108 FUR-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 



hunting, furs, and fishing?— A. No; there are a few berries there in 

 summer, but they soon pass. They have seasons of great suflfering and 

 death from starvation. 



Q. From your general knowledge of the whole subject, would you 

 deem it very important public policy to maintain complete dominion and 

 jurisdiction over Bering Sea as a closed sea if we are entitled to do so ? — 

 A. I should deem it of the highest importance. 



By Mr. Cummings : 



Q. Do you ship any skins over the Canadian Pacific ? — A. No, sir. 



Q. How many skin's did you take last year? — A. From the Pribylov? 



Q. Yes. — A. Within the hundred thousand; ninety-nine thousand 

 and some few. 



Q. Do you sell at auction? — A. Yes, sir. 



Q. What do they bring at an average per skin ? — A. They brought on 

 an average last year — I think it was 56 shillings in their saked state. 



Q. One more question : the depredators in the sea there, what are 

 they mostly, Americans or Canadians ? — A. They are mostly British 

 Columbia vessels. 



Q. Where are those depredations committed ? Do they kill the seals 

 along the islands, or are they able to find them in the middle of the 

 sea? — A. They shoot them as they find them, in the waters of the sea 

 between the islands of the Pribylov group and the Aleutian chain, and 

 the foggy season which is a prevalent characteristic of the weather is 

 such that a vessel can approach within less than half a mile or a quar- 

 ter of a mile of the island and not be seen, and can send her boats on 

 the beaches and get off fifty or a hundred skins before the inhabitants 

 of the island can find it out. 



Q. The fog is very dense there ? — A. Yes, sir. 



Q. And the fog protects them ?— A. Yes, sir. 



Q. Have you any information as to how many vessels are concerned 

 in the depredations on an average ? — A. I had a list ; I think there were 

 some twenty-four last year. 



The Chairman. There have been twenty vessels seized, ten of which 

 were Americans. 



The Witness. But they were not all seized; there were a good many 

 depredators which were not seized. 



The Chairman. These twenty are seizures. 



Mr. CuMMiNGS. Do their profits come from the seals they take off the 

 land or the seals they take on the sea between the Pribylov group and 

 the Aleutian chain ? 



The Witness. It is quite impossible to distinguish that. If one vessel 

 has 1,500 or 2,000 skins and they go into the market, it is difficult to 

 show where the profit would come from, whether from skins taken in 

 authorized waters, or inside Bering Sea, except that you may generally 

 count that a skin taken off the coast is less torn with shot and spear 

 that those taken in Bering Sea. Sometimes you see skins taken on 

 the sea that are so peppered really with buckshot as to present the ap- 

 pearance of a sieve or colander, and they are absolutely worthless as 

 skins except as pieces of them can be cut out and used for caps, etc. 



Q. When they shoot the seals, how many do they really secure of the 

 number killed ?— A. I think the best testimony we have of that is de- 

 rived from the log of a vessel that was seized last year, m which the 

 captain had kept a journal apparently for his own information. The 

 captain was shot by the explosion of his gun or some accident which 

 ended fatally for him, and in this way the journal came into the pos- 



