32 FUR-SEAL HEED OF ALASKA. 



enables me to sav, "July 11, 1890, Tolstoi has 2,800 feet of sea margin with 4U feet 

 of average depth— 124,800 square feet of superficial area, making ground for 62,400 

 breeding seals and young." 



Here is the result in detail of my survey of Tolstoi in 1872, which .was verified by 

 myself and Capt. AYashburn Maynard, United States Navy, in 1874: 



Detailed analysis of the survey of Tolstoi roolery, July 15, 1872. 



[Sea margin begirming at A and ending at D.] 



Square feet. 



1,000 feet sea margin between A and B, with 350 feet average depth, massed. . 350, 000 

 400 feet sea margin between B and C, with 150 feet average depth, massed. . 60, 000 

 1,600 feet sea margin between C and D, with 30 feet average depth, massed. . . 48, 000 



Three thousand feet sea margin on Tolstoi breeding ground and 458,000 square 

 feet in it, making ground, in round numbers, for 225,000 seals. 



It will be noted that in this Tolstoi summary for 1872 I ignore the real presence of 

 8,000 square feet, and deliberately reduce that estimate of seals from 229,500 to 225,000, 

 because I never ran the risk in my work of 1872 and 1890 of being a foot or two ahead 

 of the real average. I carried this cautious reservation all through my surveys of 

 each and every rookery, and this is the reason why Capt. ^laynard, my associate in 

 the work of 1874, makes his estimate, based upon this survey, of the sum total of 

 Pribilof seal life so much higher than mine. He declared that he was satisfied from 

 close personal supervision of taking all our land angles in 1874 that I was safely inside 

 of the real limit of supervision and that the figures of the survey were conservative 

 and right. He was then, as he is now, a skilled mathematician and hydrographer, 

 and he had the right to his opi)iion based upon the figures of that careful work. Yet 

 Jordan has the sublime impertinence in 1898 to sneer at this unbiased, careful survey 

 of 1872-1874, by saying "the 150 feet is a guess, and that only.". (P. 80, note.) 



I used these figures of 1890 in detail for Tolstoi because I do not give the detailed 

 analysis or figures of 1872-1874 (only the summary) in my 1890 report of its sea margin 

 and square feet, viz, "3,000 feet of sea margin, making ground for 225,000 breeding 

 seals and their young," not deeming it necessary to produce so many detailed figures 

 when my charts for both seasons were in full evidence in the published work of 1890. 



As with Tolstoi, so with every other rookery on the Pribilof Islands. But Jordan, 

 holding all this iucontestible proof of careful survey in his hands, can not "verify 

 Mr. Elliott's surveys of the rookeries." 



Jordan also, in this connection, has been careful not to quote the reason why I 

 made these elaborate charts in 1872-1874. If he did, he would render his method 

 of counting the seals, or rather guessing at the exact count of individual bulls, cows, 

 and pups, idle and abortive. I said in 1874, speaking of my law of uniform distribu- 

 tion of breeding seals on the rookeries: "This fact being determined, it is evident 

 that just in proportion as the breeding grounds of the fur seal on these islands expand 

 or contract in area from their present dimensions, the seals will increase or diminish 

 in number." How well my charts of 1890, laid upon those of 1872-1874, tell that 

 story. How futile the rambling and self-contradicting seal-counting work of Jordan 

 to express the truth. Listen to Jordan himself, on page 101. He unwittingly trips 

 himself there on this very point: "The only reliable basis of enumeration has been 

 found and determined. This is a count of live pups." (This is what I published in 

 1872-1874.) Then on page 341. part 2, Jordan hamstrings himself in the following 

 language: "It is e\ddeDtly impossible to make an accurate census of the seals on 

 St. Paul Island, because on the great rookeries, as the Reef Torbatch, Tolstoi, and 

 Zapadin. no one can either estimate or count the cows (sic); nor can one do it at Polo- 

 vina, because there is no one point of view where the whole rookery is visible: even 

 the bulls can be only roughly estimated." Very true. Dr. Jordan; but why does 

 Dr. Jordan, on page 83. part 1, call in this remarkable witness to his own inability 

 to reason on his own lines of argument? "In the same year (1879) Mr. Beaman 

 records, under date of June 10, that 'there were a couple of thousand bulls' on Polo- 

 vina rookeries, when Mr. Elliott estimates fullv 10,000 in 1874." 



I never made the blunder of attempting to count all the bulls, all the cows, or all 

 the pups on any rookery in 1872-1874. The utter stupidity of such a step never 

 entered my head. It never did in 1890, even when the ragged remnant of the great 

 life of 1872 was before me. It has only remained for Jordan and his job lot of assistants 

 to race up and down these desolated breeding areas, in their idle attempts to do so, 

 and the record of the self-contradiction of their own work bristles with the folly of it 

 on a score of pages in his report. 



I can not ask for space here to express the rapid succession of erroneous assump- 

 tions and studied misstatements which are strung on tlie wire of this report— that I 



