BERING SEA, that part of the North Pacific Ocean between the Aleutian Islands, in 55°, and Bering Strait, in 66° N., by which latter it communicates with the Arctic Ocean. It has on its W. side Kamchatka and the Chukchi coun try, with the Gulf of Anadyr, and on its E. the territory of Alaska, with Norton Sound and Bristol Bay; contains several islands and receives the Yukon river from North America and the Anadyr river from Asia. Fogs are almost per petual in this sea. Ice is formed and melted in the sea every year, the north ern part becoming closed to navigation about the beginning of November. The United States having claimed the ex clusive right of seal fishing in the Bering Sea in virtue of the purchase of Alaska from Russia, and this right having been disputed by the British, it was decided in August, 1893, by an arbitration tribunal, to which the question was referred, that no such right existed, but at the same time regulations for the protection of the fur seal were drawn up and agreed to between the two powers, the chief being the prohibition of seal fishery within the zone of 60 miles round the Pribilof Islands, inclusive of the territorial waters, and the establishment of a close season for the fur seal from May 1 to July 31 inclusive, applying to the part of the Pacific and Bering Sea N. of 55°
N. and E. of the 180th meridian from Greenwich.
In 1894 laws were enacted by both the United States and Great Britain to carry into effect the award of the Bering Sea arbitration of 1893, fixing penalties for illegal sealing, and authorizing, with cer tain limitations, the search and seizure of sealers of one of the nations by the naval and revenue forces of the other nation.
On Jan. 14, 1898, President McKinley submitted to Congress the awards and report of the commission appointed under the terms of a treaty to adjust the claims for compensation due sealers whose vessels had been seized by U. S. cutters prior to the establishment of a closed season in 1890. The bill for the payment was introduced in Congress on April 19, and was passed by the House on June 13, and by the Senate on June 14. It was promptly approved by the President, and the money was paid to Sir Julian Pauncefote, British Ambas sador to the United States, on June 16.