Mr. R. H. Chapel, of New London, Connecticut, whose vessels had visited all the rookeries of the South Pacific, in his written statement before the Committee on Commerce of the House of Representatives, said :

"As showing the progress of this trade in fur-seal skins, and the abuses of its prosecution, resulting in almost total annihilation of the animals in some localities, it is stated on good authority that, from about 1770 to 1800, Kerguelen Land, in the Indian Ocean, yielded to the English traders over 1,000.000 skins; but open competition swept off the herds that resorted there, and since the latter year hardly 100 per annum could be obtained on all its long coast. Afterwards Mas-á-Fuera Island, near Juan Fernandez, was visited, and 50,000 a-year were obtained; but as every one that desired was free to go and kill, the usual result followed-the seals were exterminated at that island, and also at the Galapagos group near by.

"Falkland and Shetland Islands, and South American coasts, near Cape Horn, came next in order; here the seal were very abundant. It is stated that at the Shetlands alone 100.000 per annum might have been obtained and the rookeries preserved, if taken under proper restrictions; but in the eagerness of men they killed old and young, male and female; little pups a few days old, deprived of their mothers, died by thousands on the beaches; carcasses and bones strewed the shores, and this productive fishery was wholly destroyed. It is estimated that in the years 1821 and 1822 no less than 320,000 of these animals were killed at the Shetlands alone. An American captain, describing in after years his success there, says: We went the first year with one vessel and got 1,200; the second year with two vessels, and obtained 30,000; the third year with six vessels, getting only 1,700—all there was left.'

"A small rookery is still preserved at the Lobos Islands, off the River La Plata; this, being carefully guarded under strict regulations by the Government of Buenos Ayres and rented to proper parties, yields about 5,000 skins per annum. As late as the year 1854 a small island, hardly a mile across, was discovered by Americans in the Japan Sea, where about 50,000 seals resorted annually. Traders visited it, and in three years the club and knife had cleaned them all off. Not 100 a season can now be found there."

Honourable C. A. Williams, of Connecticut, who inherited the whaling and sealing business from his father and grandfather, speaking of the seal in the South Pacific, gave the following testimony before the Congressional Committee:—

The history of sealing goes back to about 1790, and from that to the early part of this century. In the earlier period of which I speak there were no seals known in the North Pacific Ocean. Their particular haunt was the South Atlantic. They were discovered by Cook, in his voyages, on the Island of Desolation; by Widdall, in his voyages to the South Pole, on the Island of South Georgia and Sandwichland; and by later voyagers, whose names escape me, in the islands of the South Pacific Ocean. When the number of seals on those islands were first brought to the notice of British merchants, they pursued the hunting of these animals on the Island of Desolation.

The most authentic authority we have about the matter is derived from reports made by these voyagers as to the number of seals taken from those places, and, although they are not entirely accurate, I think they are fully as accurate as could be expected, considering the lapse of time. On the Island of Desolation it is estimated that 1,200,000 fur-seals were taken; from the Island of South Georgia a like number were taken, and from the Island of Mas-á-Fuera probably a greater number were taken. As to the Sandwichland the statistics are not clear, but there can be no doubt that over 500,000 seals were taken from that locality, and in 1820 the Islands of South Shetland, south of Cape Horn, were discovered; and from these islands 320,000 fur-seals were taken in two years. There were other localities from which seals were taken, but no others where they were found in such large numbers.

The cause of the extermination of seals in those localities was the indiscriminate character of the slaughter. Sometimes as many as fifteen vessels would be hanging around these islands awaiting opportunity to get their catch, and every vessel would be governed by individual interests. They would kill everything that came in their way that furnished a skin, whether a cow, a bull, or a middlegrown seal, leaving the young pups just born to die from neglect and starvation. It was like taking a herd of cattle and killing all the bulls and cows and leaving the calves. The extermination was sc complete in these localities that the trade was exhausted, and voyages to those places were abandoned About 1870, nearly fifty years after the discovery of the South Shetland Islands, when the occupation of Alaska by the cession of Russia to the United States of the Behring's Sea was brought about

The Chairman.-I want to interrupt you to ask a question bearing on that point. Were those rookeries in the South Seas never under the protectorate of any Government at all?

