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



Mr. McGuire. Do you know whether Mr. Elliott was fighting that 

 confirmation % 



Mr. Clark. I understood, indirectly, that he w?*s; but I have no 

 very positive information about it. 



Mr. McGuire. Now, you say that Senator Burnham said that no 

 one had authority to use a franking privilege with his frankable 

 envelopes 1 



,Mr. Clark. That was the purport of his telegram. 



Mr. McGuire. And that the matter franked to you in writing was 

 in the handwriting of Mr. Henry W. Elliott ? 



Mr. Clark. Yes, sir. 



Mr. McGuire. In the envelope of Senator Burnham % 



Mr. Clark. Yes, sir. 



Mr. McGuire. And franked ? 



Mr. Clark. Franked, yes. The envelope, of course, and the 

 document in it. 



Mr. McGuire (interposing). Yes; and those documents are now 

 in the hands of Secretary Redfield ? 



Mr. Clark. Yes. 



Mr. McGuire. Do you regard branding as a feasible method of 

 marking ? 



Mr. Clark. I do. 



Mr. McGuire. You said something about 1,060 dead pups which 

 you found in 1912. How do you know that the 1,060 dead pups you 

 found in 1912 and the 1,465 that you found in 1913 were for the most 

 part trampled ? I think you said they were trampled. 



Mr. Bruckner. Pardon me; may f ask a question there? 



Mr. McGuire. Certainly. 



Mr. Bruckner. Is the hide or skin of a dead pup as good as the hide 

 or skin of a seal that was slaughtered ? 



Mr. Clark. No; it is not. The pup is born with a black coat of 

 hair only, and it sheds that coat after about two months. The fur 

 starts later and the pup grows a new coat of silver-gray hair, which 

 is the permanent winter coat. 



Mr. Bruckner. That is what I wanted to know. 



Mr. McGuire. Now, you can answer my question. 



Mr. Clark. Well, in 1912 Mr. M. C. Marsh was chief naturalist on 

 the fur seal islands. He and I were specially charged with investiga- 

 tion of mortality among the pups. There has been a good deal of 

 difference of opinion regarding the causes of natural mortality. In 

 1896 we found 1 1 ,000 dead pups on the rookeries, and we found in 1897 

 that one of the large contributing causes was the hookworm, which 

 was assigned as the chief cause of the death of pups on sandy areas. 



In 1896 we had thought trampling by fighting bulls was the impor- 

 tant cause, because in that year there was a tremendous amount of 

 fighting, and we did not know or did not get at the subject early 

 enough to determine about the worm. In 1912 we were required to 

 find whether the worm was still in existence or not, and then determine 

 what were the other causes, in so far as it was possible. As the herd 

 was then small, we were able to get down to facts. We discovered 

 immediately a new cause of death operating among the pups — I mean 

 new to us. It was that many of the pups were smothered at the 

 instant of birth. We determined that by the fact that the large 

 intestine was full of prenatal fetal matter, and the lungs, not having 



