FUR-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 39 



making grouud for ()2,400 seals — bulls, cows, and pups — against a total 

 of 225,000 in 1872-1874. These figures declare a de(!rease here of 

 162,600 seals since my earlier survey, or a loss of some 75 per cent. 



While there appears to be a little more than one-fourth only of the 

 females here as compared with their number of 1872, yet the propor- 

 tion of loss in males is still more startling — there is not one fifteenth 

 of the showing made by the bulls in 1872-1874, and not a single young 

 bull seen upon the ground offering service — not one even attempting 

 to land at the water's edge. The half dozen that I did see on the 

 outskirts of the rookery were evidently dropped from sealing drives, 

 broken spirited and utterly worthless. 



The topographical features of this ground are wholly unchanged since 

 my survey of 1872. The sands still drift with their accustomed dis- 

 agreeable energy backward and forward between Middle Hill and the 

 base of the rookery; but being bare of seal life last summer, they seem 

 to aid in the expression of a deeper air of desolation than that given to 

 any other one spot on the islands save Keetavie. 



ZAPADNIE ROOKERY (1872-1874). 

 [Its condition and appearance July, 1S74.'\ 



From Tolstoi, before going north, we turn our attention directly to 

 Zapadnie on the west, a little over 2 miles as the crow flies across 

 English Bay, which lies between them. Here again we find another 

 magnificent rookery, with features peculiar to itself, consisting of great 

 wings separating, one from the other, by a short stretch of 500 or 600 

 feet of the shunned sand reach which makes a landing and a beach just 

 between them. The northern Zapadnie lies mostly on the gently slop- 

 ing, but exceedingly rocky, fiats of a rough volcanic ridge which drops 

 there to the sea; it, too, has an ap])roximation to the Tolstoi depth, but 

 not to such a solid extent. It is the one rookery which I have reason 

 to believe lias sensibly increased since my first survey in 1872. It has 

 overfiowed from the boundary which I laid down at that time, and has 

 filled up for nearly half a mile, a long ribbon-like strip of breeding 

 ground to the northeast from the hill sloi)e, ending at a i)oint where a 

 few detached rocks jut out, and the sand takes exclusive possession of 

 the rest of the coast. These rocks aforesaid are called by the natives 

 " Nearhpahskie Kammin," because it is a favorite resort for the hair 

 seals. Although tliis extension of a very decided margin ot breeding 

 ground, over half a mile in length, between 1872 and 1876, does not iii 

 the aggregate, point to a very large increased number, still it is a grati- 

 fying evidence that the rookeries, instead offending to diminish in the 

 slightest, are more than holding their own. 



Zapadnie in itself is something like the Eeef plateau on its eastern 

 face, for it slopes up gradually and gently to the parade plateau on 

 top — a parade ground not so smooth, however, being very rough and 

 rocky, but which the seals enjoy, elust around the point, a low reach 

 of rocky bar and beach connects it with the ridge walls of Southwest 

 Point. A very small breeding rookery, so small that it is not worthy 

 of a survey, is located here. I think i)robably, on account of the nature 

 of the ground, that it will never hold its own, and is more than likely 

 abandoned by this time. 



One of the prehistoric villages, the village of Pribilov's time, was 

 established here between the point and the cemetery ridge, on which the 

 northern wing of Zapadnie rests. The old burying grouud, with its 



