550 INVESTIGATION OP THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OP ALASKA. 



Mr. Clark. I would like to develop this point. It is very impor- 

 tant. 



Mr. Stephens. What is the date of the report from which you are 

 reading ? 



Mr. Clark. 1890. 



Mr. Stephens. And the date of the other one was what ? 



Mr. Clark. 1872-1874. In the 1890 report, the second paragraph 

 on page 136 begins as follows: 



A study of this killing throughout the "zapooska" of 1834, on the St. Paul Island, 

 shows that for a period of seven years, from 1835 down to the close of the season of 1841, 

 no seals practically were killed save those that were needed for food and clothing by 

 the natives — 



This which follows is in italics : 



and that in 1835, for the first time in the history of this industry on these islands, was the 

 vital principle of not killing female seals recognized. 



Then follow a few sentences that are not important, but the para- 

 graph ends with this sentence: 



This protracted driving after the breaking up of the breeding season by the end of 

 July caused them to take up, at first, hundreds, and thousands later on, of the females 

 in the same manner that they had been driven up during the last two seasons from 1889 

 and 1890; but they never spared those cows then, when they arrived in the droves on 

 the killing grounds prior to this date, above quoted, of 1835. 



Mr. Elliott says now that Veniaminof was full of errors and denies 

 his own interpretations of Veniaminof and makes to your committee 

 this positive statement, that — - 



it is a fact of indisputable record that the Russians never killed or disturbed the female 

 seals on the rookeries of St. Paul and St. George Islands from start to finish of their 

 possession of them. 



The Chairman. If you are through with that, I want to call your 

 attention to page 866 of appendix A, paragraph 2 on that page, which 

 is a part of your report, and I will ask whether that is not almost 

 identical with the complaint that the Russians made. 



Mr. Clark. It is difficult for me to carry out what I consider 

 necessary in developing these important things if I am to be inter- 

 rupted by extraneous matters in this way. 



The Chairman. I thought you were through. 



Mr. Clark. If this translation which I have read of Veniaminof is 

 at fault or is not correct, then I want to turn to what we may consider 

 as a correct translation of Veniaminof. This is made by Prof. 

 Raphael Zon, of the United States Forest Service. It was made last 

 year, and it is submitted as an appendix to my report for 1912. It 

 is a translation of the same article from which I quoted, the translation 

 in the former case being by Mr. Henry "W. Elliott. 



The Chairman. Is this on the same subject and along the same 

 line ? 



Mr. Clark. I want to take a translation that is not repudiated 

 and is vouched for by Prof. Raphael Zon, a Russian scholar, because 

 Mr. Elliott has now repudiated his own translation. 



Mr. Elliott. I have not. 



The Chairman. I do not want to string this out all the way. You 

 claim you have contradicted Mr. Elliott at several points. What is 

 the use of getting somebody's opinion in here that perhaps does not 

 live any more ? 



