INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 741 



was impossible. If you had a little gathering of, perhaps, 100 or 200 

 in such a place, you could step back and they would start — one would 

 start out, then another, and so on. If you were patient and would 

 wait, they would start out and you could count them. 



Mr. Stephens. What was the age of those pups ? 



Mr. Elliott. Oh, they were about 6 weeks or 2 months old. 



Mr. Patton. How many seals were on the islands then ? 



Mr. Elliott. When I was there then ? 



Mr. Patton. Yes. 



Mr. Elliott. In those days there were over a million pups on all 

 the rookeries ; of all classes there were at least 4,700,000. 



Mr. Patton. About 10 or 12 times as many as there are now? 



Mr. Elliott. Yes; 20 times times as many. 



Mr. Patton. And that made quite a difference in the counting ? 



Mr. Elliott. Oh, yes. Now, I want to come back to the point. 

 You are talking about the "difference in counting." Now, there are 

 physical features, Mr. Chairman, on the rookeries, natural features 

 through the lay of the land, that make it not only difficult but impos- 

 sible to drive and to count them, that is, where these pups are gath- 

 ered to-day as the rookeries have shrunken right down to the edge 

 of the sea, and where they lay in pockets between huge rough bowlders 

 and deep crevices and up above them high shelves. You can not get 

 down in among them and drive them up; you can not by any possi- 

 bility get them to move; you have got to haul them out from the 

 rocks and crevices and stand right over them and count them as they 

 are huddled up in masses. And it at once becomes an " estimate," not 

 an "accurate count" of every seal. I have never contended that a 

 man could not go in that way and estimate the number of pups: but 

 no living man ever "accurately counted" the pups, all of them, on 

 those islands, and no man can do it. 



You can get them to move in certain places, as I have said : hut you 

 can not move them in all the places to-day, any more than you could 

 when 1 was there away back in 1872, because the physical difficulties 

 are there just the same. The structure of the shore and the lay of 

 the rocks is such that you can not get them up to move in any direc- 

 tion. You have got to get right down in among them, and haul them 

 up, or over, or you have to push them around. And, gentlemen, that 

 is all nonsense. It is not necessary to know the exact numbers of 

 those seals. If you could count every pup, it would not do you any 

 good. You can come approximately and sensibly to a general idea. 

 You know you have got down to the dregs to-day, and you are bound 

 to come to that idea, as we did last summer. A man can go over 

 every foot of the ground as we went over it and as we charted and 

 described it; and he can see from station to station and from point 

 to point on the maps as we have put them here, and if there are more 

 he will see them, and if there are less he will notice them. Any man 

 of common sense can do it. It does not make any difference whether 

 there are 5,000, 10,000, or 20,000; in the aggregate it does not 

 amount to anything. There must be a million pups there before the 

 surplus male life that we can draw upon, is safely established. Then 

 we can go in, from past experience, Mr. Chairman, and take 40,000, 

 50,000; or 60,000 choice young male seals annually, into the indefinite 

 future 



Mr. Stephens. Of what age? 



