CHAPTER I. 
INTRODUCTION. 
THE OCCASION OF THE INQUIRY. 
The present inquiry into the condition and needs of the fur-seal herds of the North 
Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea is the outgrowth of a belief on the part of the United 
States that the regulations formulated by the Paris Tribunal of Arbitration for “ the 
protection and preservation of the fur seal” had failed to accomplish their avowed 
object. The inadequacy of these regulations was apparent at the close of the first 
season of their operation, and each succeeding season has only rendered it more 
conspicuous. Failing to secure the cooperation of Great Britain in the immediate 
revision of the regulations, the United States in the spring of 1896 accepted the 
proposal of Great Britain for a scientific investigation of the whole subject, to be 
made independently by each nation, the results of such an investigation to form the 
basis.of a reconsideration of the regulations at the end of the specified trial period ot 
five years. 
THE ACT OF CONGRESS. 
The act of Congress under which the present commission of investigation for the 
United States was organized is as follows: 
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress 
assembled, That the Secretary of the Treasury be, and is hereby, authorized to expend, from any 
moneys in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, a sum sufficient to provide for the employment 
of persons to conduct a scientific investigation, during the fiscal years eighteen hundred and 
ninety-six and eighteen hundred and ninety-seven, of the present condition of the fur-seal herds on 
the Pribilof, Commander, and Kuril islands in the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea, said amount 
not to exceed for both said years the sum of five thousand dollars. 
The Secretary is also authorized to employ a stenographer in connection with this investigation 
at arate of compensation not exceeding one thousand five hundred dollars per annum, and to pay his 
compensation and expenses out of any moneys ‘in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated. 
The President is authorized to detail, for the purposes of assisting in this investigation, any 
officer or officers or employees of the United States Government, their actual expenses and the 
expenses of the person or persons employed under the preceding paragraph to be paid by the 
Secretary of the Treasury out of any moneys in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated. 
The President may detail a vessel of the United States for the purpose of carrying out this 
investigation. 
THE COMMISSION. 
In accordance with the above act, Dr. David Starr Jordan, president of Leland 
Stanford Junior University, was appointed commissioner in charge of the investiga- 
tion, and with him were detailed as associates Lieut. Commander Jefferson F. Moser, 
commanding the United States Fish Commission steamer Albatross; Dr. Leonhard 
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