INVESTIGATION" OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 293 



erating and explanatory of the whole matter to the President. I tried to secure a copy 

 of that letter to be embraced in this record, but unfortunately Mr. Root had gone to 

 Canada, and I could not get it. 



And Mr. Root returned the next day, January 26, 1907, and Mr. 

 Faulkner lost all interest in that letter, because it did not even hint 

 at these frauds at The Hague, or refer to that matter of the James 

 Hamilton Leivis. 



THE OFFICIAL RESPONSIBILITY OF CHARLES II. TOWNSEND FOR THE 

 FRAUD PRACTICED AT THE HAGUE, JUNE 27-JULY 4, 1902, AND THE 

 RECORD OF HIS WORK UP TO THAT DATE FROM 1883, AS AN AGENT 

 AND PELAGIC SEALING EXPERT OF THE UNITED STATES COMMISSION 

 OF FISH AND FISHERIES, WHICH GAVE HIM FULL AND COMPLETE 

 ADVANCE KNOWLEDGE OF THIS BOGUS PRACTICE AFORESAID. 



Dr. C. H. Townsend, under oath, made the following staternent to 

 the committee, May 24, 1912, to wit (pp. 734-735, hearing No. 12): 



Dr. Towxsend. I have dictated some matter here and looked it over. 



My acquaintance with matters pertaining to the fur seal may be stated briefly as 

 follows: 



Nine visits to the Pribilof Islands, covering the breeding seasons of nine different 

 years, the first in 1885, the last in 1900. The average length of time spent on the 

 Pribilof Islands figures up 35 days a year, including July and the earlier part of August. 

 I have been there as early as June 1 and as late as October 10. These visits were made 

 under the auspices of the Fish Commission, the Treasury Department, or the Depart- 

 ment of State, and the work generally consisted in the preparation of charts showing 

 the annual distribution of seals on the different rookeries and the making of photo- 

 graphs to demonstrate the correctness of the charts. During all of the later visits I 

 participated in the annual census of the seal herd and frequently made cruises on 

 Government vessels in the vicinity of the islands for the purpose of collecting infor- 

 mation relative to pelagic sealing. The photographs and charts are now in the files 

 of the Bureau of Fisheries and some of them have been published along with my reports 

 on the condition of the seal rookeries and on pelagic sealing. 



In Julv, 1895, I visited the Commander Islands — those are the Russian seal islands — 

 and made photographs. 



During the latter part of May, 1892, I visited Guadalupe Island, off the west coast 

 of Mexico, for the purpose of making inquiries relative to the fur seal of Lower Cali- 

 fornia. This work was clone under the direction of the Secretary of State. 



In 1902 I was sent by the Department of State to The Hague as sealing expert in the 

 arbitration of sealing claims against Russia. In 1888, as naturalist of the fisheries 

 steamship Albatross, I visited a rookery of the Antarctic fur seals in Tierra del Fuego 

 and obtained specimens for the National Museum. 



While connected with the fur-seal investigations of 1896-97 I collected the log books 

 of 123 vessels engaged in pelagic sealing and prepared a large chart showing the distri- 

 bution and migration of the American and Asiatic fur-seal herds. 



I have just simply thrown that together to show that I have a certain familiarity with 

 the subject. 



This statement, carefully prepared and read from a typewritten 

 sheet by Mr. Townsend, makes his relation to the fur sealing business 

 of the United States Government, as an " agent" and "assistant" 

 and a "sealing expert" of the United States Bureau of Fisheries, 

 the United States Treasury Department, and the United States 

 Department of State, perfectly clear and definite. 



It shows that before Dr. C. H. Townsend was sent to The Hague 

 in 1900 that he had had nine years' experience personally with the 

 fur-seal herd of Alaska and of study into the business of pelagic 

 sealing, and his own record of the above experience is supplemented 

 by the statement made by himself, in "Who's Who" for 1912, that 

 he was 43 years of age when he went to The Hague, possessed of all 



