is in itself an insignificant rookery and has never been a large one, 

 though it is one of the oldest on the island. It is only interesting, how- 

 ever, superficially so, on account of its position, and the fact that through 

 every day of the season half the population of the entire village go to 

 and come from the summit of the bluff, which overhangs it: there they 

 peer down for hours at a time upon the methods and evolutions of the 

 "kautickie" below, the seals themselves looking up with intelligent 

 appreciation of the fact that, though they are in the hands of man, yet 

 he is wise enough not to disturb them there as they rest. 



If at Nail Speel, or at that point rounding into the village cove, there 

 were any suitable ground for a rookery to grow upon or spread over, 

 the seals would doubtless have been there long ago. There are, how- 

 ever, no such natural advantages offered them ; what there is they have 

 availed themselves of. 



Looking from the village across the cove and down upon the lagoon, 

 still another strange contradiction appears — at least it seems a natural 

 contradiction to one's usual ideas. Here we see the Lagoon rookery, a 

 reach of ground upon which some 25,000 or 30,000 breeding seals come 

 out regularly every year during the apx)ointed time, and go through 

 their whole elaborate system of reproduction, without showing the 

 slightest concern for or attention to the scene directly east of them and 

 across that shallow slough not 40 feet in width. There are the great 

 slaughtering fields of St. Paul Island; there are the sand flats where 

 every seal has been slaughtered for years upon years back, for its skin ; 

 and even as we take this note, forty men are standing there, knocking 

 down a drove of 2,000 or 3,000 holluschickie for the day's work : and as 

 t''ey labor, the whacking of their clubs and the sound of their voices 

 must be as plain to those breeding seals, which are not 100 feet from 

 them, as it is to us, a quarter of a mile distant. In addition to this 

 enumeration of disturbances, well calculated to amaze and dismay and 

 drive off every seal within its influence, are the decaying bodies of the 

 last year's catch — 75,000 or 85,000 unburied carcasses — that are slough- 

 ing away into the sand, which two or three seasons from now, Nature 

 will, in her infinite charity, cover over with the greenest of all green 

 grasses. The whitened bones and grinning skulls of over 3,000,000 

 seals have bleached out on that slaughtering spot, and are buried below 

 its surface now ! 



Directly under the north face of the village hill, where it falls to the 

 narrow flat between its feet and the cove, the natives have sunk a well. 

 U. Doc. 175 3 



