116 THE ASIATIC FUE-SEAL ISLANDS. 



years from 1832 to 1841, inclusive, being less than 9,700 skins a year. As I have shown 

 elsewhere, this was not nearly enough to satisfy the demand, which probably averaged 

 iu the neighborhood of 25,000 during this period, and the deficiency was probably 

 made up in the Commander Islands. 



With the destructive methods then in vogue, it is not to be wondered at if the 

 Commander Islands were unable to furnish an annual quota of, say, 14,000 skins for 

 any considerable length of time. Liitke, as early as 1835, speaks of the -decrease of 

 the seals on the Commander Islands. " The catches," he says, " have decreased to a 

 remarkable extent here as elsewhere. Of late years there has not been taken on both 

 islands more than 5,000 fur seals; it has consequently been determined to give them 

 a rest for some years" (Voyage aut. Monde, i, p. 276). This close season was probably 

 not carried out, however. The Pribilof Islands could not supply the demand, and it 

 seems as if it became necessary to tax the Commander Islands^ to the utmost limit 

 rather than to spare them. I have elsewhere shown that the latter islands in all 

 probability were made to yield possibly no less than 14,000 skins annually from 1833 

 to 1841. The slaughter must have been terribly ruinous, for Chief Manager Etholin 

 in 1842 asked permission to establish a close season, which was granted in 1843. No 

 seals were apparently killed until 1847, but so much were the rookeries depleted that 

 when killing was resumed on Copper Island in 1847 only 900 skins were taken, while 

 on Bering Island, which got an additional year of grace, the yield in 1848 was less 

 than 450 skins. From this time until the end of the regime of the Eussian- American 

 Company the yield of the Commander Islands was very insignificant. It is true, the 

 reports were in 1859 that the rookeries were again crowded, a condition evidently due 

 to the improved methods, especially the prohibition of killing the females, but as 

 the Pribilof Islands showed the same favorable conditions and could easily supply 

 the demand, there was no inducement for the chief management in Sitka to incur the 

 increased labor aud risk at the more distant islands, and it is probable that the 

 Commander Islands were only worked enough to supply the kind and quantity of 

 skins demanded for the Siberian (Kiakhta) trade, a comparatively insignificant 

 amount (5,000 to 6,000 a year). 



In a general way the condition of affairs on the Commander Islands during this 

 period must have been very similar to that on the Pribilofs, though from their 

 remoteness from the seat of the general management and their comparative insignifi- 

 cance the criticisms of the company's dealings which were current probably applied 

 with still greater force to the Commander Islands. 



Once a year the islands had communication with the outer world. A small vessel 

 brought supplies, etc., from Sitka and carried away the dried skins.' In the earlier 

 days, after the recolonization of the islands, the skins were apparently shipped to one 

 of the ports in the Okhotsk Sea, but this was changed later, so that all the furs were 

 first sent to Sitka, whence they were reshipped the following year. This method, 

 however, involving additional cost and risk, was discontinued in 1854, and the vessel 

 which brought the supplies and inspectors was henceforth ordered to proceed with 

 the skins to Ayan, on the Okhotsk Sea, by way of the Kuril district (Fur Seal Arb., 

 VIII, p. 349). Occasionally some of the vessels of the semi -military navy of the 



' I am not aware thai; skins were ever salted on the Commander Islands during the time of the 

 Russian-Amorioan Company. 



