478 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN, 
Mr. Tupper to Six J. Pauncefote. 
THE ARLINGTON, Washington, March 8, 1890. 
Dear Sir Jurran: I have the honour to inclose herewith a Memorandum prepared 
by me in reply to the Memorandum sent to you by Mr. Blaine, and which you handed 
to me upon the 38rd instant. 
I send you a copy for yourself, one for Mr. Blaine, and one for M. de Struve, the 
Russian Ambassador. 
ITalso have the honour to forward herewith a valuable paper upon the subject, 
prepared hurriedly by the Assistant Director of the Geological Survey of Canada, 
George Dawson, D.S., F.G.S., F.R.S.C., F. R. M.S. 
I may add that Dr. Dawson was in charge of the Yukon Expedition in 1887. 
Copies of his paper are also inclosed for Mr. Blaine and M. de Struve. 
am &e. 
; (Signed) CHarLes H., TUPPER. 
436 Memorandum on Mr. Blaine’s Letter to Sir Julian Pauncefote, dated March 1, 1890. 
In the Appendix to Mr. Blaine’s letter of the 1st March, on the third page, is an 
extract from a Report to the House of Representatives, as follows: 
“‘In former years fur-seals were found in great numbers on various islands of the 
South Pacific Ocean, but after a comparatively short period of indiscriminate slaugh- 
ter the rookeries were deserted, the animals having been killed or driven from 
their haunts.” 
While it is admitted that indiscriminate slaughters upon the rookeries are most 
injurious to the maintenance of seal life, it is denied that in the history of the fur- 
seal industry any instance can be found where a rookery has ever been destroyed, 
depleted, or even injured by the killing of seals at sea only. 
Mr. Elliott, who is quoted by Mr. Blaine, admits that the rookeries in the South 
Pacific withstood attacks of the most extensive and destructive character for twenty 
years, when young and old males and females were indiscriminately knocked on the 
head upon their breeding-grounds; and Mr. Clark (H. R. Report No. 3883, 50th Con- 
gress, 2nd Session, p. 91) tells us that in 1820 thirty vessels on the islands (South 
Shetlands) took in a few weeks 250,000 skins, while thousands were killed and lost. 
In 1821 and 1822, 320,000 skins were taken, and 150,000 young seals destroyed. None 
of these islands, however, were ever frequented by the millions which have been 
found on the Pribylov group for over twenty years. 
“These islands constitute the most valuable rookery or breeding-place of these 
animals ever known to man.” (H.R. Report 3883, 50th Congress, pp. 111, 112, Hon. 
C. A. Williams’ written statement.) 
Professor Elliott (in his evidence, p. 142) mentions one person who, when with him 
at the islands, estimated the number at 16,000,000. 
The Report of the Coagressional Committee on the Alaska seal fisheries states that 
indiscriminate slaughter in the early part of the nineteenth century caused a deser- 
tion of the rookeries, and it goes on to say that in 1820 and 1821, 300,000 were taken 
in an indiscriminate fashion at the South Shetlands, and, at the end of the second 
year, the species had there been almost exterminated. 
The Honourable C. A. Williams, whose evidence is cited and relied upon by Mr. 
Blaine, supports this view (see p. 111, H. R. Report No. 3883, 50th Congress); but, 
as a matter of fact, while seals are admittedly not so plentiful in Sonth Shetlands as 
heretofore, owing to wholesale destruction on the breeding- grounds, so prolific are 
they that, in 1872, 8,000 skins of “the choicest and richest quality were obtained 
from these islands. In the next season 15,000 skins were taken there, and in 1874, 
10,000 skins, and from 1870 to 1880 the sealing fleet brought home 92,756 fur-seal 
skins from the South Shetlands, and the vicinity of Cape Horn and Tierra del Fuego.” 
(A. Howard Clark, p. 402, Commission of Fisheries, Fishery Industries United States, 
section 5, vol. ii, 1887. ) In this regard, it may here be noted that this extract refers 
only to the catch of sez ilers which fitted out at New London, Connecticut, and does 
not embrace the operations of sealers from other countries. 
Mr. Clark describes the manner in which the seals at Mas-4-Fuera were attacked. 
At p.407 of the article above cited he points out that between the years 1793 and 
1807, 3,500,000 seals were obtained from this island by English and American vessels, 
and in 1824 the island was “almost abandoned by these “animals.” Mr. Clark also 
shows that in 1797 there were only 2,000,000 on the islands, and yet in seven years 
more than 3,000,000 were carried from the islands to Canton, China. 
Mention is made, too, of fourteen ships’ crews on the island at one time killing 
seals. At p.408 mention is made of from twelve to fifteen crews on shore at the 
