arctic and subarctic Alaska can support 9,000,000 reindeer, furnishing a supply of food, clothing, and means of transportation to a population of a quarter of a million. Providence has adapted the reindeer, continues Dr. Jackson, to the peculiar conditions of arctic life, and it furnishes the possibilities of large and increasing commercial industries. The flesh is considered a great delicacy, whether fresh or cured. The untanned skin makes the best clothing for the climate of Alaska, and when tanned is the best leather for the bookbinder, upholsterer, and glove maker. The hair is in great demand, by reason of its wonderful buoyancy, in the construction of life-saving apparatus. The horns and hoofs make the best glue known to commerce. With Alaska stocked with this valuable animal, enterprises would be developed amounting to millions of dollars annually.

Reindeer will also be found very useful in transportation. Dogs have been used for this purpose, but they are slow and must be burdened with the food for their own maintenance. Provisions and freight brought from the south and landed in Alaska are with great difficulty transported to the mining regions. During the winter of 1895-96, Dr. Jackson says, mongrel Indian dogs cost $100 to $200 each for transportation purposes, and the freight charges ranged from 15 to 20 cents per pound. Trained reindeer make in a day two or three times the distance covered by a dog team, and at the end of the journey, can be turned loose to gather their support from the moss always accessible to them. One drawback to their introduction appears to be a disease which attacks the hoof, due to the damp soil. There are now five herds in Alaska, one at Cape Prince of Wales, one at Cape Nome, two at Golovin Bay, and the central Government herd at the Teller reindeer station, Port Clarence, including 1,175 head.

VIII.

The Fur Seal and Other Fisheries.

Mr. James C. Carter, in his oral argument on behalf of the United States, before the Tribunal of Arbitration, at Paris, 1893, gives the following concise sketch of the fur-seal controversy: "During most of the eighteenth century, as all are aware, the efforts and ambitions of various European powers were directed toward the taking possession, the settlement, and the colonization of the temperate and tropical parts, of the American Continent. In those efforts, Russia seems to have taken a compara

tively small part, if any part at all. Her enterprise and ambi

tion were attracted to these northern seas, seas which border upon the coasts which in part she already possessed, the Siberian coast of Bering Sea. From that, coast explorations were made by enterprising navigators belonging to that nation, until the whole of Bering Sea was discovered, and the coasts on all its sides explored. The Aleutian Islands, forming its southern boundary, were discovered and explored, and a part of what is called the Northwest Coast of the American Continent, south of the Alaskan Peninsula and reaching south as far as the fifty-fourth or fiftieth degree of north latitude, was also explored by Russian navigators, and establishments were formed upon it in certain places. The great object of Russia in these enterprises and explorations was to reap for herself the sole profit and the sole benefit which could be derived from these remote and icebound regions; namely, that of the fur-bearing animals which inhabited them and which were gathered by the native inhabitants. To obtain for herself

the benefit of those animals and of the trade with the natives who were engaged in gathering them that constituted the main object of the original enterprises prosecuted by Russian navigators. They had at a very early period discovered what we call the Commander Islands on the western side of the Bering Sea, which were then, as they are now, one of the principal resorts and breeding places of the fur seals. They were carrying on a very large, or a considerable, industry in connection with those animals upon those islands.

Prior to the year 1787, one of their navigators, Captain Pribilof, had observed very numerous bodies of fur seals making their way northward through the passes of the Aleutian chain. Whither they were going he knew not, but, from his knowledge of the habits of the seals in the region of the Commander Islands, he could not but suppose that there was, somewhere north of the Aleutian chain in the Bering Sea, another great breeding place and resort for these animals. He therefore expended much labor in endeavoring to discover these resorts, and in the year 1786, I think, on one of his voyages, he suddenly found himself in the presence of that tremendous roar—a roar almost like that of Niagara, it is said— which proceeds from the countless multitudes of animals upon the islands. He knew then that the object for which he was seeking had been obtained; and waiting until the fog had lifted, he discovered before him the islands to which his name was afterwards given. That was in 1786. Immediately following that discovery many Russians, sometimes individually and sometimes associated in companies, resorted to those islands, which were uninhabited, and made large captures of seals from them. The mode of taking them was by an indiscriminate slaughter of males and females; and of course, it was not long before the disastrous effects of that method became apparent. They were greatly reduced in numbers, and at one or more times, seemed to be upon the point almost of commercial extermination. By degrees,

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 beneficial 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

seals in almost equal multitudes. They were on uninhabited islands. They were in places where no protection could be extended against the capture of them. They were in places where no system of regulations limiting drafts which might be made upon them could be established, and the consequence was that in a few short years, they were practically exterminated from every one of such haunts and have remained ever since practically, in a commercial point of view, exterminated, except in some few places over which the authority of some power has been exercised, and where regulations have been adopted more or less resembling those adopted upon the Pribilof Islands, and by which means the race has to a certain extent, although comparatively small, been preserved.

That was the condition of things when these islands passed into the possession of the United States under the treaty, between that Government and Russia, of 1867. At first, upon the acquisition by the United States Government, its authority was not immediately established and, consequently, this herd of seals was exposed to the indiscriminate ravages of individuals who might be tempted thither by their hope of gaining a profit; and the result was that in the first year, something like 240,000 seals were taken, and although some discrimination was attempted and an effort was made to confine the taking, as far as possible, to males only, yet those efforts were not in every respect successful. That great draft thus irregularly and indiscriminately made upon them had undoubtedly a very unfavorable effect; but the following year, the United States succeeded in establishing its authority and at once readopted the system which had been up to that time pursued by Russia and which had been followed by such advantageous results.

In addition to that, and for the purpose of further insuring the preservation of the herd, the United States Government resorted to national legislation. Laws were passed, the first of them as