The Witness.-Never. I was going to say that when the cession was made by Russia to the United States of this territory, and the subject of the value of fur-seals, or the possible value, was brought to mind, people who had been previously engaged in that business revisited these southern localities after a lapse of nearly fifty years, and no seals were found on the Island of Desolation. These islands have been used as the breeding-place for sea-elephants, and that creature cannot be exterminated on that island, for the reason that certain beaches known as weather beaches" are there. The sea breaks rudely upon these beaches, and it is impossible to land upon them. There are cliffs, something like 300 to 500 feet, of shore ice, and the sea-elephant finds a safe resort on these beaches, and still preserves enough life to make the pursuit of that animal worth following in a small way.

I have vessels there, and have had, myself and father, for fifty or sixty years. But, this is incidental. The Island of South Shetland, and the Island of South Georgia, and the Island of Sandwichland, and the Diegos, off Cape Horn, and one or two other minor points were found to yield more or less seal. In this period of fifty years in these localities seal life had recuperated to such an extent that there was taken from them in the six years from 1870 to 1876 or 1877 perhaps 40,000 skins.

Q. After they had been abandoned for fifty years?-A. Yes; to-day they are again exhausted. The last year's search of vessels in that region-I have the statistics here of a vessel from Stonington from the South Shetland Islands, reported in 1888, and she procured thirty-nine skins as the total result of search on those islands and South Georgia.

One of my own vessels procured sixty-one skins, including eleven pups, as the total result of her

voyage; and, except about Cape Horn, there are, in my opinion, no seals remaining. I do not think that 100 seals could be procured from all the localities mentioned by a close search. Any one of those localities I have named, under proper protection and restrictions, might have been perpetuated as a breeding-place for seals, yielding as great a number per annum as do the islands belonging to the United States.

Now, the trade in those localities is entirely exhausted, and it would be impossible in a century to restock those islands, or bring them back to a point where they would yield a reasonable return for the investment of capital in hunting skins. That, in brief, completes the history of the fur-seal in the South Atlantic Ocean.

Danger of the Extermination of the Alaska Rookeries.

We have already mentioned that the present number of seals on St. Paul and St. George Islands has materially diminished during the last two or three years. The testimony discloses the fact that a large number of British and American vessels, manned by expert Indian seal-hunters, have frequented Behring's Sea and destroyed hundreds of thousands of fur-seals by shooting them in the water, and securing as many of the carcases for their skins as they were able to take on board. The testimony of the Government Agents shows that of the number of seals killed in the water not more than one in seven, on an average, is secured, for the reason that a wounded seal will sink in the sea; so that for every 1,000 sealskins secured in this manner there is a diminution of seal life at these rookeries of at least 7,000. Added to this is the fact that the shooting of a female seal with young causes the death of both. If the shooting is before delivery, that, of course, is the end of both; if after, the young seal dies for want of sustenance.

During the season of 1885 the number of contraband sealskins placed on the market was over 13.000; and in 1886, 25,000; in 1887, 34,000; and in 1888 the number of illicit skins secured by British cruizers was less than 25,000, which number would have been largely increased had not the season been very stormy and boisterous. American citizens respected the law and the published notice of the Secretary of the Treasury, and made no attempt to take seals.

From this it appears that, during the last three years, the number of contraband sealskins placed on the market amounted to over 97,000, and which, according to the testimony, destroyed nearly 750,000 fur-seals, causing a loss of revenue amounting to over 2,000,000 dollars, at the rate of tax and rental paid by the lessee of the Seal Islands.

Limitation: the Lessee forbidden to kill any Female Seal.

