yields alone a handsome rate of interest on the entire purchase-money expended for the ownership of all Alaska. It is frequently urged with great persistency, by misinformed and malicious authority, that the lessees can and do take thousands of skins in excess of the law, and this catch in excess is shipped _sub rosa_ to Japan from the Pribylov Islands. To show the folly of such a move on the part of the Company, if even it were possible, I will briefly recapitulate the conditions under which the skins are taken. The natives of St. Paul and St. George do themselves, in the manner I have indicated, all the driving and skinning of the seals for the company. No others are permitted or asked to land upon the islands to do this work, so long as the inhabitants of the islands are equal to it. They have been equal to it and they are more than equal to it. Every skin taken by the natives is counted by themselves, as they get forty cents per pelt for that labor, and, at the expiration of each day’s work in the field, the natives know exactly how many skins have been taken by them, how many of these skins have been rejected by the company’s agent because they were carelessly cut and damaged in skinning—usually about three-fourths of one per cent. of the whole catch—and they have it recorded every evening by those among them who are charged with the duty. Thus, were one hundred and one thousand skins taken, instead of one hundred thousand allowed by law, the natives would know it as quickly as it was done, and they would, on the strength of their record and their tally, demand the full amount of their compensation for the extra labor; and were any ship to approach the islands, at any hour, these people would know it at once, and would be aware of any shipment of skins that might be attempted. It would then be the common talk among the three hundred and ninety-eight inhabitants of the two islands, and it would be a matter of record, open to any person who might come upon the ground charged with investigation. Furthermore, these natives are constantly going to and from Oonalashka, visiting their relations in the Aleutian settlements, hunting for wives, etc. On the mainland they have intimate intercourse with bitter enemies of the company, with whom they would not hesitate to talk over the whole state of affairs on the islands, as they always do; for they know nothing else and think of nothing else and dream of nothing else. Therefore, should anything be done contrary to the law, the act could and would be reported by these people. The Government, on its part, through its four agents stationed on these islands, counts these skins into the ship, and one of their number goes down to San Francisco upon her. There the collector of the port details experts of his own, who again count them all out of the hold, and upon that record the tax is paid and the certificate signed by the Government.