260 INVESTIGATION OP THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 



Think of this deliberate, studied suppression of the fact that the 

 Russians did not kill the female seals thus made by a " scientist" like 

 Dr. Jordan, as above. Why does Dr. Jordan attempt to deceive his 

 Government as to the real cause of that Russian decline of the herd 

 between 1800 and 1834? Why, indeed, when the truth is so easily 

 brought up to confound him ? 



Why does Jordan substitute "breeders" for Yanovsky's " bache- 

 lors"? to deceive; for a "breeder" is a female seal as well as male, 

 and that is precisely what Yanovsky has stated — that female seals 

 are not killed, but the "young bachelor" seals are; and are all killed 

 in the spring if they are not so killed in the autumn prior. 



He stands convicted out of his own hand of having falsified the 

 record of Russian killing so as to justify the shame and ruin of that 

 work of our own lessees, who are thus shielded by him in his official 

 report to our Government dated February 24, 1898, and published 

 by the Secretary of the Treasury, in January, 1898, under title of 

 "Fur Seal Investigation, parts 1, 2, 3, and 4, 1898." 



The record of Dr. David Starr Jordan on the Trilling grounds of the 

 Seal Islands in 1896-97 , clothed with full authority to regulate the Trilling 

 of seals, then: 



VII. On July 11, 1896, less than one month after the publication 

 of those "Carlisle rules," above quoted, Dr. David Starr Jordan 

 landed on the Seal Islands, clothed with a supervising power on the 

 part of the Government over all this killing of the seals. He sends 

 to the department a report on this subject, and conceals from it the 

 fact that those "Carlisle rules" of May 14, 1896, have been openly 

 and flagrantly violated during the very first season of their publication. 

 (See Preliminary Report No. 7, 1896, p. 21, Treas. Doc. No. 1913, by 

 David Starr Jordan.) 



The department has every confidence in Dr. Jordan as a naturalist, 

 who could not be deceived as to what "yearling" seals were, and 

 accepted his indorsement of this work by the lessees who killed those 

 yearling seals as above cited, in violation of that specific prohibition 

 by the department and under Dr. Jordan's supervision. 



But Dr. Jordan did know what a yearling seal was, and the following 

 entries made in the official journal declare it, for he was busy in 

 securing thern as specimens for his own use, to wit: Under date of 

 Sunday, September 27, 1S96, the following entry appears on page 53 

 of the official journal of the Government agents on St. Paul Island: 



13. The skin of a yearling bull, smothered in the food drive from Lukannon was 

 taken for Stanford University. 



8. A yearling holluschak shot on reef, supposed to be a virgin cow; the skin taken 

 for California Academy of Sciences. 



Dr. Jordan had with him three naturalists, who served as his 

 subordinates on the occasion of his visit in 1896 and again in 1897 to 

 the Seal Islands. These associates, Messrs. Stejneger, Lucas, and 

 Townsend, all united with Dr. Jordan in that report of 1896 (Treas. 

 Doc, No. 1913, Nov. 7. 1896), which gave this illegal killing of year- 

 lings in 1896 a clean bill of health and which is so faithfully recorded 

 in the London sales sheet. December following, as being in violation 

 of those rules of May 14. 1896, above cited. 



That Dr. Jordan, at the head of a great university, should thus 

 attempt to conceal the truth about that killing as above stated, seems 

 fairly unreasonable. What influence could the lessees have over 



