54o 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



for fresh abalones yet in a dried state many are shipped to China. 

 After being gathered from the rocks by the diver and taken into camp, 

 the shells are removed and the abalones thrown into vats of salt water 

 and left for two or three days. In this manner, the pigmented mantle 

 fringe is removed and the meat preserved. The abalones are next 

 washed in large tubs by means of wooden paddles and then cooked for 

 one half hour in water almost at the boiling temperature not only for 

 sterilization, but to give the meat the desired rounded shape. With 

 dip-nets the Japanese workmen remove the abalones to baskets and 



Meat of the Green Abalone Drying in the Sunshine at San Clemente Island. 



carry them to the drying frames, where they are laid out in trays in 

 the sunshine. After four or five days, or longer, if the temperature 

 falls, the partly dried abalones are cooked in water for the second time 

 for one hour. Next they are smoked in charcoal smoke for from 

 twelve to twenty-four hours, and then for the third time placed in boil- 

 ing water mainly for rinsing. Now the} r are dried for a period of six 

 weeks and after a final cleansing bath in luke-warm water made ready 

 for shipment. During the process of drying the meat loses nine tenths 

 of its original weight. While hard and tough, like dried beef, it may 

 be sliced with a sharp knife and eaten with relish. When dried the 

 meat brings from twelve to fourteen cents a pound for the green and 

 corrugated species, and from eight to ten cents for the black abalone. 

 Most of the dried abalone goes to China and there finally, at retail, 

 brings seventy-five cents per pound. A camp of fourteen Japanese fish- 

 ermen brings in thirty tons, or more, of the fresh abalone in a month. 

 There is considerable business in canning abalone for the California 

 markets as well as for New York and Honolulu. The abalone of Japan, 



