48 FUR-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 



only sligfhtly above surf wash in moderate weather, and a storm in the 

 summer or fall woukl de^stroy nearly every ])up born upon it. It is a 

 small crescentic splintered rock and reef bar, with a little shoulder of 

 gray basalt in its center some 25 or 40 feet only above tide water. The 

 " ears," or wings, which make that odd, half-moon shape of this islet, are 

 simply ice-ground and pushed basaltic bowlders, over which the surf 

 of every storm from the southwest backing around, and to the northeast 

 rolls and breaks completely. In 1872 the fur seal did not breed here; 

 its instinct warned it of this danger to its offspring from sea storms. 

 But, since then, so harassed has it been, that a few hundred families or 

 harems have preferred to risk the chance of a quiet living there, rather 

 than to longer submit to that hustling of those sealing gangs all along 

 the margin of their breeding grounds on the Reef point. 



1 estimate that some 0,000 or 7,000 breeding seals and their young 

 were hauled out on Seevitchie Kammeu this last season of 1890. 



ST. GEORGE (1873-74). 

 [.Is it appeared during the summers of 1873-74.] 



St. George is now in order, and this island has only a trifling contri- 

 bution for the grand total of the seal life; but, small as it is, it is of much 

 value and interest. Certainly Pribilov, not knowing of the existence of 

 St. Paul, was as well satisfied as if he had i)ossessed the boundless uni- 

 verse when he first found it. As in the case of St. Paul Island, 1 have 

 been unable to learn much here in regard to the early status of the rook- 

 eries, none of the natives having any real information. The drift of 

 their sentiment goes to show that there never was a great assemblage 

 of fur seals on St. George; in fact, never as many as there are to day, 

 insignificant as the exhibit is compared with that of St. Paul. They say 

 that at first the sea lions owned this island, and that the Russians, 

 becoming cognizant of the fact, made a regular business of driving off 

 the "seevitchie" in order that the fur seals might be encouraged to laud. 

 Touching this statement, with my experience on St. Paul, where there 

 is no conflict at all between the 8,000 or 10,000 sea lions which breed 

 around on the outer edge of the seal rookeries there, and at Southwest 

 Point, J can not agree to the St. George legend. I am inclined to believe, 

 however (indeed, it is more than probable), that there were a great many 

 more sea lions on and about St. George before it was occupied by men — 

 a hundredfold greater, perhaps — than now: because a sea lion is an 

 exceeding timid, cowardly creature when it is in the ])roximity of man, 

 and will always desert any resting place where it is constantly brought 

 into contact with him.' 



'This statement of the natives has a strong circumstantial backing by the pub- 

 lished account of Choris, a French gentleman of leisure and amateur naturalist and 

 artist, who landed at St. George in 1820 (July). He \, -ssed several days off and on 

 the island. He wrote at short length in regard to tlie sea lion, saying "that the 

 shores were covered with innumerable trooi)s of sea lions. The oilor which arose 

 from them was insupjiortable. These animals were all the time rutting,'' etc., yet 

 nowhere does he speak, in the chapter or elsewhere in his volume, of the fur seal on 

 St. George, but incidentally remarks that over on St. Paul it is the chief animal and 

 most abundant. (Voyage Tittoresi^ue au tour du Monde, lies Aleoutiennes, pp. 12, 13, 

 PI. XIV, 1822.) 



Although this writing of Choris in regard to the subject is brief, superficial, and 

 indefinite, yet 1 value the record he made, because it is ])rima facie evidence, to my 

 mind, that had the fur seal beiiu nearly as numerous on St. George then, as it was on 

 St. Paul, he would have spoken of the fact, surely, iuasmuch as he was searching for 

 just such items with whioh to illumine his projected book of tra^•els. Tlie old Rus- 

 sian record as to the relative numl)ei- of fur seals on tlie two islands of St. George 

 and St. Paul is clearly and palpably as erroneous for 1820 as I found it to be in 1872-73. 

 No intelligent steps toward ascertaining that ratio were ever taken until I made my 

 survey. 



