RELATING TO ST. PAUL ISLAND. 99 



Good management upon the island increased the seal life for many 

 successive years, and the same management continued, 

 as I believe, to the present time. If the destruction of mSagemenT*^""^""*^ 

 seals at sea is wholly suppressed it will result in restor- 

 ing the rookeries to their former i)roductiveness. But no partial meas- 

 ure of protection should be undertaken, because it can not be enforced. 



During the summer months fogs envelope the Seal Islands or cover 

 the sea a short distance from them a considerable jior- 

 tion of the time. Sealing vessel? are enabled thereby iJ^T "'"""'"^ '" 

 to carry on their work without detection at almost any 

 point, and could and would, I believe, cross any boun- 

 dary line that might be drawn about the islands, and noi^rSi^n" ^^"""'^ 

 catch seals at will inside of it. I do not think sealing 

 can be, with safety to the rookeries, permitted in any ^^^^^^^^^ prohibi- 

 part of the sea. If the sealers are given an inch they tion in Bermg; sea 

 will take an ell and destroy all. necessary. 



Watson C. Allis. 



Subscribed and sworn to before me this 5tli day of July, 1892. 



[SEAL.] E. H. Thaep, 



Notary Public in and for said city and county of San Francisco. 



Deposition ofKerricJc Artomanoff, native chief resident of St. Paul Island. 



PELAGIC SEALING. MANAGEMENT. 



Alaska, TJ. S. A., 



St. Paul Island, Pribilof Group, ss : 



Kerrick Artomanoff, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I am a 

 native Aleut, and reside on St. Paul Island, Pribilof Group, Alaska; I 

 was born at Northeast Point, on St. Paul Island, and am 67 years of 

 age. I have worked on the sealing grounds for the last ^^ erience 

 fifty years, and am well acquainted with the methods ^penence. 

 adopted by the Eussian and American Governments in taking of fur- 

 seal skins and in protecting and preserving the herds on the island. 

 In 1870, when the Alaska Commercial Company obtained the lease of 

 the Islands, I was made Chief, and held the position for seventeen years. 



It was my duty as Chief to take charge of and conduct the drives 

 with my people frcmi the hauling to the killing grounds. j)j.j^in 

 The methods used by the Alaska Commercial Company """^^s- 

 and the American Government for the care and preservation of the 

 seals were much better than those used by the Russian 

 Government. In old Russian times we used to drive RuSmXds!"'^'' 

 seals from Northeast Point to the village, a distance 

 of nearly 13 miles, and we used to drive 5 or 6 miles from other haul- 

 ing grounds ; but when the Americans got the Islands 

 they soon after shortend all the drives to less thau drives shortened. 

 3 miles. 



From 1870 to 1884 the seals were swarming on the hauling grounds 

 and the rookeries, and for many years they spread out ^^^^ 

 more and more. All of a sudden, in 1884, we noticed 8eais1)rmeTi^^ ^ ** 

 there was not so many seals, and they have been de- ^ . ,oo. 



■ ^^ "^ ' ■ TJ, 1 Decrease Since 1884. 



creasing very rapidly ever since. My peox)le won- 



