RELATING TO PRIBTLOF ISLANDS. 79 



are vigilant aiut active. If marine liimtiiig- is stopped, the.Y can be 

 safely trusted to defend the property upon which their very existence 

 is dependent, as they have done repeatedly, against any single schooner's 

 crew. 



It has been asserted in print that the Alaska Commercial Company 

 is engaged in the business of pelagic seal hunting. It 

 has been the custom of the company to vindicate its commCTcflujonipany 

 good name and title to respect by deeds rather than ^^ engaged in pelagic 

 words, but an imputation ui)on its honor so absolutely ^^^ '"^' 

 groundless and unwarranted as this, it can not do less than deny. It 

 is not, and never has been, nor have any of its officers or stockholders 

 ever been directly or indirectly engaged in any manner whatever in 

 pelagic seal hunting. It has always i>urchased from the natives such 

 skins as they offered for sale, but when seal life grew scarcer on the 

 islands it discouraged the natives by every means in its power from 

 killing seals along the Alaska coast. To feel a present regret that this 

 (.'ourse was pursued in view of the destruction of the seal herd which 

 the Government has permitted, would be but natural, yet we try, as 

 honoral)le men, to rise above even this weakness. 



I have sliown that under good management the seals increased on 

 the Pribilof group, and know such to be the fact also i„^rease of com- 

 in regard to the Commander Islands. The methods mande? Mauds iTord 

 Avere the same in the two places, but the Asiatic herd *^'"™ *^ ^^^''■ 

 was not seriously molested at sea until 1890, and the increase continued 

 up to that date. ISTow, pelagic hunting is going on 

 there the same as in the Alaska waters, and already n^S^nVtha^hLd"' 

 the herd is diminishing- as did the Pribilof herd from 

 the same cause several years earlier. The same good management, 

 upon cessation of marine killing-, will rapidly augment both herds again, 

 for no animals are more susceptible to good treatment in breeding than 

 these. Their marine enemies, aside from man, are a constant factor of 

 destruction in disregard of which they multiply. 



I have no interest whatever in the sealeries or the seal-skin trade. 



G. NiEBAUM. 



Subscribed and sworn to before me this 13th day of May, A. D. 1892. 

 [SEAL.j Clement Bennett, 



Notary Fuhlic. 



r>epoHition of J J. A. Noycs, resident physician on the Pribilof Islands from 



1880 to 1892. 



HABITS, MANAGEjVIENT, AND PELAGIC SEALING. 



St. George Island, Priblof Group, 



Alaslca, U. S. A., ss: 



L. A. ISToyes, being duly sworn, deposes and says : I am a native 

 American, and my home is in Eandolph, Vt. I am 52 years of age, 

 and a physician by profession. 



In 1880 I entered the service of the lessees of the Pribilof Islands as 

 resident physician at the seal islands, and I have 

 resided here continuously ever since, excepting an occa- ^^p^"''"*'®- 

 sional visit to my home, for a few months in Avinter, once or twice since 

 1880. 



From June, 1880, to August, 1883, I was on St. George Island, and 



