TAKEN IN SAN FRANCISCO. 491 



vessels engaged in tliat business in the waters of tlie IS'orth Pacific and 

 Bering Sea, 



If it be the desire of the Government to i)erpetuate them, it is very 

 important that they be protected in t-e North Pacific, 

 as well as in the Bering Sea, since it h^s been my ob- safy"*^*"*'"" °^*'^'' 

 servation tliat the seals are easily alarmed, and the 

 killing of them with firearms has a tendency to frighten the herd; nor 

 do I think it possible to preserve the herd if the great slaughter of 

 female seals is to be continued. I also believe that if 

 sealing is sto])ped in the Bering Sea only, such fact pa^'-ti,.'"^ '° ^*"^*^ 

 wouhl tend to increase the price of sealskins, and there 

 w<mld be a much larger fleet fitted out for sealing in the Pacific than 

 now, which would destroy the lierd and prevent it from going into the 

 Bering Sea. This opinion is based on tlie well knoM n fiict that the 

 value of sealskins is increased by the decrease in the number taken; 

 and the higher tlie price of skins the gi eater the inducement to fish- 

 ermen to hunt them in the North Pacific, which would soon destroy the 

 seal fishing industry everywhere. 



Michael White. 



Subscribed and sworn to before me this 1st day of April, A. D. 1892 

 [SEAL.] Clement Bennett, 



Notary. 



Dei)osition of Theodore T. Williams^ journalist^ sent out hy lessees to inves- 

 tifjate pela{/ic sealing. 



pelagic sealing. 



State of California, 



City and County of San Francisco, ss: 



Theodore T. Williams, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I am by 

 profession a journalist, being at the present time em- 

 ployed as city editor of the San Francisco Examiner, Experience. 

 and have been employed in that and similar capacities 

 in the city of San Francisco for the past thirteen years. During that 

 time, and in the imrsuitof my profession as a journalist, I have had 

 occasion to make extended inquiries into the fur-sealing industry of the 

 Aleutian Islands and the ISTorth Pacific. 



In addition to the information which I obtained for journalistic pur- 

 posts, I was requested by the Alaska Commercial Company in 1889 to 

 proceed to the north and make a com])lete and exhaustive examination 

 into the open-sea sealing, its extent, its probable injury to the lessees 

 of the sealing privileges on the Pribilof Islands, its effect on the seal 

 herd, the profit to those engaged in it, and all other matters concern- 

 ing it. 



The object of the inquiry on the part of the Alaska ('ommercial Com- 

 pany, which company was at that time enioying the ^, . ,,. . 

 lease of the Pribilof Islands from the United States Object of the mquxry. 

 Government, was to secure the data of illicit sealing, which they needed 

 to base their estimates on in bidding for the lease, at the time of the ex- 

 piration of the privilege they then held. In order to make a safe bid, 

 to be in a position to ofler the largest amount overlapping other com- 

 petitors for the privilege, and at the same time not to pay more for the 



