FUR. SEALS OF ALASKA. 63 
given in the papers of the old Russian company and was produced in the counter 
case of Great Britain, at Paris, as follows: 
No. 6.—From the board of administration of the Russian-American Company, under 
the protection of His Imperial Majesty, to Capt. Matvei Ivanovitch Muravief, etc., 
chief manager of the Russian-American Colonies. 
(No. 175.) 
In his Report No. 41, of the 25th February, 1820, Mr. Yanovsky, in giving an 
account of his inspection of the operations on the islands of St. Paul and St. George, 
observes that every year the young bachelor seals are killed and that only the cows, 
‘‘sekatch,’’ and half ‘‘sekatch”’ are left to propagate the species. It follows that 
only the old seals are left, while if any of the bachelors remain alive in the autumn 
they are sure to be killed the next spring. The consequence is that the number of 
seals obtained diminishes every year, and it is certain that the species will in time 
become extinct. 
This view is confirmed by experience. In order to prevent the extinction of the 
seals it would be well to stop the killing altogether for one season and to give orders 
that not more than 40,000 are ever to be killed in any one year on the island of St. 
Paul or more than 10,000 in any one year on the island of St. George. 
Mr. Yanovsky considers that if these measures are adopted the number of seals 
will never diminish.. The board of administration, although they concur in Mr. 
Yanovsky’s view, have decided not to adopt the measures proposed by him unless it 
is found that there is no migration of seals to the two small islands which are 
believed to exist to the south and north of the chain of islands. * * * 
The board would be glad if, when you next go to the islands, you would suggest 
any measures which you think would tend to improve the fur-seal industry. Should 
it, however, be impossible for you to visit the islands at present, you will lose no 
time in giving orders for the rules laid down by this board to be applied forthwith. 
MicHar. KissE.Er. 
VENEDICT CRAMER. 
ANDREI SEVERIN. 
ZELENSKY, Chief Clerk. 
Marcg 15, 1821. 
Here is this evil of overdriving and culling the herd presented and defined fifty 
years before I saw it, and nearly seventy years before Jordan denies its existence in 
1898. Think of it! We have sent two investigating commissions since 1890 up to 
our ruined fur-seal preserves on the Pribilof Islands—one in 1891 and the other in 
1896-97—and yet, in spite of this plain Russian record and my detailed and unan- 
swerable indictment of that particular abuse in 1890, these commissioners blindly 
and stupidly deny it. They attempt to set aside the Russian record by saying that 
the Russians then killed females as well as males and drove them up to the shambles 
in equal numbers. 
The Russians did nothing of the sort. They began the season early in June by 
driving from the hauling grounds, precisely as we do to-day, and continued so to 
drive all through the rest of the season. They never went upon the rookeries and 
drove off the females; they never have done so since 1799. How, then, did the 
females get into their drives? 
The females fell into these drives of the Russians because that work was protracted 
through the whole season—from June 1 to December 1. In this way the drivers 
picked up many cows after August 1-10 to the end of November following, since 
some of these animals during that period leave their places on the breeding grounds 
and scatter out over large sections of the adjacent hauling grounds, so as to get mixed 
in here and there with the young males. Thus the Russians in driving across the 
flanks of the breeding grounds, going from the hauling grounds, during every 
August, September, October, and November, would sweep up into their drives a 
certain proportion of female seals which are then scattered out from the rookery 
organization and are ranging at will over those sections of the hauling grounds driyen 
from. What that proportion of this female life so driven was in Russian time no 
man to-day can precisely determine. From the best analysis I can make of it, I 
should say that the Russian female catch in their drives never exceeded 20 per cent 
of the total number driven at any time, and such times were rare, and that it ranged 
as low as 5 per cent of female life up to the end of August annually. 
Now, what does Jordan say to-day about this work which the Russians condemned: 
seventy years ago and I in 1890? 
‘‘As land killing has always been confined to the males, and as its operations are 
to-day what they have been since the herd came into the American control, except 
