THE KUKIL ISLANDS. 239 



II.-THE JAPANESE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS. 



By the cession of the middle and northern Kurils in 1875 by Eussia to Japan, the 

 latter country became the owner of a large number of barren and mostly uninhabited 

 rocky islands and islets which nobody expected to possess any wealth except possibly 

 a few sea-otters left over from the Russian management, and although even then a 

 very costly fur, the sea-otter skin had not yet reached the fabulous prices' which 

 have been paid for them of late years. Neither party to the treaty knew that several 

 fur-seal rookeries of considerable value had changed hands by the transfer, and that 

 the homes of the northern fur seal, which at one time belonged to Russia alone, from 

 now on were subject to three different suzerainties. 



As a matter of fact, as will be shown further on, the existence of these rookeries 

 in Japanese territory hardly became known until they had been almost irreparably 

 ruined by their discoverers. No sooner, however, had this knowledge become public 

 before speculation was rife as to the occurrence of similar treasures in other islands 

 belonging to the Empire. In this connection it was recalled that H. B. M. S. 

 Bittern, on July 8, 1855, in latitude 40° 31' north and longitude 139° 31' east, had 

 discovered a cluster of 3 small rocks, since named the Bittern Rocks,'* "the face ot 

 which was covered with seals, which were with difflculty dislodged." It was conjectured 

 that these seals were fur seals, but I was positively assured in Hakodate that sealing 

 schooners had investigated the matter and that the seals were "hair seals" only.^ It 

 would thus appear that the fur-seal rookeries in Japan are confined to the Kuril 

 Islands. 



I. DESCRIPTION OF THE KURIL ISLANDS. 



The Kuril Islands, or, as the Japanese call them, Chishima {i. e., The Thousand 

 Islands), form a graceful arch of volcanoes, many of them quite active yet, between 

 the northeastern end of Tezo in the south and the south end of Kamchatka, Cape 

 Lopatka, in the north, roughly speaking, between 43° 40' north latitude, 145° 22' east 

 longitude, and 50° 50' north latitude, 156° 30' east longitude, a distance of about 630 

 miles (pi. 104). 



The islands, which, in administrative j?espect, belong to the Hokkaidocho, i. e., 

 Yezo, with adjoining islands, are of various sizes, from Iturup, the largest, with an 

 extreme length of 110 miles, to the islets of Srednoi and Mushir, a few hundred feet 

 long, and rising out of the water, from the lofty and gracefully cone-shaped peaks of 

 Alaid (7,783 feet) and Paramushir (6,900 feet) to the small rocks, barely awash, which 

 are to be the main topic of this report. 



' Some are said to have sold lately for £240. 



^"Two above water and one awash. » * » The southwestern or largest rock * * * is 

 about 18 feet high, and m size and appearance resembles the hull of a vessel of about 200 tons." 

 Findlay, Direct. N. Pac. Oc, 2 ed.,.p. 658. 



•* Capt. E. P. Miner states that in 1883 the schooner Otsego found seals on the Bittern Eooks, but 

 whether fur seals or hair seals is not evident. (Fur Seal Arb., VIII, p. 580.) 



