APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 471 
South Shetlands.—In 1821-23 the South Shetland Islands, a group nearly south from 
Cape Horn, becaine known to the seal-hnnters, and in two years over 320,000 seals 
were killed and their skins shipped from these islands. 
South Georgia.—Later still, seal were found on the Island of South Georgia, South 
Atlantic Ocean, and from this locality was obtained over 1,000,000 of fur- ‘seal, leav- 
ing the be: wches bare of seal life. 
Cape Horn.—F rom the coasts of South America and about Cape Horn many thou- 
sands of fur-seal have been taken, and of the life once so prolific there nothing is now : 
left save such remnants of former herds as shelter on rocks and islets almost inac- 
cessible to the most daring hunter. 
This record shows the nearly complete destruction of these valuable animals in 
southern seas. Properly protected, Kerguelen Land, Mas-d4-Fuera, the Shetlands, 
and South Georgia might have been hives of industry, producing vast wealth, train- 
ing-schools for hardy seamen, and furnishing employment for tens of thousands in 
the world’s markets where skins are dressed, prepared, and distributed. But the 
localities were no man’s Jand, and no man cared for them or their products save as 
through destruction they could be transmitted into a passing profit. 
: The seal life of to-day available for commercial purposes is centered in three 
ocalities: 
1. The Lobos Islands, situated in the mouth of the River La Plata, owned and con- 
trolled by the Uruguay Republic, and by that Government leased to private parties 
for the sum of 6,000 dollars per annum and some stipulated charges. The annual 
product in skins is about 12,000. The skins are of rather inferior quality. Insuf- 
ficient restrictions are placed upon the lessees in regard to the number of skins per- 
mitted to be taken annually, consequently there is some waste of life; nevertheless, 
the measure of protection allowed has insured the preservation of the rookery, and 
will continue so to do. 
2. Komandorski Couplet, which consists of the Islands of Copper and Behring, 
near the coast of Kamchatka, in that portion of Behring’s Sea pertaining to Russia. 
These islands yield about 40,000 skins per annum, of good quality, and are guarded 
by carefully restrictive Rules as to the killing of seal, analogous to the Statutes of 
the United States relative to the same subject. The right to take seals upon them 
is leased by the Russian Government to an Association of American citizens, who 
also hold the lease of the islands belonging to the United States, and are thus 
enabled to control and direct the business in fur-seal skins for the common advan- 
tage and benefit of all parties in interest. These islands can hardly be said to have 
been ‘ worked ” at all for salted sealskins prior to the cession of Alaska by Russia 
to the United States, and the United States Government now profits by the industry 
to the extent of the duty of 20 per cent. collected on the ‘‘ dressed skins” 
430 returned to this country from the London market. From 1878 to 1887, 
inclusive, this return has been 121,275 skins. 
3. The Pribylov group consists of the Islands of St. Paul and St. George, and is a 
Government reservation in that part of Behring’s Sea ceded to the United States by 
Russia, together with and a part of Alaska. So exhaustive an account of these 
islands and their seal Jife has been given by Mr. H. W. Elliott, Special Agent of the 
Treasury Department in 1874, and since intimately connected with the Smithsonian 
Institution, which account has been made a part of Tenth Census Report, that it 
would be intrusive here to attempt to supplement aught, and therefore only general- 
izations based on said Report and such statements of life and procedure on the 
islands to-day are presented as may be pertinent in this connection. 
In an article on fur-seals which appeared in ‘‘Land and Water,” July 14, 1877, 
Mr. Henry Lee (Englishman), F. L. S., says: 
It has been stated that during a period of fifty years not less than 20,000 tons of 
sea-elephant’s oil, worth more than 1,000,000/., was annually obtained from New 
Georgia, besides an incalculable number of fur-seal skins, of which we have no 
statistics. Some idea may be had of their numbers in former years when we learn 
that on the Island of Mas-d-Fuera, on the coast of Chile (an island not 25 miles in 
circumference), Captain Fanning, of the American ship ‘‘ Betsy,” obtained in 17£8 a 
full erop of choice skins, and estimated that there were left on the island at least 
500,000 seals. Subsequently there were taken from this island little short of 1,000,000 
skins. The seal catching was extensively prosecuted there for many years, the seal- 
ing fleeton the coast of Chile alone then numbering thirty vessels. From Desolation 
Island, also discovered by Cook, and the South Shetlands, discovered by Weddell, 
the number of skins taken was at least as great; from the latter alone 320,000 were 
shipped during the two years 1821 and 1822. China was the great market to which 
they were sent, and there the price for each skin was from 4 to 6 dollars. As several 
thousand tons of shipping, chiefly English and American, were at that time employed 
in fur-seal catching, the profits of the early traders were enormous. 
Does the reader ask what has become of this extensive and highly remunerative 
southern fur trade? It has been all but annihilated by man’s grasping greed, reck- 
