ALASKA. 
45 
those engaged in this pursuit learned what the laws of nature 
were in respect to the preservation of such a race of animals. 
They learned that they were highly polygamous in their nature, 
and that a certain draft could be taken from the superfluous 
males without sensibly depreciating the enormous numbers of 
the herd. Learning those facts, they gradually established an 
industry upon the islands, removed a considerable number of the 
population of one or more of the Aleutian Islands, and kept them 
permanently there for the purpose of guarding the seals upon the 
islands and taking, at the time suitable for that purpose, such a 
number of superfluous males as the knowledge they had acquired 
taught them could be safely taken. 
Finally, the system which they established grew step by step 
more regular and precise; and sometime—I think I may say in 
the neighborhood of 1845—they had adopted a regular system 
which absolutely forbade the slaughter of females and confined 
the taking to young males under certain ages and to a certain 
annual number. Under that reasonable system, conforming to 
natural laws, the existence of the herd was perpetuated and its 
numbers even largely increased; so that at the time when it 
passed into the possession of the United States, I think I may 
say it was true that the numbers of the herd were then equal 
to, if not greater, than ever had been known since the islands 
were first discovered. A similar system had been pursued by 
the Russians with similar effect upon the Commander Islands, 
possessions of their own on the western side of the Bering Sea. 
The advantage of these results, so beneficial to Russia, so bene¬ 
ficial to mankind, may be more easily perceived by comparing 
them with the results which have flowed from the discovery of 
other homes of the fur seal in other seas. It is well known that 
south of the equator and near the southern extremity of the South 
American continent, there were other islands, Masafuera, Juan 
Fernandez, Falkland Islands, and other places, where there were 
