30 FUE-SEAL HERD OF ALASKA. 



And with this published record of my thorough understanding of the truth that 

 the cows are not present all the time, as early as 1872-1S74, in his hands, Dr. Jordan 

 deliberately attempts to rob me of that credit which naturalists all over this world 

 have given to me and still give for my accurate work on these islands. I say, "he 

 attempts," and I say it advisedly, for that is all it amounts to. 



From this unjustifiable misrepresentation Dr. Jordan proceeds to make an analysis 

 of my figures of the population of the seal rookeries, as published in 1872-1874 and 

 enlarged upon by me again in 1880. Now he steps upon ground of legitimate criti- 

 cism, and I am more than ready to meet it. AVith reference to my figures (Monograph, 

 Seal Islands, p. 61), he says: "Wai\'ing for the moment the method of obtaining 

 these figures, we may remark that they are not easy to understand. Of this total ' of 

 breeding seals and young,' Mr. Elliott in the same connection tells us that 1,000,000 

 'are young.' There must then be an equal of mothers, or 2,000,000 adult breeding 

 females and their pups. To this must be added the young 2-year-old cows that are 

 included, though not present. Mr. Elliott has himself given us an estimate of these. 

 Considering of' the 1,000,000 pups born 500,000 are females, he says, 'that at least 

 225,000 of them safely return in the second season after birth.' This, therefore, 

 gives us a total of 2,225,000 females and young in the complete estimate of 3,193,420, 

 leaving 868,428 animals which can only be accounted for as breeding bulls. This is 

 impossible, and yet no other explanation of the discrepancy is at hand." 



This is exactly quoted as it stands in Dr. Jordan's final report, page 79, and if it 

 were not for the deliberate misstatement that "Mr. Elliott in the same connection 

 tells us that 1,000,000 'are young' " there might indeed be "no other explanation of 

 the discrepancy" at hand. But "in the same connection" I do not say anything of 

 the kind about only 1,000,000 pups being born out of this grand ^iotal on the Pribilof 

 Islands; on the contrary, on page 61 (Monograph, Seal Islands), I present a carefully 

 tabulated statemient of the exact ratio of seal life on the several breeding grounds of the 

 Pribilof Islands, summing it up by the square feet of sea margin, multiplied by the 

 average depth as "grand sum total for the Pribilof Islands (season of 1873), breeding 

 seals and young, 3,193,420," saying as I do so, that these figures as above, show this 

 total. Then I proposed ,to open another and distinctly separate enumeration of the 

 nonbreeding, or bachelor seals, which I clearly declare entirely outside of any basic 

 calculation, havin" no initial point, like the breeding seals; and I close this summary 

 of the seal life on tlie seal islands on the following page. 



Then I take up under an entirely different caption an entirely different question. 

 I take up then the question of "The increase or diminution of the seal life, past, 

 present, and prospective." I enter upon a purely speculative theme, and do not 

 attempt to speak except in broad, general terms. Taking up that subject in this con- 

 nection, and not in conjunction with the statement of facts preceding it, I enter upon 

 a hypothetical expression of what I believe the loss of life sustained by the young 

 seals amounts to. I use the broad, general assertion that "1,000,000 pups, or young 

 seals, in round numbers," are annually born upon these islands of the Pribilof group 

 every year." Naturally to point my speculation in figures of loss, which follows, it 

 is better and easier to say "1,000,000" than 1,296.710, which would be the exact line 

 of figures if the speculation was treated as a matter based upon fact. But I merely 

 assume that half of the pups get back as yearlings next year, and that assumption is 

 as well or better illustrated by a general figure than a specific one. The result is pre- 

 cisely the same anyway, and really has in either case of exact or general figures the 

 same value. In my own mind at the time I was inclined to think that fully one-half 

 of these pups did not get back, and so I preferred the general or indefinite figure 

 rather than to strain an exact di\'ision of the pups into a vague theory. Jordan 

 himself is guilty of this fusion of fact and theory repeatedly in this report. But I 

 never have permitted it in my work. 



Dr. Jordan proceeds to make himself still more en-oneous in assumption. He says: 

 "But if these figures were in themselves reasonable we must still take exception to 

 the method by which they were obtained. * * * On his method of surveying 

 the rookeries, Mr. Elliott has given us practically no data." 



The stupidity, or else the effrontery, of this statement as to my giving him no data 

 can be well understood by reference to the elaborate charts of these breeding grounds 

 which are published in my report of 1890. (H. Doc. No. 175, 54th Cong.,"lst sess.) 

 These surveys were so elaborate and so full of detail that Gen. Walker in 1880 was 

 unable to publish them in the Census Monograph, owing to lack of funds for their 

 preparation, and I reluctantly inserted a small series of indeterminate pen-and-ink 

 sketch maps to illustrate the general idea, but in 1890 I took them up to the islands 

 with me and placed my work of that season on them in turn, making in this wav the 

 very best contrast of the condition of 1872-1874 with that of 1890 that'could have "been 

 devised. 