The following is an extract from the official Report to Congress :—

The lessee is permitted to kill 100,000 fur-seals on St. Paul and St. George Islands, and no more, and is prohibited from killing any female seal or any seal less than one year old, and from killing any fur-seal at any time except during the months of June, July, September, and October, and from killing such seals by the use of fire-arms or other means tending to drive the seals from said islands, and from killing any seal in the water adjacent to said islands, or on the beaches, cliffs, or rocks where they haul -up from the sea to remain

Further extract from Report:

It is clear to your Committee, from the proof submitted, that to prohibit seal-killing on the Seal Islands, and permit the killing in Behring's Sea, would be no protection; for it is not on the islands where the destruction of seal life is threatened or seals are unlawfully killed, but it is in that part of Behring's Sea lying between the eastern and western limits of Alaska, as described in the Treaty of Cession, through which the seals pass and repass in going to and from their feeding-grounds, some 50 miles south-east of the rookeries, and in their annual migrations to and from the islands.

Extract from Report of L. N. Buynitsky, Agent of the Treasury in 1870, to Honourable Geo. L. Boutwell, Secretary of the Treasury. It will be observed that this Report was made in 1870, before any dispute had arisen with the Canadian sealers:

When the herd has been driven a certain distance from the shore a halt is made, and a sorting of the game as to age, sex, and condition of the fur is effected. This operation requires the exercise of a life-long experience, and is of the outmost importance, as the killing of females, which are easily mistaken for young males, even by the natives, would endanger the propagation of the species.

The same witness, when not an employé of the Treasury, gave testimony on another point in 1889 :

Q. Where are those seals born? Where do the female seals give birth to their young?-4. They are born on the rookeries.

Q. Are they an animal or a fish, or what are they; how do you classify them?-A. They are hotblooded animals born on the land; they are not a fish.

Q. And born on the United States' territory, are they?-A. Yes; all those born on the Islands of of St. Paul and St. George.

Q. That is in United States' territory ?-A. Yes, Sir. "Fisheries" is a misnomer all the way through, and always was.

H. A. Glidden, an Agent of the Treasury Department, was on the Pribylov Islands from May 1882 to June 1885. In describing before the Congressional Committee the mode of killing seals by the lessee of the islands, the following: occurred:

Q. Do they kill any females ?-A. They never kill females. I do not know of but one or two, instances in my experience where a female seal was ever driven out with the crowd.

Q. Do you believe seal life can be preserved without Government protection over them ?-A. I do not.

W. B. Taylor, a Treasury Agent, was asked the same question as to the killing of female seals, and he said that "he had never known but one or two killed by the lessee on the islands, and they by accident." He was further asked as follows:

Q. When they kill the seals in the waters, about what proportion of them do they recover?-A. I do not believe more than one-fourth of them.

Q. The others sink?-A. They shoot them and they sink.

Q. Have you ever noticed any wounded ones that came ashore that have been shot ?--A. No, Sir; I do not think I did.

Q. You do not think, then, that the value of the seal fisheries and the seal rookeries could be preserved under an open policy?—A. No, Sir; I do not. I think if you open it they will be destroyed without question.

Q. Do you think it necessary to protect the seals in the sea and down in their feeding-grounds in the Pacific, if possible, in order to preserve their full value and the perpetuity of seal life? Do you think they ought to be protected everywhere as well as on the rookeries?-A. Yes, Sir; I think they ought to be protected not alone on the rookeries, but on the waters of the Behring's Sea. I do not think it is necessary to go outside of the Behring's Sea, because there is no considerable number of them.

Q. Are they so dispersed in the Pacific that they would not be liable to destruction ?-A. Yes, Sir; they are scattered very much, and no hunters do much hunting in the Pacific, as I understand. Another reason why they should be protected in all the waters of the Behring's Sea is this: a large number of seals that are on the islands of course eat a great many fish every twenty-four hours, and the fish have become well aware of the fact that there are a good many seal on the Seal Islands, and they stay out a longer distance from the islands, and they do not come near the shore. It becomes necessary for the seal themselves, the cows, to go a good distance into the sea in order to obtain food, and it is there where most of the damage is done by these vessels. They catch them while they

are out.

