262 PEOCEEDIXGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Tlie Hndsou's Bay Company salt a great quantity of these fisli for 

 export. They are simply put into casks or butts when first caught, and 

 lightly salted. After remaining two or three days a brine is formed. 

 They are washed in this brine, resalted, and packed in tight barrels, 

 casks, or kits. For smoking, they are allowed to remain in brine a day 

 or twD, then strung on slender sticks, which-are passed through the eyes, 

 and hung in the smoke. When freshly smoked they have a bright 

 golden appearance, much like red herrings, and are most delicious eat- 

 ing, but they are so excessively fat that they will not keep unless they 

 are smoked quite dry. This is a tedious process, and turns the skin a 

 dull dusty color. 



There is a second run of Eulachon in ISTass River towards the end of 

 June, but the quality is inferior, and but little grease is made from them. 



The Eulachon come suddenly in countless myriads into Kass Eiver, 

 and after spawning depart as suddenly. They evidently pass the re- 

 mainder of the year in the deep water south of the Aleutian Islands, and 

 make their appearance almost simultaneously in Cook's Inlet and Cross 

 Sound, Alaska, where they are very abundant, and in Nass Eiver. They 

 make their apv)earance in Eraser's Eiver a few weeks later, but are not 

 as fat or as plentiful as they are farther north. 



As a remedial agent, Eulachon oil is considered by some of the best 

 authorities who have tested it as equal to cod-liver oil. Others who 

 hav'e tested its effects only among Indians are in doubt of its efticacy. 

 But it should be borne in mind that the Indians of the coast, who live 

 exclusively on a fish diet, and on the algse and other products of the 

 ocean, rich in iodine, bromine, and phosphates, are not so easily affected 

 by cod liver or Eulachon oil as white people who reside in the interior, and 

 partake of the usual regimen of civilized life. Hence, some persons who 

 have administered Eulachon oil to coast Indians have been surprised at 

 the want of success, and have hastily condemned it as worthless. A diet 

 of new milk, fresh from the cow, would undoubtedly prove as efficacious 

 for the coast tribes as cod-liver or Eulachon oil is for white people. 



The following is a copy of a report made by Theophilus Eedwood, esq., 

 F. E. S., professor of chemistry and pharmacy to the Pharmaceutical 

 Society of London, to Messrs. Langley & Co., Victoria, British Colum- 

 bia, who kindly furnished h to me for this paper. Professor Eedwood 

 writes : 



"Eulachon oil, although differing in its source from cod-liver oil, is 

 said to resemble it in its properties, and to have been substituted for it 

 as a remedial agent. In examining the oil, therefore, it was considered 

 important to determine in what points it resembles and where it differs 

 I'rom, cod-liver, oil. In taste and smell I cannot indicate any marked dif- 

 ference. Its tendency to congeal is much greater than that of cod-liver 

 oil. At 50^ Fahr. the Eulachon oil has the consistency of soft but- 

 ter, and it does not become fluid until heated above 70° Fahr. The 



