FUR-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 211 



Q. What sort of a man was Dr. Lutz ? — A. Dr. Lutz was a peculiar 

 little fellow ; he was what I would call a " cranky " German. 



Q. Was he a bad man or a good man ? — A. He was what I would call 

 an innocent kind of a fellow. 



Q. Was John Hall there, the cook? — A. Ko; we had a miserable Ger- 

 man cook, named Gus. That is the one thing for which I " had it in" 

 for the Alaska Commercial Company — that cook, Gus. 



Q. You have lived some years in Alaska and traveled extensively 

 over it; now I want to ask you your judgment as to the relative value 

 of the products of Bering Sea and the ])roducts of the balance of the 

 Territory. I include in the products the seal, the seaotter, the whale, 

 the salmon, the walrus, the halibut, the codfish, in short all the i)rod- 

 ucts of those waters. I want your opinion as to the comparative value 

 of those products with everything else in Alaska. — A. I think the prod- 

 ucts of Bering Sea are much more valuable than those of the remaining 

 part of the Territory of Alaska — that is, Bering Sea and what comes 

 out of it. 



Mr. Jeffries. I wanted to show why we bought it. 



TESTIMONY OF T. F. RYAN. 



T. F. Eyan, sworn and examined. 



By the Chairman : 



Q. Will you please state if you were at any time a special agent of 

 the Treasury Department on the seal islands of Alaska, and when. — 

 A, 1 was, sir; from April, 1885, until April, 1887. 



Q. Will you state about the location of these islands and the condi- 

 tion of the seal rookeries while you were there. — A. St. George Island 

 is in Bering Sea, 180 nnles to the northwest of Oonalaska, one of the 

 Aleutian chain of islands. It is an island about G miles wide and 10 

 miles long, to which 175,000 to 200,000 seals come annually — male, fe- 

 male, and pup. 



Q. Were you the chief agent, or an assistant ? — A. I was first as- 

 sistant. 



Q. On which island ? — A. On St. George. 



Q. Will you give us an account of your occupation there ? — A. On 

 my landing at St. George and looking around, I reported direct to the 

 Secretary of the Treasury that I found the interests of the Government 

 all right, and that the^' were well taken care of from the fact that it took 

 care of itself, and that the slanders and stories that were then heard in 

 Washington about frauds upon the seal interests that were committed 

 by the Alaska Comjiany were false, as far as I could see; that it was 

 not to their interest to do anything except what was right and correct 

 as far as the seals were concerned. Matters continued very pleasant 

 for that section of the world. 1 thought that I was placed there to see 

 to the wants of the people, and to advance them in civilization, and to 

 correct their morals, etc., as best I could; and 1 considered it was also 

 my duty as well to do that as to count the seal skins. 1 went slow, not 

 abrupt, in any move in that direction, and waited until I saw for myself. 



I had a great deal of trouble in looking after and i)rote(5ting the 

 rookeries from what we call there pirates. Schooners go up there and 

 go on land and take seals, and also kill seals in the water. Those they 

 kill in the water are so far away that we could not reach them. We 

 soon run them off — the company people and myself and the natives. 

 9984 15 



