102 TESTIMONY 



signs of life, bleating "u-eak and piteously, and gave every evidence o 

 being in a starved condition, ■with no mother seals near to or showing 

 them any attention. 



Dr. Dawson, Avhile on the gTonnd, took some views of the rookery with 

 his kodak 5 but whether the views he took included the dead pups I 

 could not say. Some days after this — can not state exact date — I drove 

 with Mr. Fowler, an employe of the lessees, to what is known as Half- 

 Way Point, or Polovinia rookery. Here the scene was repeated, but 

 on a more extensive scale in point of numbers. The 

 de?d pups"''^''"^ '"'^ little carcasses were strewn so thickly over the sand 

 as to make it difficult to walk over the ground without 

 stepping on them. This condition of the rookeries in this regard was 

 for some time a common topic of conversation in the village by all par- 

 ties, including the more intelligent ones among the natives, some of 

 whom were with Mr. J. Stanley Brown in his work of surveying the island, 

 and brought in reports from time to time of similar 

 othe^rookirL!'* '"^ couditious at Substantially all the rookeries around 

 the Island. It could not, of course, be well estimated 

 as to the number thus found dead, but the most intelhgent of the na- 

 tives — chief of the village — told me that in his judg- 

 20,000 dead pups. ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^,^ ^^^ j^^^ ^^^^ 20,000 dead pups on the 



various rookeries of the island and others still dying. Dr. Ackerly, 

 the lessees' i)hysician at the time, made an autopsy of some of the 



carcasses, and reported that he could lind no traces of 

 se?ceot^M^rishme^t. ^^^J discascd couditiou whatcvcr, but there was an 



entire absence of food or any signs of nourishment in 

 the stomach. Before Dr. Dawson left I called his attention to what 

 Dr. Ackerly had done, but whether he saw him on the subject I can 

 not tell. And further deponent sayeth not. 



Milton Barnes. 



Subscribed and sworn to before me, an officer empowered to ad- 

 minister oaths under section 1970, Eevised Statutes of the United 

 States, this 23d day of June, 1892. 



Wm. H. Williams, 

 Treasury Agent in Charge of Seal Islands. 



Deposition of Karj) Buterin, head chief on St. Paul Island, in charge of 



driving. 



MANAGEMENT AND HABITS. 



Alaska, U. S. A., 



St. Paul Island, Pribilof Group, ss : 



Karp Buterin, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I am 39 years of 



age and I was born on St. Paul Isand, Alaska, and I have always lived 



here. 1 have a practical knowledge of the fur-seal industry as it is 



done on St. Paul Island, tor I have been working at it 



Experience. all of my life siucc I was able to work. 1 have driven 



seals and clubbed and skinned them; I have had charge 



of the drives and I have been second chief for four years, and I am 



head chief now, being elected in 1891. As chief it is my duty to see 



that the rookeries are not troubled by anyone, to teach my people to 



1 



