742 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
of Tolstoi, Sukannon, and Zoltoi Sands, from these hauling grounds adjacent to the 
rookeries or breeding grounds of ‘Tolstoi, Sukannon, Reef, and Garboteh, all of these 
points to supply being not more than 14 miles distant from the St. Paul village kill- 
ing grounds, the Zoltoi drive being less than 600 feet away. 
At North-east Point on this island Webster got all the seals desired towards fill- 
ing the above-cited quota of 90,000 from that sand-reach between the foot of Cross 
Hill and the Big Lake sand drives on the north-shore beach. 
Then, that immense spread of hauling grounds covered by swarms of young male 
seals, at Zapodnie, at South-west Point, at English Bay beyond Middle Hill west, at 
Polavina, and over all that 8 long miles of beach and upland hauling grounds 
between Sukannon Bay and Webster’s House at Novostoshnoh—all of this extensive 
sealing area was not visited by sealing gangs, or spoken of by them as necessary to 
be driven from. 
Therefore, when attentively studying in 1872-74 the subject of what was the effect 
of killing annually 100,000 young male seals on these islands (90,000 on St. Paul and 
10,000 on St. George), in view of the foregoing statement of fact, I was unable to 
see how any harm was heing done to the regular supply of fresh blood for the breed- 
ing rookeries, since those large reservoirs of surplus male life, above named, held at 
least just half of the young male seal-life then belonging to the islands: these large 
sources of supply were never driven from—never even visited by the sealers, and out 
of their overwhelming abundance, I thought that surely enough fresh male seal-life 
did annuaily mature for service on the breeding rookeries. 
Therefore, when summing up in my published work of 1872-74, I was positive in 
declaring that althoueh I was firmly convinced that no increase to the then existing 
number of seals on these islands would follow any effort that we might make (giv- - 
ing my reasons in detail for so believing), yet I was as firmly s satisfied that as mat- 
ters were then conducted, nothing was being done which would injure the regular 
annual supply of male life necessary for the full demand of the rookeries. I then 
declared ‘‘that provided matters are conducted on the seal island in the future as 
they are to-day, 100,000 male seals under the age of 5 years and over 1 may be safely 
taken every year from the Pribyloff Islands without the slightest injury to the 
reeular birth rates, or natural increase thereon, provided also that the fur-seals are 
not visited by any plague, or pests, or any abnormal cause for their destruction, 
which might be beyond the control of men.” (‘Monograph of the Seal Islands of 
Alaska,” p. 62.) 
I repeatedly called attention to this fact in my published Renort, that all of the 
killable seals required were easily taken in thirty working days, between the 14th 
June and the 20th July in every year, from those points above specified, and that 
those reservoirs of surplus male life at South-west Point, Zapodnie, English Bay, 
Polavina, Tonkie Mees, &c., were full and overflowing, that more than enough was 
untouched which sufficed to meet the demands of nature on the breeding 
56 grounds. But to make certain that my theory was a good one, and would be 
confirmed by time, for I qualified my statement at that time as a theory only, 
I made a careful and elaborate triangulation of the area and position of the breeding 
erounds in 1872-73 on St. Paul and St. George Islands, aided and elaborated by my 
associate in 1874, Lieutenant Washburn Maynard, United States navy; this I did in 
order that any increase or diminution following our work could be authoritatively 
stated—that a foundation of fact and not assumption shouid exist for such a com- 
parison of the past order with that of the present or the future. 
Sixteen years have elapsed since that work was finished; its accuracy as to the 
statements of fact then published was at that time unquestioned on these islands, 
and it is to-day freely acknowledged there; but, what has been the logic of events? 
Why is it that we find now only a scant tenth of the numbers of young male seals 
which I saw there in 1872? When did this work of decrease and destruction, so 
marked on the breeding grounds there, begin, and how? This answer follows: 
Seale eOT overdriving ‘without heeding “its warning first begun in 1879, dropped 
then until 1882, then suddenly renewed again with increased — energy from year to 
year, until the end is abruptly reached, this season of 1890. 
«2, From the shooting of fur-seals (chiefly females) in the open waters of the North 
Pacific Ocean and Behring’ s Sea begun as a business in 1886, and continued to date.” 
Thus the seal-life candle has been literally ‘‘ burning at both ends” during the last 
five years. 
That day in 1879 when it became necessary to send a sealing gang from St. Paul 
village over to Zapodnie to regularly drive from that hitherto untouched reserve was 
the day that danger first appeared in tangible form since 1870—since 1857, for that 
matter. 
The fact then that that abundant source of supply, which had served so well and 
steadily since 1870-81, should fail to yield its accustomed return to the drivers—that 
fact ought to have aroused some comment—ou ght then to have been recorded by the 
officer in charge in behalf of the Government at the close of the seasou’s work in 
