ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 121 



as the man straddles the seal and stoops down to his work over it, and 

 a sweeping- circular incision is made tlii-ongh the skin on them jnst at 

 the point where the body fnr ends. Then, seizing a flap of the hide 

 on either one side or the other of the abdomen, the man proceeds, Avith 

 his smaller, shorter butcher knife, rapidly to cut the skin clean and 

 free from the body and blubber, which he rolls over and out from the 

 hide by hauling up on it as he advances with his work, standing all 

 this time stooped over the carcass, so that his hands are but slightly 

 above it or the ground. This operation of skinning a fair-sized "hol- 

 luschak" takes the best men only one minute and a half; but the 

 average time made b}' the gang on the ground is about four minutes 

 to the seal. Nothing is left of the skin upon the carcass save a small 

 patcli of each upper lip on which the coarse mustache grows, the skin 

 on the tip of the lower jaw, the insignificant tail,^ together with the 

 bare hide of the flippers. 



Blubber of fur seal; Unpleasant odor. — On the removal of 

 the skin from the body of the fur seal the entire surface of the carcass 

 is covered with a more or less dense layer or envelope of a soft, oily, 

 fat blubber, which in turn com]3letely conceals the muscles or flesh of 

 the trunk and neck. This fatty substance which we now see resembles 

 that met with in the seals generally everywhere, only possessing that 



knives sharp, putting edges on them as keen as razors, and in an instant detect any 

 dullness, by passing the balls of their thumbs over the suspected edges of the 

 blades. The white sealers of the Antarctic always used the orthodox butchers' 

 "steel" in sharpening their knives, but these natives never have, and probably 

 never will abandon those little whetstones above referred to. 



During the Russian management, and throughout the strife in killing by our 

 own people in 1868, a very large number of the skins were cut through, here and 

 there, by the slipping of the natives' knives, when they were taking them from the 

 carcasses, and "tlensing'" them from the superabundance, in spots, of blubber. 

 These knife cuts through the skin, no matter how slight, give great annoyance to 

 the dresser; hence they are always marked down in price. The i^rompt scrutiny 

 of each skin on the islands, by the agent of the Alaska Commercial Company, 

 who rejects every one of them thus injured, has caused the natives to exercise 

 greater care, and the number now so damaged every season is absolutely trifling. 

 Another source of small loss is due to a habit which the '•holluschickie" have of 

 occasionally biting one another when they are being urged along in the drives. 

 and thus crowded once in awhile one upon the other; usually these examples of 

 "zoobMen" are detected by the natives prior to the "knocking down" andspared. 

 yet those which have been nipped on the chest or abdomen can not be thus noticed; 

 and until the skin is lifted, the damage is not apprehended. 



'This tail of the fur sealis just a suggestion of the article and that is all. Unlike 

 the abbreviated caudal extremities of the bear or the rabbit, it does not seem to be 

 under the slightest control of its owner — at least I never could see it move to any 

 appreciable degree, when the seal is in action on land. Certainly there is no sex'v- 

 ice required of it, but it does appear to me rather singular that none of the change- 

 ful moods of Callotiu')ius are capable of giving rise to even a tremor in its short 

 stump of a tail. It is never raised or depressed, and in fact amounts to a mere 

 excresence, which many casual observers would not notice. The shrmking, 

 twitching movements of the seal's skin, here and there at irregular intervals, are 

 especially noticed when that animal is asleep, so that even when awake I believe 

 that the dermatological motion is an involuntary one'. The tail of the sea lion is 

 equally inconsequential; that of the walrus, even more so, while Phoca vitidina 

 has one a trifle longer, relatively, and much stouter — fleshier than that of the fur 

 seal. 



I found that the natives here were pronounced evolutionists, as are all the many 

 Indian tribes with which I have been thrown in contact during my travels from 

 Mexico to the head of the Stickeen River. They declare that their remote ances- 

 try undoubtedly were fur seals: indeed, there is a better showing for the brain 

 cases of the fur seal over that of the monkey's skull as to weight with reference to 

 physical bulk; while their tails are as short or even shorter than most of the 

 anthropoid apes. 



