PUR-SEAL SERVICE. 85 



table for places defectively salted, and then more lightly salted outside 

 the kenches in a pile called tlie "book." 



Under usual circumstances, the weiglit of the salted skin was not 

 ascertained until it was taken out of the book for bundling. In the 

 case of over 200 skins, liowever, the salt weights were ascertained 

 immediately upon being taken out of the kench, and likewise again 

 wlion taken out of the book. A report on these latter skins, with the 

 (lata obtained from weighing them out of the kench, appears 

 clsowliere. 



In recording the salt weights the sheets previously used for record- 

 ing the green weights were again taken into the salt houses, and the 

 salt weiglits inserted thereon in the blank spaces left for that purpose 

 opposite the serial number and the green weight. At the time of 

 taking the salt weights the salted skin was also measured for greatest 

 length along the median line of the back, and for greatest width 

 across the skm at the fore-flipper holes. These measurements were 

 also recorded opposite the serial number and the weights, so that each 

 sheet contains a completed record of the serial number, green and 

 salt weight, and salt measurement of each skin recorded on it. 

 Copies of these completed sheets are on file at the Bureau of Fisheries. 



In making these data, as before described, the greatest attention 

 was paid to accuracy. Having only a few skins, there was time 

 enough to weigh and measure each skin carefuUy. To kill some 200 

 seals, however, and to weigh the skins in the manner in which it was 

 done last summer occupied the time from early morning until after 

 3 in the afternoon, a delay that wiU be impossible when the number 

 of skins taken becomes larger. It was thought, however, that if 

 complete data regarding the changes that might occur to skins tlirough 

 salting were gathered this year, it would establish a principle, and 

 would make it unnecessary to repeat the labor in subsequent years. 



SPECIAL EXPERIMENTS IN MEASURING AND WEIGHING SEALSKINS. 



In addition to comparing the weights of skins green and after salting, 

 and ascertaining their measurements in the salted state, efforts were 

 made to obtain also as accurate information as possible of the measure- 

 ments of skins when green — i. e., before being salted — with a view of 

 determining what change, if any, occurs in the size of the skin from 

 the action of salt. To acquire this information it was necessary to 

 measure the animal before it was skinned, to measure the fur remain- 

 ing on the animal after skinning, to measure as accurately as possible 

 the green skin itself, and, fbially, to measure the skin after it had been 

 in salt. 



It has been a much-mooted question whether green skins could not 

 be measured and thereby furnish a much better test of the age of the 

 animal than the present method of weighing the skin. By those 



