294 INVESTIGATION OF THE FUK-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 



that experience above cited with regard to the seals and their 

 hunters in the sea. 



A review carefully made by the committee of Dr. Townsend's 

 record, as above given by him, from the official documents and 

 records of the Treasury and State Departments and United States 

 Fish Commission, in no respect differs from the relation of it as he 

 has given it to the committee. 



During the progress of Dr. Townsend's examination, on page 750, 

 hearing No. 12, he further defines his experience as a "sealing 

 expert" in the employ of the United States Fish Commission, 

 to wit: 



When I was detached from the work at the seal islands by this commission, in 1896, 

 I went around among the sealers in revenue cutters and collected data to make a 

 chart of seal migrations. I collected the log books of 123 vessels engaged in pelagic 

 sealing at various times from 1883 to 1897, with an aggregate catch of 304,713 seals. I 

 platted the known position of every one of these vessels on every day when a seal 

 was killed in any part of the Pacific Ocean, throughout each month's sealing, in a 

 different color, so that this chart, based as it is on the records of the sealing fleet from 

 1883 to 1897, shows where the seals actually were. 



As Dr. Townsend first entered the service of the Government at 

 Band, Cal., in 1S83, as an "assistant" of the United States Com- 

 mission of Fish and Fisheries, this statement declares that he had 

 had 14 years' experience with the whole business of land killing and 

 sea killing of our fur-seal herd up to 1897. So, when he went to The 

 Hague as the "seal expert" of the United States Bureau of Fisheries 

 and the United States Department of State, he went there with all 

 the authority which such a commission commanded, as based upon 

 such an extended experience (p. 406-407, II. Doc. No. 1, 57th Cong., 

 2d ses>\). 



It will be observed that he says he had been busy making an 

 exhaustive examination into the records of "123 vessels" engaged in 

 pelagic sealing, at various times from 1SS3 to 1897. 



As the Jai/as Hamilton Lewis, during the seasons of 1890-91, was 

 one of the largest and most notorious of all the vessels in that fleet, 

 it is not to be supposed for a moment that Dr. Townsend, familiar 

 since 1885 with the whole story annually of land and sea killing, 

 and especially charged with the duty of looking into all the details 

 of pelagic sealing from 1883 to 1897, could have overlooked or 

 shut his eyes to the prominent appearance of the James Hamilton 

 Lewis in 1890 and her spectacular disappearance in 1891. How 

 could he, when the daily papers of the Pacific coast recited at great 

 length the strange and exciting details of this vessel's career in 1890 

 and finish in 1891? Columns of the newspapers of San Francisco 

 were filled with the story of the remarkable catch — the "high-line' ' 

 catch of the James Hamilton Lewis in 1890. See, for instance, the 

 San Francisco Chronicle's issue of September 14, 1890, and in 1891 

 columns of the same city papers, all of them, again were given up, 

 October 4, 1891, to the story of how she had been captured off 

 Copper Island, August 2, while her crew was ashore killing seals as 

 pirates. (See San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle, issues of Oct. 

 4, 1891.) 



Therefore, when Dr. Townsend made the following answer to the 

 committee, he told the truth (p. 754, hearing No. 12). 



