132 , ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



PELAC4IC FUR SEALING A RECENT ENTERPRISE. — Flir Seals then, aS 



now, were annually seen in all prolmbility by the natives of the coast 

 at sea, between Prince of Wales Island and the Colnnibia River; but 

 either they were not deemed worthy of the labor in capture, or else 

 the superior value of the sea-otter chase drew every attention of the 

 pelagic hunters, just as it does to-day. At least I feel warranted in 

 this conclusion by the full and explicit details which Alexander Mac- 

 kenzie gives of the furs that he saw in the natives' possession when 

 he came overland from Montreal to the Pacific Ocean in 179;j. lie 

 describes the sea ottei- almost exclusively. lie speaks, however, of 

 the natives having seal's flesh for sale; that it was eaten raw, "cut 

 into chunks." Most likelj^ this seal meat of Mackenzie's notice was 

 that of Phoca vituUna, which animal I have seen mj^self nearly 100 

 miles uj) the Fraser River from the coast. However, it may have been 

 that of the fur seal, for he was among those savages who inhabited 

 the islands and coast of Queen Charlotte Sound, where these animals 

 are to-day often seen sleeping or sporting in the broad reach of that 

 open roadstead. 



ECONOMIC VALUE OP THE SKINS, OIL, AND FLESH OP THE PUR SEAL. 



Reason why fur-seal skins are all sold in London. — On 

 account of the fact that the labor in this country, especially skilled 

 labor, commands so much more per diem in the return of wages than 

 it does in London or Belgium, it is not iDracticable for the Alaska 

 Commercial Company, or any other company here, to attempt to dress 

 and put upon the market the catch of Bering Sea, which is, in fact, the 

 entire catch of the whole world. Our people understand the theory 

 of dressing these skins x^erfectly, but they can not compete with the 

 cheaper labor of the Old World. Therefore nine-tenths nearly of the 

 fur-seal skins taken every year are annually purchased and dressed 

 in London, and from thence distributed all over the civilized world 

 where furs are woi-n and prized. 



Cause of varying prices of dressed seal skins. — The great 

 variations of the value of seal-skin sacques, ranging from ^75 up to 

 ^350, and exQw 1500, is not often due to the variance in the quality of 

 the fur originally, but it is due to the quality of the work whereby 

 the fur was treated and prepared for wear. For instance, the cheap 

 sacques are so defectively dyed that a little moisture causes them to 

 soil the collai's and cuffs of their owners, and a little exi)osure causes 

 them speedily to fade and look ragged. A properly dyed skin, one 

 that has been conscientiouslyand laboriously linished — for it is a labor 

 requiring great patience and great skill — will not rub off or "crock" 

 the whitest linen wdien moistened; and it will wear the weather, as I 

 have mj'self seen it on the form of a sea captain's wife, for six or 

 seven successive seasons without showing the least bit of dimness or 

 raggedness. I speak of dyeing alone; I might say the earlier steps of 

 unhairing in which the overhair is deftly combed out and off from 

 the skin, heated to such a point that the roots of the fur are not loos- 

 ened, while those of the coarser hirsute growth are. If this is not 

 done with perfect uniformity, the fur will never lay smooth, no matter 

 how skillfully dyed; it will alwaj^s have a rumpled, ruffled look. 

 Therefore the hastily dyed sacques are cheap, and are enhanced in 

 order of value just as the labor of dyeing is expended upon them. 



Gradation of the fur of Calloriiinus ursinus. — The grada- 



