64 ALASKA. 



place. In 1799 the Russian American Company received the 

 monopoly of all Alaska, and it at once organized a colony of 

 " one hundred and thirty-seven souls" at Sitka and Ounalashka, 

 principally natives of the latter place, and planted the settle- 

 ments which still exist on the islands, and after many years of 

 most faulty management of the sealing business they came to 

 regard it with so good an eye to its preservation and perpetua- 

 tion, that their rules and regulations in regard to these points 

 are still in force, no subsequent observation having suggested 

 an improvement on them until the date of the writer's arrival 

 on the islands, April, 1872. 



Too much credit cannot be given to certain agents of the old 

 Eussian company, and a countryman of ours, in 1868-69,* who 

 have by their attention and action saved this most interesting 

 and valuable exhibition of animal life from the wanton, improv- 

 ident destruction which has been visited upon the great fur-seal 

 rookeries of the Southern Ocean. 



The fact that the fur-seals frequent these islands, and those 

 of Bering and Copper, on the Eussian side, to the exclusion of 

 iill other land, is at first a little singular; but when we come to 

 examine the subject we find that these animals, when they 

 come out to lie' two or three months on the land, as they must 

 do by their habit during the breeding-season, require a cool, 

 moist atmosphere ; also, firm and dry land, or dry rock, upon 

 which to take their positions and remain for the season; if the 

 rookery-ground is hard and fiat, puddles are formed, making a 

 slime, which very quickly takes the hair off the animals; hence 

 they carefully avoid any such landing. If they occupy a sandy 

 shore, the rain beats the sand into their large, sensitive eyes, and 

 into their fur, so that they are obliged from irritation to leave. 

 The Seal Islands now under discussion offer very remarkable 

 advantages for landing, especially Saint Paul, where the ground 

 of basaltic rock and of volcanic tufa or cement slopes up grad- 

 ually from the sea, making a suitable resting-place for millions 

 of these intelligent animals, which lie out here two and three 

 months every year in perfect peace and contentment. 



There is no ground of this character offered elsewhere in the 

 country, on the Aleutians, on the mainland, or on Saint Mat- 

 thew's, or Saint Lawrence ; the latter islands were surveyed 

 during the past season to settle this question, and the notes 

 will be found in the appendix. 



* H. M. Hutchiusou. 