Q. So on the rookeries they go out daily for food?-A. The cows go out every day for food. The bulls do not go; they stay on the island all summer. The cows go 10 and 15 miles, and even further, I do not know the average of it, and they are going and coming all the morning and evening. The sea is black with them round about the islands. If there is a little fog and they get out half-a-mile from shore, we cannot see a vessel-100 yards even. The vessels themselves lay around the islands there where they pick up a good many seal, and there is where the killing of cows occurs when they go ashore. I think this is worse than it would be to take 25,000 more seal on the islands than are now taken. I think there is some damage done in the killing and shooting of the cows, and leaving so many young without their mothers.

Q. Is it your opinion that a larger number of seals may be taken annually without detriment to the rookeries?—A. No, Sir; I would not recommend that. The time may come, but I think that one year with another they are taking all they ought to take, for this reason:

I believe that the capacity of the bull seal is limited, the same as any other animal, and I have very frequently counted from thirty to thirty-five, and even, at one time, forty-two cows with one bull. I think if there were more bulls there would be less cows to one bull, and in that way the increase would be greater than now. While the number of seal in the aggregate is not apparently diminished, and, in fact, there is undoubtedly an increase, yet if you take any greater number of seal than is taken now, this ratio of cows to one bull would be greater, and for that reason there would be a less number of young seals, undoubtedly. I look upon the breeding of the seal as something like the breeding of any other animal, and that the same care, and restriction, and judgment should be exercised in this breeding.

The same witness testified as follows:

Q. What will be the effect upon the seal rookeries if this surreptitious and unlawful killing in the Behring's Sea is to be permitted ?—A. In my judgment, it would eventually exterminate the seal.

Mr. C. A. Williams, of Connecticut, before referred to, testified as follows:

Q. I would like to know-I do not know that it is just the proper time-but I would like to get the idea of those conversant with the habits and nature of the seal, as to what their opinion is upon the effect of the indiscriminate killing of them while they are coming to and going from the islands? A. That is a question which I think most any of us here can answer. If you note the conformation of

the Aleution Islands, which form a wall, and note the gaps through which the seals come from the Pacific Ocean seeking the haunt on these islands, that is the whole point. When they come through these various passes, generally through the Oomnak Pass, the sea is reasonably shallow, and the cows come laden with pups, waiting until the last moment in the water to go ashore to deliver, because they can roll and scratch and help themselves better than if they haul out when heavy with pup, so they stay in the water playing about until their instinct warns them it is time to go ashore, and during that time they are massed in great quantities in the sea.

Q. Now, in that view of it, the destruction of them there is almost practically the same as the destruction on the islands ?-A. Yes, Sir.

Q. And the conditions are as bad?-A. Yes, Sir; and often worse, for this reason: If you kill a pup you destroy a single life, but in killing a cow you not only destroy the life that may be, but the source from which life comes hereafter, and when they are killed there in the water by a shot-gun or a spear the proportion saved by the hunters is probably not one in seven. That was their own stimate; that out of eight shots they would save one seal and seven were lost. If they were killed n the land, those seven would go towards filling out their score.

The same witness also testified as follows:

Q. Have you instructed your agents to comply strictly with the Laws and Regulations of the Treasury Department?-4. In every case; yes.

Q. Do you kill seals with fire-arms at the islands, or do you prohibit that?-A. No, Sir, never; it is not allowed by the Act.

