466 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
“‘Palkland and Shetland Islands, and South American coasts, near Cape Horn, came 
next in order; here the seal were very abundant, It is stated that at the Shetlands 
alone 100,000 per annum might have been obtained and the rookories preserved, if 
taken under proper restrictions; but in the eagerness of men they killed old and 
young, male and female; little pups a few days old, deprived of their mothers, died 
by thousands on the beaches; carcasses and bones strewed the shores, and this pro- 
ductive fishery was wholly destroyed. It is estimated that in the years 1821 and 
1822 no less than 320,000 of these animals were killed at the Shetlands alone. An 
American captain, describing in after years his success there, says: ‘We went the 
first year with one vessel and got 1,200; the second year with two vessels, and 
obtained 30,000; the third year with six vessels, getting only 1,700—all there was left.’ 
‘““A small rookery is still preserved at the Lobos Islands, off the River La Plata; 
this, being carefully guarded underY strict regulations by the Government of Buenos 
Ayres and rented to proper parties, yields about 5,000 skins per annum. As late as 
the year 1854 a small island, hardly a mile across, was discovered by Americans in 
the Japan Sea, where about 50,000 seals resorted annually. Traders visited it, and 
in three years the club and knife had cleaned them all off. Not 100 a season can 
now be found there.” 
Honourable C. A. Williams, of Connecticut, who inherited the whaling and sealing 
business from his father and grandfather, speaking of the seal in the South Pacific, 
gave the following testimony before the Congressional Committee: 
The history of sealing goes back to about 1790, and from that to the early part of 
this century. 
In the earlier period of which I speak there were no seals known in the North 
Pacific Ocean. Their particular haunt was the South Atlantic. They were discoy- 
ered by Cook, in his voyages, on the Island of Desolation; by Widdall, in his voy- 
ages to the South Pole, on the Island of South Georgia and Sandwichland; and by 
later voyagers, whose names escape me, in the islands of the South Pacifie Ocean. 
When the number of seals on those islands werefirst brought to the notice of British 
merchants, they pursued the hunting of these animals on the Island of Desolation. 
The most authentic authority we have about the matter is derived from reports 
made by these voyagers as to the number of seals taken from those places, and, 
although they are not entirely accurate, I think they are fully as accurate as could 
be expected, considering the lapse of time. On the Island of Desolation it is esti- 
mated that 1,200,000 fur-seals were taken; from the Island of South Georgia a like 
number were taken, and from the Island of Mas-a-Fuera probably a greater number 
were taken. As to the Sandwichland the statistics are not clear, but there can be 
no doubt that over 500,000 seals were taken from that locality, and in 1820 the Islands 
of South Shetland, south of Cape Horn, were discovered; and from these islands 
320,000 fur-seals were taken in two years. There were other localities from which 
seals were taken, but no others where they were found in such large numbers. 
* * * * * * * * 
The cause of the extermination of seals in those localities was the indiscriminate 
character of the slaughter. Sometimes as many as fifteen vessels would be hanging 
around these islands awaiting opportunity to get their catch, and every vessel 
would be governed by individual interests. They would kill everything that came 
in their way that furnished a skin, whether a cow, a bull, or a middle-grown seal, 
leaving the young pups just born to die from neglect and starvation. It was like 
taking a herd of cattle and killing all the bulls and cows and leaving the calves. 
The extermination was so complete in these localities that the trade was exhausted, 
and voyages to those places were abandoned, About 1870, nearly fifty years after 
the discovery of the South Shetland Islands, when the occupation of Alaska by the 
cession of Russia to the United States of the Behring’s Sea was brought about—— 
The Chairman.—I want to interrupt you to ask a question bearing on that point. 
Were those rookeries in the South Seas never under the protectorate of any Govern- 
ment at all? 
The Witness.—Never. I was going to say that when the cession was made by Rus- 
sia to the United States of this territory, and the subject of the value of fur-seals, 
or the possible value, was brought to mind, people who had been previously engaged 
in that business revisited these southern localities after a lapse of nearly fifty years, 
and no seals were found on the Island of Desolation. These islands have been used 
as the breeding-place for sea-elephants, and that creature cannot be exterminated 
on that island, for the reason that certain beaches known as ‘‘ weather beaches” are 
there. The sea breaks rudely upon these beaches, and it is impossible to land upon 
them. There are cliffs, something like 300 to 500 feet, of shore ice, and the sea-ele- 
phant finds a safe resort on these beaches, and stili preserves enough life to make 
the pursuit of that animal worth following in a small way. 
I have vessels there, and have had, myself and father, for fifty or sixty years. But 
this is incidental. The Island of South Shetland, and the Island of South Georgia, 
and the Island of Sandwichland, and the Diegos, off Cape Horn, and one or two 
Se eS or ee 
