346 TESTIMONY 



small boats, may be unfortunate and may not secure in number but a 

 small per cent of the skins taken by the former. IsTo correct estimate 

 can be made of the number of skins that might be taken in a given 

 time by what other vessels have done or by what the vessel itself had 

 formerly done, for too much depends on good luck in this precarious 



business. The greater portion of my life each year for 

 Herd decreased one- ^g ] as t ten years has been spent on board of a vessel 



as a master hunting the fur-seal in the Bering Sea or 

 North Pacific, and I know from actual knowledge that there is not one- 

 half as many seals in these waters that there were a few years since, 

 and the decrease in number has been so rapid in the last four or five 

 years that, if continued two or three years more, they will be so near 



killed oft' that it will pay no one to hunt them. It is 



Catch in 1892. ^^ ^^ & ^^ ffew Qf ^ yessels baye made a foirly 



good catch this year, but that was brought about by those vessels go- 

 ing over to the Japan coast and falling in with the herds there that 

 had not been hunted to any great extent. When In- 

 dian hunters are employed on a sealing cruise they 

 go on what is known "as a lay." They furnish their own canoes, and 

 each canoe has a boat-puller and hunter. The rule is for the hunter to 

 get one-third, the boat-puller one-third, and the vessel one-third of the 

 catch of each canoe. The vessel furnishes the supplies, but it costs 

 only about one-half to subsist an Indian crew that it does a white crew, 

 for the Indians live chiefly on the flesh of the seal and hard bread. 

 Sealing vessels are fitted out in February for an eight- 

 Da o n g . months' cruise, but they sometimes run into Victoria 

 or to the west coast of Vancouver Island in May or 

 Re shipment of June and ship their skins, preparatory to entering 

 spring catch. Bering Sea. 



A. McLean. 



Subscribed and sworn to before me this 7th day of October, A. D. 

 1892. 

 [seal,.] Clement Bennett, 



Notary Public. 



Deposition of Daniel McLean, sealer (master). 



State op California, 



City and County of San Francisco, ss: 



Daniel McLean, being duly sworn, deposes and says: 



I am forty-two years of age, and am a master mariner by profession. 



I reside in San Francisco, and am a naturalized Ameri- 



occupation. can cit j zen< Have been engaged in pelagic hunting of 



fur-seals in the North Pacific and Bering Sea for the 



experience. j^ ^ years. The vessel in which I was in command 



secured the largest number of seals ever caught in any one season in 



those waters. I am what might be called a pioneer in pelagic hunting 



in the Bering Sea. I usuallv enter the Bering Sea dur- 



JS* Sea 86alinS in S tbe f0re P art ° f Jul y aDd leaVe tbe laSt ° f Au £' Ust ' 



The sea becomes too rough to make it profitable to 

 hunt seal after August, and it is the practice for nearly all vessels en- 



