St. George and St. Paul islands contain about three hundred and fifty Aleuts, whose sole business is killing and skinning the seals, and afterwards salting and packing the pelts for shipment. They are all in the regular employment of the Commercial Company, which leases the islands. By the terms of the lease from our government, only natives of the Aleutian group of islands can be employed to kill the seals; no whites except the overseers are permitted to remain on the two islands. An agent of the United States occasionally visits them to see that the spirit of the lease is faithfully adhered to; otherwise they are quite isolated from the outer world. Under the protective system, which is presumedly adhered to, the number of seals is said to be on the increase, and the space on the shores which they occupy is enlarged yearly. It has been officially estimated, after actual inspection, that over one million seals are born on these islands every year. It is asserted that double the number of pelts now authorized could safely be taken from the Pribyloff group annually, and it would certainly seem so, when this extraordinary fecundity is realized. But it must also be taken into consideration that man is not the only enemy which the fur-seal has to encounter. When the young ones leave the shore to begin their deep-sea life, they become the prey of many marine cormorants, among which the shark is said to be the most active. This tiger of the ocean does not attack the large, full-grown seals, who are too wary and active for him, but the young ones often fill his capacious maw. The aborigines employed upon the seal islands do not reach a very old age; persons of over fifty years are seldom found among them. Consumption is the most fatal disease which they encounter; this runs its course with singular speed after being once contracted. All attempts of the physicians are in vain; the patient, falling into a condition of hopeless indifference, soon passes away. We were told that the natives of Alaska generally were very difficult to treat medically, ignoring the benefit of medicines, and generally refusing to take them. These semi-savages will not hesitate to resort to incantations to exorcise evil spirits (or disease, which to them is the same thing), but they fear to use the white man’s agent to remove these evil influences. For a number of years the manufacture of oil from seal blubber was followed by the fur company with profit, thus disposing of the carcasses of the animals whose skin had been removed; but oil-making on the seal islands has been discontinued, as being no longer a paying business.