INVESTIGATION OP THE EUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 629 



In addition to taking the testimony of the natives Mr. Elliott had 

 an opportunity to inspect a couple of thousand of sealskins which were 

 taken before his arrival and without knowledge of his coming. He 

 did, as a matter of fact, examine hundreds of them. After a female 

 skin has been taken from the animal it can still be detected by the 

 present of mammse on the pelt. If Mr. Elliott found any female skins 

 in the catch as a result of his examination of the skins in the salt 

 house when he was there last summer his report is entirely silent as to 

 that important fact. It is reasonable to conclude that if he had found 

 any of these female skins he would not have suppressed the fact and 

 that since he did not report that he had found any he must have found 

 none. 



Thus the charge of killing female seals which was given such wide 

 publicity by Mr. Elliott is found after a searching examination to have 

 had no basis in fact. 



The second charge was that yearling seals or seals of less than 1 

 year of age had been killed. This charge was based wholly upon a 

 series of inductions leading up to the hypothetical conclusion that 

 what was charged was true. In support of it Mr. Elliott assumed 

 from certain measurements made by him many years ago that the 

 length of a yearling seal's body was about 39 inches; that the skin 

 when removed from the body, on which several inches of hide is 

 always allowed to remain at the head after skinning would be about 

 35 inches long and that this skin did not shrink or otherwise change 

 shape after having been taken from the body. Upon these hypotheses 

 he assumed that any salted skin 35 inches in length or less was that of a 

 yearling. 



According to a classification of sealskins published in about 1890 

 by Lampson & Co., salted skins of about 33 inches in length are 

 called small pups and salted skins 30 inches in length extra small pups. 

 Mr. Elliott quoted from the sales catalogues publishing the catches of 

 sealskins for 15 years back to show that many of these skins called by 

 the trade "small pups" and "extra small pups" were in the catches 

 of these years. He therefore claimed before the committee that all 

 small pups and extra small pups were yearling skins, because all of 

 such skins were less than 35 inches in length, the average length he 

 claimed a yearling skin should have. 



The trouble with this argument was that the facts disclosed by 

 an investigation of it did not support it. The whole argument hinged 

 upon the question whether or not a seal skin after bring salted 

 was the same size as when the skin was still on the bed]/. If the 

 salted skin retained the same length as before it was removed from 

 the animal then Mr. Elliott was justified in reaching the conclusion 

 that a 39-inch animal only would produce a salted skin 35 inches in 

 length or less. On the other hand, if the salted skin was much smaller 

 than when on the animal, or if the size of the skin was changed irreg- 

 ularly by salting or skinning then Mr. Elliott's argument failed, 

 because then he could not determine by the size of the salted skin 

 what was the size of the animal from which it was removed. It was 

 found from the evidence that in support of his contention Mr. Elliott 

 had never made any experiments as to what change in the length 

 of a skin occurred after removal or through salting and lie was unable 

 to produce the record of experiments on this point made by others, 

 s j that Mr. Elliott really had no material evidence to produce on this 

 point. He had to depend entirely upon the bare unsupported assump- 



