RELATING TO FUR-SEALS AND SEALSKIN INDUSTRY. 399 



In the year 181)1 there were no bachelor seals driven from Tolstoi 

 hauling grounds on St. Paul Island; since 1890 practi- 

 cally no bachelor seals have hauled out on Tolstoi, but r ,^'\ •^ 1 ' h ,'i I 'r ,Vom 

 the seals driven from this part ot the island were taken 

 from a hauling ground known as Middle Hill, which is at least a quar- 

 ter of a mile from the nearest breeding seals. 



On or about the 10th of November, 1892, when at the office of the 

 Alaska Commercial Company in San Francisco, I asked 

 and received permission to examine and weigh some of Wei s"t°f bundles, 

 the fur-seal skins from their warehouse where they had stored several 

 hundred bundles. I weighed one of* the largest and one of the smallest 

 bundles. The first weighed sixty-eight and the latter twenty pounds; 

 I then had the bundles cut open and personally examined them. Each 

 bundle contained but two skins. Those from the first bundle were 

 what are known as wigs, and those from the second what are known as 

 yearling pups; in both bundles there was the usual amount of salt, 

 but in the case of the smaller bundle the skins had quite an amount of 

 blubber left on them, which aided in absorbing the salt, and thus added 

 very materially to the weight of the skins. In my judgment, the year- 

 ling skins when first removed from the seals would not have weighed 

 more than five pounds to the skin. 



I also had the porter who handles and cares for the furs of the 

 Alaska Commercial Company try to bundle the two 

 large and one small skin together, and although he moro than two skina 

 was an exx>ert at handling skins, anyone familiar hiabi11 "'''- 

 with the business would have quickly discovered that there was some- 

 thing unusual in the appearance of the bundle. I also had him try to 

 bundle the four skins together, but the failure was much more marked 

 than in the former case; and I am of the opinion that not more than 

 two skins can be bundled together without leaving marked character- 

 istics easy observable to anyone of ordinary intelligence, and which 

 would have been instantly detected by the Government officers on the 

 island and by the inspector at San Francisco who examines them as 

 they are removed from the vessel. 



I have read section 759 of the English Commissioners' report. The 

 facts, so far as they relate to me, were as follows : On 

 the morning of the 27th of July the watchmen at ish e ° S^missioners' 

 Northeast Point telephoned to the village that they re P° rt - 

 thought they could hear gunshots out at sea (it being too foggy to see 

 the boats, if any). Mr. Eedpath and myself drove over to Northeast 

 Point and had a talk there with Mr. Fowler and the watchmen, and also 

 started to personally inspect the rookeries, A little later I was in- 

 formed that I was wanted at the telephone by Mr. Tingle. For all I 

 know, Mr. Tingle may have worked the telephone quite hard before 

 getting me to answer, because I was on the rookery. What he had to 

 say to me was that the English Commissioners had arrived at the vil- 

 lage and were very desirous of seeing me personally. I requested Air. 

 Tingle to say to the English Commissioners that I would return to the 

 village at once. If anything was said about schooners or poachers by 

 me it was to the effect that I had seen none, for there were none to see. 

 Mr. Tingle, of course, could not notify me of schooners about North- 

 east Point, for I was on the ground and he was 12 miles distant. 



A whaling brigantine passed near the village July 29 and had a per- 

 fect right to do so without interference. It is a very common occur- 

 rence for the watchman to report sails from ten to fifteen miles off 



