June 12, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



871 



own affairs in town-meeting, so to speak, as 

 an absolute democracy, in whicli every mem- 

 ber has an equal voice. It lias made all nomi- 

 nations; it has recommended all promotions; 

 and it has requested all increase of salary ; and 

 in every ease its nominations and recommen- 

 dations have been favorably received by the 

 president and by the trustees, who have granted 

 all our requests — excepting only those not at 

 the moment financially advisable. 



Almost every member of the department 

 serves on one or more of the special commit- 

 tees, to whom we confide the oversight of our 

 several activities. Whenever we have felt the 

 need of developing instruction in any part of 

 our field, we have never had to draft a man 

 for service, for all have been ready to volunteer 

 for duty. As a result of this harmony every 

 part of our work — graduate and undergraduate, 

 in college and in school, and in the extension 

 courses — has been coordinated in response to 

 our individual and united understanding of 

 the demands of the occasion. And so complete 

 is this harmony, that since the department was 

 established, no action of any kind has been 

 taken and no recommendation has been made, 

 other than by a unanimous vote. 



Brander Matthews 

 Columbia "University, 

 IN THE City of New York, 

 May 14, 1914 



THE KEW FUR SEAL INVESTIGATION 



The present Commissioner of Fisheries and 

 Secretary of Commerce, having grown dis- 

 trustful of past investigators, have arranged 

 for a new fur-seal commission for the season 

 of 1914. To those who have followed the fur- 

 seal situation in the past few years this is a 

 disappointment, delaying as it does for one 

 season more the emancipation of the herd. 

 Without wishing to prejudice the work of the 

 new commission, but in simple justice to those 

 whose work is thus put on trial, it seems fair 

 to point out certain phases of the situation 

 which confronts the new investigators. 



By the law of 1912 commercial killing of 

 fur seals is prohibited for five years. The 

 object of any investigation at the present time 



must be to determine the wisdom or un- 

 wisdom, the necessity or lack of necessity, of 

 this law. In effect the law was condemned 

 eighteen years ago by the joint commission 

 of American and British experts of 1896-Y. 

 The following words from the ninth paragraph 

 of their joint agreement are worth quoting: 



The methods of driving and killing practised on 

 the islands, as they have come under our observa- 

 tion during the past two seasons, call for no criti- 

 cism or objection. An adequate supply of bulls is 

 present on the rookeries; the number of older 

 bachelors rejected in the drives during the period 

 in question is such as to safeguard in the immedi- 

 ate future a similarly adequate supply; the breed- 

 ing bulls, females, and pups on the breeding 

 grounds are not disturbed; there is no evidence or 

 sign of impairment of virility of males; the 

 operations of driving and killing are conducted 

 skillfully and without inhumanity. 



This very positive conclusion was reached 

 after two seasons of thorough study, involving 

 the observation and inspection of drives aggre- 

 gating 150,000 animals, 50,000 of which were 

 killed. The commission of 1914 will have no 

 opportunity whatever to observe the normal 

 methods of land sealing, the law preventing 

 it. The commission of 1896-7 had opportunity 

 to carefully weigh and consider the action of 

 pelagic sealing, in its judgment the sole cause 

 of the herd's decline, determining the pro- 

 portion of pregnant and nursing females in 

 the catch on board the sealing vessels and 

 observing the starvation of the dependent 

 young on land. The new commission is en- 

 tirely cut off from this source of information, 

 the treaty of 1911 having suspended pelagic 

 sealing. The new commission can obtain 

 definite information from the rookeries of the 

 present condition of the herd, but it will have 

 no basis of comparison arising from previous 

 experience, and can not, therefore, of itseK 

 determine whether the herd is increasing or 

 diminishing. 



Another difficulty confronts the new com- 

 mission. It is said to " have been selected by 

 outside agencies and to have no previous con- 

 nection with the fur seal controversy." In 

 other words it is a non-partisan commission. 



