CANNING SALMON 343 



men stand with trays ready to gather up the cans and carry 

 them over to the testers, whose business it is to determine 

 whether the cans are absolutely air tight or not. For this 

 purpose a large number of cans are set in a strap-iron 

 crate, which is lowered into a tank of water. If bubbles 

 rise from any can, it evidently is not tight, and is removed 

 and another one put in its place. In this way five, ten, or 

 twenty cans may be taken from the crate, which is then 

 lifted out and carried over to the great boilers, into which 

 crates full of cans are rolled and where they are cooked 

 by steam for an hour. 



The defective cans are passed over to the solderers and 

 by them carefully examined; the holes are soldered up by 

 hand and the cans then go back to the testers. 



After the cooking process the cans are gone over again 

 to see whether any are defective, and then are stacked up 

 in great piles on the floor. From these piles they are 

 taken to racks, ranged over tanks of shellac, and when one 

 of these racks is full, by a simple device its contents are 

 dipped into the tank beneath, lifted out, and left there to 

 drain. The shellac soon dries; then the cans are removed 

 from the rack and again stacked up on the floor, where 

 the final operation of putting on the labels is performed. 

 When this has been done they are ready for casing, forty 

 eight one-pound cans going into a case. 



The salmon of Alaska, numerous as they have been and 

 in some places still are, are being destroyed at so whole- 

 sale a rate that before long the canning industry must 

 cease to be profitable, and the capital put into the can- 

 neries must cease to yield any return. 



This destruction of salmon comes about through the 

 competition between the various canneries. Their greed 

 is so great that each strives to catch all the fish there are, 

 and all at one time, in order that its rivals may secure as 

 few as possible. With their steam tugs, their crews of 



