76 FUR SEALS OF ALASKA. 
Exaurerr C.—Annual seal island and pelagic fur-seal catch and average prices per skin 
from 1871 to 1908, inclusive. 
Bering Sea and ||" ibilof Islands: Bering Sea and ; 
Northern Pacific: Poon agen, Menor’ Hace: 
Pelagic catch. elagic catch. 
Pribilof Islands: 
Island catch. 
Year. Aver- Aver- » Year. Aver- Aver- 
Rah nee Number} ,48°, | Number | [8° 
Number ° Number 2 umber . i 
: i A rice |} rs rice | . price 
of skins. | PPS | of skins. | Pat of skins. | P er of skins. er 
skin. skin. skin. skin. 
102, 960 | $10, 50 108, 301 | $19.50 36, 389 $7.80 
102,617 | 17.00 29, 858 9.75 
28, 859 
94, 657 8.75 7,396 | 27.00 30, 812 12.50 
84, 310 9.75 16,270 | 20.50 61, 838 8.75 
109, 323 9. 80 14,846 | 20,25 56, 291 10. 25 
110,411 | 21.20 30,654 | 17.00 43,917 8.00 
105,514 | 22.25 19,200 | 15.50 24,332 6.50 
105,630 | 19.75 18,047 | 16.00 28, 552 6.50 
99,812 | 13.60 16,812 | 26.00 34,168 10, 25 
29,509 | 20.20 22,470 | 32.00 35,191 16. 00 
105,584 | 12.75 22,672 | 34.00 24, 050 15, 25 
105,024 | 14.20 22,190 | 32.50 22,812 19,25 
104,581 } 17.10 19,212 | 29.50 27, 000 18. 50 
Notre.—These prices are the averages of the catches which the London annual sale catalogues 
record, and are taken from them. ’ 
The Alaskan seals have all been sold in London since 1871, at the public auction sales of Messrs. 
C. M. Lampson Sons, the Hudson’s Bay Company, and Culverwell, Brookes & Co. (Rept. No. 2308, 
Ways and Means Committee, June 2, 1902, p. 7.) 
Exuripit K. 
[Memorandum for Ways and Means Committee, by Henry W. Elliott, March 9, 1904.] 
AS TO THE LEASE OF THE LESSEES OF THE SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA, DATED May 1 
1890. 
’ 
Opinions of Thomas B. Reed, W. L. Wilson, Henry.G. Turner, Benton McMillan, 
February 18-20, 1895, as a subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee, on the 
question of whether the Government had the legal right to completely suspend the 
lessees of the seal islands from killing fur seals, under the terms of the Windom lease, 
dated May 1, 1890: 
The question being raised pending the consideration of the House bill 8633, intro- 
duced by Governor Nelson Dingley, jr., the attorney for the lessees, Gen. N. L. Jef- 
fries, argued at length against the right of the Government to completely suspend the 
work of the lessees, as the terms of the pending bill ordered. 
Thereupon the subcommittee held: 
““(1) That the clause in the lease which binds the lessees to ‘obey and abide by 
any restrictions or limitations upon the right to kill seals that the Secretary of the 
Treasury shall judge necessary, under the law, for the preservation of the seal fish- 
eries of the United States,’ enables the Government (the Secretary of the Treasury 
being the agent only of Congress) at any time to completely restrict or suspend the 
work of the lessees. This authority for this restriction is found in section 3 of the 
act approved July 1, 1870. 
‘*(2) That the right to kill seals for natives’ food is expressly reserved by section 
1, act approved July 1, 1870, for the Government, and is not covered or merged into 
the terms of the lease which are authorized by section 4 of act approved July I, 1870.” 
This report of the subcommittee was unanimous. It was unanimously adopted by 
the full committee, and the bill reported favorably to the House by Chairman Wil- 
son. (Report No. 1849, 53d Cong., 3d sess. ) 
