Identifier: alaskaitshisto00bruc (find matches)
Title: Alaska, its history and resources, gold fields, routes and scenery
Year: 1899 (1890s)
Authors: Bruce, Miner Wait
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, Putnam
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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e expiration of that time theshy animals had returned, sufficiently recuperated toafford a continuous and reliable source of revenue. The art of plucking and dyeing seal skins was inventedby the Chinese. The exact date when this process wasadopted by the English is unknown, but it occurred sometime during the first half of the nineteenth century, as aregular demand for seal skins can be traced from thattime. Shipments directly to New York and Londonwere inaugurated about 1850, and these shipments con-tinued at the rate of from twenty thousand to sixty thou-sand skins per annum, until the transfer of the Russianpossessions to the United States, which occurred in 1867. When the question of acquiring Russian America wasdiscussed in Congress, no particular stress was laid uponthe prospective value of the fur-seal industry, though itwas known to be one of the principal sources of revenueto the Russian-American Company. During the lastdecade of Russian ownership, the agents in charge of the
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LAND AND SEA ANIMALS . 65 Pribilof Islands reported each year that the fur seals wereincreasing in such numbers that the rookeries werecrowded beyond their capacity. Each report was ac-companied by urgent requests to be permitted to killmore seals, to make room for the increasing millions.The fact that it was possible to continue the slaughter atthe rate of one hundred thousand per annum for twentyyears after our purchase, seems to prove that when theUnited States acquired these valuable islands the indus-try was in as prosperous condition as when discovered byPribilof in 1786. The radical restrictions of late years limiting the num-ber of seals to be killed annually to one hundred thou-sand were based upon careful observations and estimates;but the indiscriminate slaughter inaugurated within thepast few years by sealing vessels from British Columbia,which encountered the migrating animals on their way tothe breeding-grounds, and killed males and females alike,has fully justified the

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