126 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



used by manufacturers in the United States. Good quality of pearl 

 shell, especially of the selected Haliotis, is now cited at over a dollar 

 a pound for fine buttons and pearl jewelry. Only the Haliotis shell is 

 the product of our own shores, the others being from Mexican waters. 



Table 1. — Invertebrate products shipjwd hij sea and rail'from San Francisco, Cal., in 1883. 



Table 2 shows the exports of certain sorts of fishery jjroducts by rail 

 and sea, and the above notes in regard to destination of railway freight 

 apply also to this table. The same difficulties of classification also ap- 

 pear here. 



Fish unspecified, canned fish, and dry fish are chiefly cod products; 

 canned salmon seems to be always so specified. "Fish bones" go to 

 China for manure. " Fish wings " are the lateral expansions of the skate, 

 which make a gelatinous soup ; '• fish siuews " are a kind of isinglass ; 

 " Chinese goods" are the male organs of the sea-lion, dried, used as an 

 aphrodisiac ; the galls are used in cleaning silk ; all these are exclu- 

 sively prepared and shipi)ed by and for the Chinese. 



Much of the oil shipped was unspecified ; the amount of " fish oil " 

 given is only that specified to be such ; the total was perhaps twice as 

 much more. Of walrus ivory 31,120 pounds were received in 1883. It 

 is now extremely high, quoted at $4 and $4.50 in New York, though the 

 valuation of the shii)ping list is only $1 per pound. Two hundred and 

 eighty barrels of walrus oil were taken. 



Of whale products not included in the table there were 1,208 barrels 

 of sperm oil, 11,917 barrels of Avhale oil, and 102,244 pounds of whale- 

 bone obtained by the fleet of 1883. Oil works for refining the catch 

 have been recently established in San Francisco, and but little of the 

 oil will hereafter come east. 



The canned salmon statistics represent the movement at the port but 

 not the total catch, much being shipped from the Columbia Eiver and 

 Victoria. Of 155, 000 cases of Alaska salmon canned in 1883 only 

 36,000 were shipped from Sau Francisco. The movement in canned 

 salmon will be largely decreased hereafter, as the Northern Pacific Hail- 

 way will now ship and control the movement of all salmon bound east 

 by rail from the Columbia, leaving to San Francisco and the two other 



