114 THE ASIATIC FUK-SEAL ISLANDS. 



IV.-THE RUSSIAN SEALING INDUSTRY. 



HISTORICAL. 



Even before the discovery of the Commander Islands, in 1741, the fur seals were 

 known to and hunted by the natives of Kamchatka. Krasheninnikof (Hist. Kamt- 

 chatka, 1764, p. 124 et seq.) refers to this catch as follows: 



The sea cats are cauglit in the spring and in the month of Septenibei; about the river Slmpanova; 

 at which times they go from the KurilsTcoy island to the American [i. e., Commander Islands] coast; 

 but the most are catched about the cape of Kronotzkoy, as between this and the cape ShupinsTcoy the 

 sea is generally calm and affords them better places to retire to. Almost all the females that are 

 caught in the spring are pregnant; and such as are near their time of bringing forth their young, 

 are immediately opened, and the young taken out, and skinned. None of them are to be seen from 

 the beginning of Jitne to the end of August, when they returned from the south [ !] with their young. 

 * * * They seldom come ashore about Kamtchatka, so that the inhabitants ohace them in boats 

 and throw darts or harpoons at them, which stick in their body ; to this harpoon is fixed one end of a 

 rope, and the other is in the vessel, and by this rope they draw them towards the boat; but here they 

 are to be particularly cautious whenever they chace one, if he comes uear, not to sufifer him to fasten 

 upon the side of the boat with his fore paws and overturn it; to prevent which some of the fishermen 

 stand ready with axes to cut off his paws. 



In later times there has been no such regular catch of fur seals on the Kamchat- 

 kan coast, for the reason that now the whole region from the Bay of Avatcha to the 

 mouth of the river Kamchatka is entirely uninhabited. 



Following the discovery of the Commander Islands numerous vessels were fitted 

 out to hunt fur-bearing animals on these islands and, later, to lay in provisions of 

 sea-cow meat for use in their protracted journeys to the Aleutian Islands farther east 

 (see Stejneger, American Naturalist, 1887, pp. 1049-1052). It does not seem, however, 

 as if the fur-seal skins were in demand. The skins were not particularly valuable; 

 the sea otters and blue foxes were still numerous; the men had more pressing and 

 profitable things to attend to; the drying of the seal skins was both laborious and 

 precarious in the damp climate; in brief, it did not pay to bother with the fur seals at 

 that period. Later, however, all this was changed. The more costly furs were getting 

 scarce and the enterprising Russian merchants, now following upon the heels of the 

 promyshleniks, or hunters, had found a profitable market in China for large quantities 

 of the cheaper fur seal. Foremost -among these merchants was Grigori Ivanovich 

 Shelikof, whose name, from 1776 on to his death in 1795, was connected with the fur 

 trade and colonization of that part of the world. He seems to have been the first to 

 pay special attention to the skins of the fur seal, and was for a long time the only 

 one who gathered them in large quantities. 



The discovery of the Pribilof Islands, with their countless numbers of fur seals, 

 did not seem to have made any difference in this. On the contrary, the increased 

 supply seems to have created an increased demand. Under the pressure of a fierce 

 competition a senseless slaughter of the fur seals was carried on until the whole 

 business was threatened with destruction, from which it was alone rescued by the 



