696 INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 



And still worse for Dr. Jordan, this translation quoted was made by Lenhard Stej- 

 neger, one of Dr. Jordan's own associates on the seal islands, in 1896-97. 



There is but one conclusion for any fair mind in the premises. That the Russians 

 did not kill the female seals, is positively stated by the only authority who has been 

 invoked by Dr. Jordan in the premises, and who has been translated at length in Dr. 

 Jordan's final report, and correctly translated, as above cited. 



In this connection it is also passing strange that Dr. Jordan should have gone out 

 of his way to misquote another authority who has explicitly denied killing of female 

 seals by the Russians; on page 25 Jordan's own statement is, "In 1820 Yanowsky, 

 an' agent of the Imperial Government, after an inspection of the fur-seal rookeries, 

 called attention to the practice of killing the young animals and leaving only the 

 adults as breeders." 



He writes: "If any of the young breeders are not killed by autumn they are sure to 

 be killed in the following spring. " 



Unfortunately for Dr. Jordan, he has not quoted Yanovsky correctly. He has de- 

 liberately suppressed the fact as stated by this Russian agent, and put another and 

 entirely different statement in his mouth, witness the following correct quotation of 

 Yanovsky: 



' 'In his report No. 41, of the 25th February, 1820, Mr. Yanovsky in giving an account 

 of his inspection of the operations on the islands of St. Paul and St. George, observes 

 that every year the young bachelor seals are killed and that only the cows, seecatchie, 

 and half seecatch are left to propagate the species. It follows that only the old seals are 

 left, while if any of the bachelors are left alive in the autumn they are sure to be killed 

 the next spring. The consequence is the number of seals obtained diminishes every 

 year, and it is certain that the species will in time become extinct." (Appendix to 

 case of United States Fur Seal Arbitration. Letter No. 6, p. 58, Mar. 5, 1821.) 



Think of this deliberate, studied suppression of the fact that the Russians did not 

 kill the female seals thus made by a " scientist' ' like Dr. Jordan, as above. Why does 

 Dr. Jordan attempt to deceive his Government as to the real cause of that Russian de- 

 cline of the herd between 1800-1834? Why, indeed, when the truth is so easily brought 

 up to confound him? 



He stands convicted out of his own hand of having falsified the record of Russian 

 killing so as to justify the shame and ruin of that work of our own lessees, who are thus 

 shielded by him in his official report to our Government dated February 24, 1898, and 

 published by the Secretary of the Treasury in January, 1898, under title of" Fur Seal 

 Investigations, Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4, 1898. 



The substitution of the word "breeders" by Jordan for the word " bachelors" of 

 Yanovsky, is a guilty attempt by the former, to conceal the truth told by the latter, 

 who declares that no females; only young males were killed by the Russians. 



"Young breeders "' must be males and females, but "young bachelors" can be only 

 males; therefore, Jordan's falsification of Yanovsky was deliberate and studied to 

 deceive as to the Russian record. 



Hexry W. Elliott. 



December 6, 1913. 



Now, here is his "reply," and I want to read it to you, because it is 

 an amazing exhibition. 



Reply to Henry W. Elliott's statement entitled "Dr. Jordan deliberately falsifies 

 the Russian record in re not killing female seals." Copy attached. 



The statement referred to was mailed to "the president of Stanford University," in 

 the official envelope of the "Committee on Expenditures in the Department of Com- 

 merce, House of Representatives, U. S., Washington, D. C." Hence this answer is 

 mailed to each member of that committee. 



The writer was secretary of the Bering Sea Commission of 1896-7, and joint author 

 with Dr. Jordan of the part of the report to which Mr. Elliott takes exception. 



Mr. Elliott says "Dr. Jordan had full knowledge that the Russian killing of seals 



* * * never permitted the killing of female seals." He characterizes as "un- 

 truthful " th'' statement in the report of 1896-7 that even under the Russian-American 

 Company the Russians •still continued to kill males and females alike." The state- 

 ment mentioned applied to the period of Russian control prior to 1835. Mr. Elliott 

 asscri< that it i- "in distinct denial of the only authority he (Dr. Jordan) used," mean- 

 ing Bishop Veniaminof. 



The commission of 18 r this is not a matter which concerns Dr. Jordan alone) 



had two sources of information regarding Veniaminof's writings on the seals. The 

 first of these was a partial translation of the Zapiska article of 1842, published at page 

 140 ff. of Mr. Elliott's Monograph on the Seal Islands. Mr. Elliott gives what purports 

 to be a translation of the Russian bishop's words. This translation was accepted in 