Q. Do you kill the female seals or allow them to be killed?-4. Never with our knowledge.

Q. Do you kill any during the month of August for their skins ?-A. Not a seal; no.

Q. Do you kill any seals under 2 years old ?-A. Not that we are aware of.

The same witness further testified:

Q. Now, I would like to have your opinion as to the insufficiency of the present measures taken by the Government for the protection of the rookeries, and your opinion as to whether any additional safeguards are necessary for their protection.-A. That the present measures are somewhat insufficient is shown by the fact that for the last three or four years there have been increased depredations annually upon the rookeries. More seals are taken within the limits of Behring's Sea. Formerly seals were only taken outside of Behring's Sea as they passed up to British Columbia, and off the mouth of Puget Sound, in the waters of the Pacific Ocean. That was a legitimate place to take them, and one against which no objection could be raised. Seals which come up that way enter through the passages of the Aleutian Islands nearest to the mainland, and it has always been the custom in British Columbia and our Sound to intercept the seal and get what they could. Within the last two or three years marauders have followed them through the passages into Behring's Sea, and have with guns and spears taken the seals as they lay upon the water, as I stated before, waiting to haul ashore and have their pups. The cows are heavy with pup, and they do not like to go ashore until the last moment, and so they lie there in the water, and this affords an opportunity for these marauders to shoot and spear them. This is done by gangs of Indians which they have. They hire gangs of Indians and take them with them. The effects of this shooting is not alone upon the seals which are at that point, but also upon those all around, and it startles them and raises a suspicion in their minds, and there is a general feeling of disturbance such as you notice among cattle when bears are about or something of that kind.

And again:

Q. Now, Mr. Williams, should it be finally ascertained and considered by our Government that, under the Treaty of Cession by which we acquired Alaska from Russia, and under the law of nations, the United States does possess and has absolute dominion and jurisdiction over Behring's Sea and the waters of Alaska, would you think it would be a wise policy to adhere to and maintain that jurisdiction and dominion complete, or would it be wiser to declare it the high sea in the legal sense?-A. In the light of to-day I should say keep what you have got.

Q. Hold it as a closed sea?-A. Fisheries within those limits are yet to be developed, and it would seem to be very unwise to open up possible fishery contentions which are very likely to arise by such a course.

Q. You think that would be, then, the wiser policy to maintain such jurisdiction and dominion as we have, and to concede to the vessels of other nations such rights as are not inconsistent with the interests which our nation has there and which need protection ?-A. Exactly that; the right of transit through the sea wherever they please, but positive protection to seal life.

Q. You do not think it would be wise to grant anything else?-A. No, Sir; not at all.

Q. And in no case to surrender the power of policing the sea?-A. No, Sir; under no circum

stances.

Q. Could that power and jurisdiction be surrendered and yet preserve this seal life on these rookeries and the value of our fisheries that may be developed there?-A. Only with very great risk, because, if that right is surrendered, and thereby the right to police the sea, the depredations that are made upon the seal wherever they may be found, wherever men thought they could carry them out without being taken in the act, would be carried out. So it would be difficult in regard to the fisheries. Wherever they could kill these seals they certainly would be there, and it would be impossible to prevent them.

In the statements and statistics relative to the fur-seal fisheries submitted by C. A. Williams in 1888 to the Committee of Congress on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, appears the following:

Examination of the earliest records of the fur-seal fishery shows that from the date of man's recognition of the value of the fur the pursuit of the animal bearing it has been unceasing and relentless. Save in the few instances to be noted hereafter, where Governments have interposed for the purpose of protecting seal life, having in view benefits to accrue in the future, the animal has been wantonly slaughtered, with no regard for age, sex, or condition. The mature male, the female heavy with young, the pup, dependent for life on the mother, each and all have been indiscriminately killed or left to die of want. This cruel and useless butchery has resulted in complete extermination of the fur-seal from localities which were once frequented by millions of the species; and, so far as these localities are concerned, has obliterated an industry which a little more enlightened selfishness might have preserved in perpetuity to the great benefit of all ranks of civilized society. Nothing less than stringent laws, with will power to enforce them against all violators, can preserve for man's benefit the remnant of a race of animals so interesting and so useful.

