[367] The number of these animals killed on Behring Island is shown by the following statement given me by Mr. Henry. W. Elliot:
In the Year In the Year In the Year
1867 27,500 1872 29,318 1877 21,532
1868 12,000 1873 30,396 1878 31,340
1869 24,000 1874 31,292 1879 42,752
1870 24,000 1875 36,274 1880 48,504
1871 3,614 1876 26,960
During the eighteen years from 1862 to 1880 there have thus been shipped from Behring Island 389,462 skins. The catch on the Pribylov Islands has been still larger. These islands were discovered in 1786, but the number of animals killed there is not known for the first ten years; it is only known that it was enormously large. In the years 1797-1880—that is in eighty-four years—over three-and-a-half millions of skins have been exported from these islands. In recent years the catch has increased so that in each of the years from 1872 to 1880, 99,000 animals might have been killed without inconvenience.
[368] The traits here given of the sea-bear's mode of life are mainly taken from Henry W. Elliot's work quoted above.
[369] Elliott (loc. cit. p. 150) remarks that not a single self-dead seal is to be found in the "rookery," where there are so many animals that they probably die of old age in thousands. This may be explained by the seals, when they become sick, withdrawing to the sea, and forms another contribution to the question of the finding of self-dead animals to which I have already referred (vol. i. p. 322).
[370] According to a statement by Mr. Giebnitski, tertiary fossils and coal seams are also to be found on Behring Island, the former north of the colony in the interior, the latter at the beach south of Behring's grave. Also in the neighbourhood of the colony the volcanic rock-masses are under-stratified by thick sandy beds.
[371] The first European who welcomed us after the completion of the North-east passage was a Fin now settled in California, from Björkboda works in Kimito parish, in which I had lived a great deal when a youth. He was sent by the Alaska Company to do some work on Behring Island. As we steamed towards the colony he rowed to meet us, and saluted us with the cry "ar det Nordenskiöld?" ("Is it Nordenskiöld?") His name was Isak Andersson.