FUR-SEAL FISHEKIES OF ALASKA. 51 



Detailed analysis of survey of Zapadnie {St. George) rookery, July 20, 1890. 

 [Sea iiiaryin exteudinj; from A to P> and C to I), 1,250 feet.] 



Square feet. 

 1,250 feet sea. margiu, from A to B, C to D, with 20 feet average depth, massed. 25, 000 



makinji' ground for 12r,500 seals — bulls, cows, and pui)S — against a total 

 of 18,000 m 1873-74. 



It will be observed, by my tinting on this map of 1890, that in 1873 

 there was but 000 feet of sea margiu to this rookery, but tliat it had the 

 greater depth of 00 feet, which threw a third more seals into the field 

 then than is seen to day, with a sea margin twice as great, but no 

 backing to speak of. This great scattering of these breeders along tlie 

 sea margin here, instead of massing solidly as in 1873, is due to that 

 rough driving by the sealing gangs along the rookery margins during 

 the last six or seven years. This scraping has the decided effect of 

 forcing the outside harems, laying farthest back from the water, down 

 along the edges of tlie rookery to a spot less exposed to the hustling of 

 the native drivers. That steadily kept up, spreads the rookery out along 

 the water's edge. This again operates badly in still another very sig- 

 uiticaut manner — the doubled extension to the sea margin of a small 

 rookery, like Zapadnie here, brings an unduly increased number of the 

 pups born here every year Vithin the danger line of heavy surf in Au- 

 gust and September, before these little fellows can swim well. There- 

 fore, the method of diiving as practiced to day, is actually forcing the 

 exposure of a decreasing life to a fresh and an unwarranted increasing 

 danger of destruction which every August and September gale will 

 surely visit u])on it. Such storms are not lacking: and, when they do 

 prevail, thousands and tens of thousands of pups within the reach of 

 their surf-washing violence, are destroyed. 



STARRY ARTEEL ROOKERY' (1873-74). 

 [//s condition and appearance July, 1874.^ 



This rookery is the next in order, and it is the most remarkable one 

 on St. George, lying as it does iu a bold sweep from the sea uj) a steeply 

 inclined slope to a point where the bluff's bordering it seaward, are over 

 400 feet high, the seals being just as closely crowded at the summit of 

 this lofty breeding i)lat as they are at the water's edge. The whole 

 oblong oval on the side hill, as designated by the accompanying survey, 

 is covered by their thickly covered forms. It is a strange sight, also, 

 to sail under these blufis with the boat in fair weather for a landing; 

 and, as you walk the beach, over which the cliff wall frowns a sheer 500 

 feet, there, directlj^ over your head, the craning necks and twisting 

 forms of the restless seals, ever and anon, as you glance upward, appear 

 as if ready to launch out and fall below, so closely and boldly do they 

 press to the very edge of the i)recipice. There is a low, rocky beach 

 to the eastward of this rookery, over which the hoUuschickie haul in 

 proportionate numbers, and from which the natives make their drives: 



'Starry Artcel, or Old Settlement: a few hundred yards to the eastward of the 

 rookery, are the earthen ruins of one of the pioneer settlements in Pribilov's time, 

 and which, the natives say, marks the first spot selected by the Russians for their 

 village after the discovery of St. George in 1786, 



