RELATING TO ST. PAUL ISLAND. Ill 



any way by driving. Certainly the reproductive powers of male life 

 on the islands were never decreased or impaired by these methods. 



Another fact in this connuection is that the lessees located the 

 killing grounds as near the hauling grounds as seemed to be prudent 

 without disturbing the breeding of the rookeries. That boats and teams 

 were provided for transporting the skins to the salt houses from the 

 killing grounds, thus avoiding long " drives." Eaids 

 on the rookeries by marauders did not, while I was on KailiT^ '^^''^*^' 

 the islands, amount to anything, and certainly seal 

 life there was not affected to any extent by such incursions. I only 

 knew of one raid upon St. Paul Island while I was there. It was by 

 a Japanese vessel, and they killed about one hundred seals, the car- 

 casses of which we found on board when we captured the vessel. The 

 Pribilof seal herd should be protected both in Bering 

 Sea and the North Pacilic Ocean,because the injury to sJ;"*'"'"'"' ''^''^" 

 seal life, bringing about a decrease in the size of the 

 herd, is caused by the slaughter of females in the open sea. If the 

 seals are thus protected and the existing methods and regulations 

 are carried out on the islands the seal herd will not decrease, but on 

 the contrary, in my opinion, will increase. If the seals are not pro- 

 tected in these waters, the herd will be exterminated in a very short 

 time. It is only, therefore, by protecting the seals everywhere in the 

 sea and ocean that seal life can be preserved. 



Heney a. Glidden. 



Subscribed and sworn to before me, a notary public in and for the 

 District of Columbia, U. S. A., this 15th day of April, 1892. 

 [l. s] Chas. L. Hughes, 



Notary Puhlie. 



Deposition of Charles J. Goff, Treasury agent in charge of Pribilof Islands. 



PRIBILOF rookeries. 



District of Columbia, 



City of Washington, ss: 



Charles J. Gofi", of Clarksburg, W. Va., being duly sworn, deposes 

 and says: I am 45 years of age. During the years 

 1889 and 1890 I occupied the position of special Treas- ^^p®"«°*=«- 

 ury agent in charge of the Pribilof Islands. I was located on 

 St. Paul Island, only visiting St. George Island occasionally. About 

 the 1st of June, 1889, I arrived on St. Paul Island and remained 

 there until October 12, 1889, when I returned to San Francisco for the 

 winter. Again went to the islands in 1890, arriving there about the 

 last week in May and remaining until August 12, 1890. Since that 

 time I have never been on the islands. My principal observations as 

 to seal life upon the islands were confined to St. Paul Island, as I only 

 visited St. George Island occasionally. 



During my first year on the islands the Alaska Commercial Company 

 was the lessee thereof, and diu-ing my second year the North American 

 Commercial Company. In 1889 I made careful observations of the 

 rookeries on St. Paul Island and marked out the areas 

 covered by the breeding grounds; in 1890 I examined inja™® '° ^''■®^" 

 these lines made by me the former year and found a 

 very great shrinkage in the spaces covered by breeding seals. 



