62 FUR-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 



except on the seal islands ?— A. I should feel at perfect liberty to fit out 

 an expedition to go there anywhere except on the Pribylov group. 



Q. State, if you know, whether or not the company has performed the 

 stipulations of the contract and complied with the law and the Treas- 

 ury regulations for the protection of far seals in Alaska. — A. They 

 most assuredly have. At any time the agent is in doubt at all of what 

 should be done at any point that comes up between the people and the 

 company, or between the Government agent or the company agent, the 

 Government agent's decision is final. 



Q. Has the company at any time taken an excess of its quota of seal 

 skins and shipped them from the island to your knowledge? — A. They 

 have never shipped from the island an excess of 100,000 skins. There 

 have been, as Mr. Taylor stated once, mistakes in counting, but they 

 would always go over for the next year's quota. 



Q. Now I want to ask you whether it is possible for a company to 

 ship skins in excess of its quota, that is, to any extent ? — A. I think it 

 is not possible. 



Q. Will you explain now why it is not possible for the company to 

 ship an excess of seal skins from those islands ? — A. In taking seal on 

 those islands? 



Q. Just describe how they are counted ; take your own time. — A. In 

 takiiig the seals on those islands the Government agent in charge has 

 control of the fishery from the day that the last seal of the quota is 

 taken, which is generally the latter part of July or the first of August, 

 until the first day of the next June. There are no seals driven except 

 for food, and then they are driven by permission of the Government 

 agent. After the first of June the company agent directs when and 

 where the drive shall be made. When the seals are driven in and when 

 the skins are hauled to the salt-house a special agent of the Treasury 

 Department counts those skins into the salt-house. 



Q. Let me interrupt you at that point. I want to know if, when the 

 seals are killed and their skins taken off, whether there is any account 

 made by the chief or somebody by which the amount cau be paid to the 

 natives, for taking the skins, is calculated ? — A. Not every year, but 

 until a very short time ago the natives have always had a man to keep 

 count of the skins whenever counted by the Government olficer alone 

 at the salt-house, and the company also had to keep the account to- 

 gether with a native. 



Q. As I understand it they got 40 cents a skin ? — A. Yes, sir. The 

 Government ofticer counts the skins, and the natives are there and they 

 are intelligent enough to know fjom the time it takes to take off' a bunch 

 of skins whether or not there are one thousand or twelve hundred. In 

 the counting in they will tell you within fifty of how many were taken off 

 that day. The natives have been in the business so long that if I send 

 a man to report upon how many killable seals are upon a rookery, if 1 

 was going to make a drive that night and send a native to examine a 

 rookery and report how many seals were tliere, the natives would esti- 

 mate within a very few seals and what we cau get out of the bulk of 

 seals lying on the rookeries. Of course there are some natives more 

 apt at that than others. The Government officer counts them in and 

 out of the salt-houses. For the Alaska Commercial Company to get any 

 number of skins, to amount to one or two thousand, it is impossible to 

 drive them from the rookery and take the skins off, cure them, and ship 

 them from the island without the natives knowing it, and they would 

 want 40 cents for every skin that was sent away. Not only this, if he 



