210 FUR-SEAL FISKKRIES OF ALASKA. 



pages of the St. Paul journal, I find nothing there of the character 

 cited from the St. George records,'i. e., direct entries made from field 

 observation like tliose quoted above, mitil I reach the record of last 

 year. They are summed up in the following direct, significant warning, 

 which that gentleman (who uttered it) promptly embodied in his report 

 to the Treasury Department, thus giving the first direct information on 

 file in the secretary's office which warned him of the true state of afiairs 

 up there. 



September 1, 1S89. — * * * Dr Lutz and myself took a walk to the Reef this 

 afternoon. TLe old bulls are about all gone, pups are getting rather large, and 

 could be seen by thousands playing in the water. Yet I am satisfied that they are 

 not near so numerous as in the past. It is impossible to continue killing 100,000 

 seals per annum and expect a continuation of seal life and a revenue to the Govern- 

 ment. My observation this summer of the rookeries have fallen far short of my 

 expectations after reading Elliott and others on seal life. — C. J. Goff. (Treasury 

 agent's journal, St. Paul Island, p. 173.) 



FIELD NOTES RELATIVE TO PELAGIC SEALING— IN BE SEAL PIRATES, 

 AND MINGLING OF RUSSIAN AND AMERICAN SEAL HERDS. 



OONALASHKA, August 13, 1890. 



From what I saw yesterday as I came down on the Arago, from what 

 Captain Tanner of the Albatross informs me, and from what I learned 

 through the collector here, there is no doubt but that a number of 

 pelagic sealers are at work in Bering Sea at the present hour: and get- 

 ting everything that they can lay their hands upon in the form of fur 

 seal. 



We ran down upon a typical sealing schooner yesterday morning, about 

 7 o'clock, as she was partly becalmed, about 60 miles north of Akootan 

 Pass. She liad her sails at first clewed up: but, as we drew near, she 

 hoisted lier foresail and jib and lazily drew oft' so as to turn her stern 

 away from sight, in order that her name might not be taken. But, we 

 ran clear around so as to disclose the name "An'e?, St. John, N. B.," in 

 white letters on her black hull, under her stern. We passed so near to 

 her that we could look right down upon her crowded deck — crowded 

 with northwest-coast canoes and Indians, so that there was hardly 

 moving room on her. 



She was a small schooner, not over 50 tons, and extremely shabby 

 in her equii)ment: rigging frayed and slack, sails patched like a crazy 

 quilt, and the crew made up entirely of Indians (some thirty or thirty- 

 five), except three white men. The Indians were dressed in blanket 

 coats or shirts, with their fiaps overhanging; some breeched and some 

 unbreeched. Their canoes were telescoped on deck precisely as the 

 dories of a Gloucester codfisherman are packed or stowed. 



They all crowded up on the diminutive i)oop deck of the schooner, and 

 stared at us in mingled fear and wrath, while some one of the white men 

 ran below, and reappeared with a rifle under his arm. 



The name of the schooner being disclosed, the Arago bore away, and 

 when the craft was some 5 miles astern, we saw her canoes dropping down 

 for seals — she had 8 or 10 canoes. I am not certain as to the count, but 

 not any less, that is sure. These Indians use both spears and guns. 



Captain Tanner says that last week when at work, 60 miles west- 

 northwest of St. Paul Island, on the 100-fathom line, he saw two schoon- 

 ers anchored, with their boats out sealing. The skinned carcasses of 

 the seals that they had shot, were floating everywhere. 



The collector here says that he has been informed by these men who 

 have been running in here frequently during the last three weeks, osten- 

 sibly in distress, but really to find out where and what the cutters were 