The most valuable "rookery," or breeding-place, of these animals ever known to man is now in the possession of the United States. How it has been cared for in former years and brought to its present state of value and usefulness will be shown later on. But the matter of its preservation and perpetuation intact is the important question of the moment, and that this question may be considered intelligently the evidence is here presented of the wanton destruction that has befallen these animals when left unprotected by the law to man's greed and selfishness, which, it is fair to say, is all that could be expected from the unlicensed hunter, whose nature seeks individual and immediate gain, with no regard for a future in which he has no assurance of personal advantage.

The following statistics are gathered from the journals of early navigators, and such commercial records as are now available are submitted.

Kerguelen Land.-An island in Southern Indian Ocean, discovered about 1772. The shores of this island were teeming with fur-seal when it first became known. Between the date of its discovery and the year 1800 over 1,200,000 seal-skins were taken by the British vessels from the island, and seal life thereon was exterminated.

Crozetts.-The Crozett Islands, in same ocean and not far distant, were also visited and hunted over and the seal life there totally exhausted.

Mas-á-Fuera.-An island in Southern Pacific Ocean, latitude 38° 48' south, longitude 80° 34' west, came next in order of discovery, and from its shores in a few years were gathered and shipped 1,200,000 fur-seal skins.

Delano, chapter 17, p. 306, says of Mas-á-Fuera :

"When the Americans came to this place in 1797 and began to make a business of killing seals, there is no doubt but there were 2,000,000 or 3,000,000 of them on the island. I have made an estimate of more than 3,000,000 that have been carried to Canton from thence in the space of seven years. I have carried more than 100,000 myself, and have been at the place when there were the people of fourteen ships or vessels on the island at one time killing seals."

South Shetlands.-In 1821-23 the South Shetland Islands, a group nearly south from Cape Horn, became known to the seal-hunters, and in two years over 320,000 seals were killed and their skins shipped from these islands.

South Georgia.-Later still, seal were found on the Island of South Georgia, South Atlantic Ocean, and from this locality was obtained over 1,000,000 of fur-seal, leaving the beaches bare of seal life.

Cape Horn.-From the coasts of South America and about Cape Horn many thousands of fur-seal have been taken, and of the life once so prolific there nothing is now left save such remnants of former herds as shelter on rocks and islets almost inaccessible to the most daring hunter.

This record shows the nearly complete destruction of these valuable animals in southern seas. Properly protected, Kerguelen Land, Mas-á-Fuera, the Shetlands, and South Georgia might have been hives of industry, producing vast wealth, training-schools for hardy seamen, and furnishing employment for tens of thousands in the world's markets where skins are dressed, prepared, and distributed. But the localities were no man's land, and no man cared for them or their products save as through destruction they could be transmitted into a passing profit.

The seal life of to-day available for commercial purposes is centred in three localities:

1. The Lobos Islands, situated in the mouth of the River La Plata, owned and controlled by the Uruguay Republic, and by that Government leased to private parties for the sum of 6,000 dollars per annum and some stipulated charges. The annual product in skins is about 12,000. The skins are of rather inferior quality. Insufficient restrictions are placed upon the lessees in regard to the number of skins permitted to be taken annually, consequently there is some waste of life; nevertheless, the measure of protection allowed has insured the preservation of the rookery, and will continue so to do.

2. Komandorski Couplet, which consists of the Islands of Copper and Behring, near the coast of Kamchatka, in that portion of Behring's Sea pertaining to Russia. These islands yield about 40,000 skins per annum, of good quality, and are guarded by carefully restrictive Rules as to the killing of seal, analogous to the Statutes of the United States relative to the same subject. The right to take seals upon them is leased by the Russian Government to an Association of American citizens, who also hold the lease of the islands belonging to the United States, and are thus enabled to control and direct the business in fur-seal skins for the common advantage and benefit of all parties in interest. These islands can hardly be said to have been "worked" at all for salted sealskins prior to the cession of Alaska by Russia to the United States, and the United States' Government now profits by the industry to the extent of the duty of 20 per cent. collected on the "dressed skins" returned