64 FUR-SEAL HERD OF ALASKA. 



To-day, every foot of that ground so occupied and swept in 1874, 

 and the rocks then poHshed, is now covered by a luxuriant growth of 

 mosses, glasses, biennial and perennial flowers. Were it not for the 

 matted fur and hair that is everywhere under foot and through which 

 this vegetation reaches for growth, the statement made above would 

 be fairly unbelievable; unbelievable because all of the holluschickie 

 seen to-day from the beginning to the end of this survey have been 

 confined to two small pods, one hauled out at Garbotch, not exceeding 

 400 or 500, and the other below the reef crest and around the pool, 

 not exceeding 1,500 or 2,000. These are liberal estimates, and this 

 statement ofthe utter abandonment of the sealing ground is a fact 

 of positive record and indisputable evidence as this writing is made. 



To resume this survey of ttie breeding lines which we closed at 

 jags A and B of 1890, we find that the surviving seals are now bunched 

 in 6 or 7 harems at the foot of those jags; one of these harems being 

 bunched or massed with at least 250 to 300 cows, another even larger, 

 another of 50 or 60 cows, and two oi three ragged harems, the whole 

 aggregate being not less than 1,000 cows, with this full disproportion 

 or bulls in evidence. There is only one young 6-year-old bull seen in 

 the water, and there are no polsecatchie in the rear. 



Between the second point and the foot of jag A is a succession of 

 12 or 15 harems, all of them laige, with two exceptions, carrying an 

 aggregate of perhaps 450 to 500 cows. There are no young bulls in the 

 water, or idle bulls in the rear, with two or three exceptions. 



,'From the second point to the first point, with the exception of six 

 or seven small surf-nwept harems, consisting of an aggregate of per- 

 haps less than 150 cows, the herd of 1890 has completely disappeared. 

 From the first point, where there are six or seven harems massing 

 and approximately 250 cows, we pass to the foot of Fox Hill, over 

 which area the entire herd of 1890 has disappeared from. Under 

 the foot of Fox Hill are six or seven small harems with perhaps 

 100 cows; the herd of 1890 has also disappeared completely in that 

 place; not a seal on the margin nor a suggestion of a half-bull in the 

 water, or in the rear. Everywhere a thick sod and flowers growing 

 upon the ground covered by breeding seals in 1874, growing rank 

 and luxuriant, right doAvn to the surf-swept margins of the standard 

 breeding ground.^ 



growth of the Elymns and other grasses with beautiful flowers. A few hundred feet farther along our 

 course brings us iiito full view as we look to the south of one of the most entrancing spectacles which these 

 seals afford to man. We look down upon and along a grand promenade ground which slopes gently from 

 the west to the eastward and trends southward away to a parade plateau as smooth as the floor of a ball- 

 room 2,000 feet in length, 500 to l.noo feet in width, over which multitudes of holluschickie are filing in 

 long strings, or deploying in vast platoons, hundreds abreast in an unceasing march and countermarch. 

 Their breath, which rises into the cold air from a hundred thousand hot throats hangs like clouds of white 

 steam in the gray fog itself: indeed, it may be said to be a seal fog peculiar to the spot, while the din, the 

 roar arising overall defies our description. 



"We notice to our right and to our left, the immense solid masses of the breeding seals at Garbotch, and 

 those stretching and trending around nearly a mile from ovu' feet, far around to the Reef Point below, and 

 opposite the parade ground, with here and there a neutral passage left open for the holluschickie to go 

 down to, and come up from the waves." 



1 In IS'.tO, on July 10, the following official record of the life on Garbotch and the Reefs is summed upas 

 follows on page .'^ij Hou?e Document Xo. 175, Fifty-fourth Congress, first session: 



" Those curious jags of breeding seals which show so plainly on the Garbotch slope form the most striking 

 feature of that changed order of affairs which declares a reduction of more than one-half of the females and 

 fully nine-tenths of the males on this rookery. 



"Then that splendid parade ground of 1872 is now fairly deserted— grass, moss, lichens, and even flowers 

 are now taking root everywhere over its polished surface of 1S72 — and Zoltoi sands — it has not been visited 

 by young male seals this year during the sealing season — none left to come." 



"The whole of this reef neck in 1S72 south of Grassy Summit and Fox Hill was entirely bare of grass or 

 of any vegetation whatever except lichens on inaccessible rocks to seals, and tufts of grass on the over- 

 hanging points and cli i' edges of the west shore; but on the 9th of last August, as I stood overlooking the 



