THE RUSSIAN FUR-SEAL ISLANDS. 
93 
The original lease stipulated a price of 2 silver rubles ($1.33) per skin accepted 
by the company, but in a subsequent supplementary contract the tax, from 1877 on, 
was reduced to 1.75 rubles (|1.17) for the first 30,000 skins. The natives received for 
their work 1 rnble (6(!| cents) per skin for the first 30,000, and one-half ruble (33^ 
cents) for each skin over 30,000. The company had to pay a yearly reiital of 5,000 
rubles, and to contribute a considerable amount toward the su))port of the Jiatives.’ 
There being no serviceable buildings left by the old company, Hutchinson, Kohl, 
Pliilippeus & Co. had to build a number of houses on both islands to accommodate 
their goods and their men. Salt-houses were erected on all the rookeries, and near 
each a small frame-hut for occupancy by the company’s “sealer” during the killing 
season. In the main village on Bering Island several large stores and warehouses, a 
cow-stable, boat-house, bath-house, besides two dwelling-houses were built, as well as 
similar though somewhat smaller structures in the main village on Copper Island. 
These are all frame-houses built of California or Puget Sound lumber by an American 
head carpenter with the assistance of native workingmen. 
Although under no legal obligation to do so, the company gradually built and 
liresented to nearly all the families on both islands commodious frame-houses, mostly 
with 4 rooms, similarly built, the natives receiving full title to them. 
By careful management the seal rookeries, which at the beginning of the com- 
pany’s term scarcely yielded 30,000 skins annually, toward the end produced about 
50,000 a year, the annual average between 1880 and 1889 being nearly 45,000. Among 
the entries in the diaries of the company’s agents during this period are many like 
the following: “Natives say there are a good many female seals this year, and holos- 
tiaks, too” (Bering Island, July 23, 1877). “Assistant Starshena (chief) has been on 
South Rookery; reports that both holostiaks and females are double in quantity as 
has been before, but not many old bulls. On the North Rookery there are more seals, 
too” (Bering Island, August 12, 1877). “Natives report good many thousand seals 
more this year than ever before” (Bering Island, August 2, 1880). 
The lease of Hutchinson, Kohl, Philippens & Co. expired in Febrnary, 1891, and 
as the new lease was awarded to a new company, the old company’s steamer Alek- 
sander II was sent, early in the year to take off the fall catcli of 1890, consisting of 
5,800 skins. 
The new company, into the hands of which the sealing industry of the Com- 
mander Islands and Tiuleni now passed, was incorporated in St. Petersburg under 
the name “Russkoye Tovarishtchestvo Kotikovikh Promislof,” ^ or the “Russian 
Seol Skin Company,” as the name of the firm is officially rendered in English. 
By the new contract the mutual relationship of the government, the natives, and 
the company was materially changed, considerable power being placed in the hands 
of the administrat'^r, while the direct dealings of the company with the natives were 
greatly reduced. The gradual americanization of the natives under the regime of 
Hutchinson, Kohl, Philippens & Co. was undoubtedly distasteful to at least one of the 
inspectors, whose ooiuion with the St. Petersburg authorities must have been of great 
weight, as there is now a manifest tendency toward a rerussili cation of the business 
and its methods. 
‘The text of the contr.aot, witli supplement, is printed in Shornik Glavn. Off. Doknm. Upravl. 
Vost. Sihir., iii, ii, Ai>pend., pji. 1-8. 
“Russian Company for Fur-Seal Hunting (lit. transL). 
