CALIFORNIA PISH AND GAME. 99 



soldiers forced to ot-eupy the most exposed and conspicuous positions. 

 As she passed the fort two broadsides from her six three-pounders were 

 discharged." Neither the fort nor the ship were seriously injured. 

 The most interesting and regrettable part of the whole story is that 

 the one thousand otter skins, which the commandante would not sell, 

 finally rotted and were thrown into the sea. 



There are said to have been weeks in 1812 in which the Russians 

 established at Bodega killed seven or eight hundred otters in the bay 

 of San Francisco alone. The skins at that time were worth at Kiakta 

 or Mainakin on the l)orders of Persia and China, to which they were 

 sent, from eighty to a hundred dollars each, so that the profits of early 

 Russian adventurers in California were enormous (Hittell, 1885 a, 

 p. 626). The total number of sea otter skins definitely recorded as hav- 

 ing been taken by the Russian company in California is 13,000. This 

 probably does not accurately record the total number taken. In San 

 Diego, between 1840 and 1845, a skin was worth about a price equal to 

 that of four or five bullock hides. Sea otters in those days were com- 

 monly found feeding along the kelp beds and they were shot with rifles 

 from boats. 



Vallejo (MS. 1, pp. 105-6) says the otter were so abundant in 1812 

 that they were killed by boatmen with their oars in passing through 

 the seaweed; and the Russians killed 15,000 a year for five years, 

 and 5,000 a year down to 1831. This account is probably grossly 

 exaggerated (Bancroft, 1885 &, p. 430). 



Another account, written in 1816, states 2,000 a year were caught. 

 By this time decrease was noticeable, for Bancroft (1885 a, p. 420) 

 says: "The Indians still caught now and then an unfortunate, slow- 

 motioned sea otter that came in their way and the padres shipped the 

 small store of skins, or sold them whenever they found a chance. The 

 Russians took a constantly and rapidh' decreasing number of otters 

 each year, a number which was greatty exaggerated in the ideas of the 

 Spaniards." 



Hittell (Bancroft, 1884 a, p. 373) states that the number of sea otter 

 skins taken on the coast annually after 1880 was 5,500, w^ortli in San 

 Francisco $440,000, or $80 each. 



There was abo established an important trade in fur seals. Captain 

 Wm. Smith went to the Farallones in 1808 with a party of Kadiaks, 

 stayed there two years, and caught 130.000 seals, besides many otter. 

 He took them to China on the Albatross and obtained $2.50 for seal- 

 skins and $30 or $40 for otter. (Bancroft, 1885 h, pp. 95-96.) 



Hittell (1885. p. 285) states that the Russians collected as many as 

 80,000 seal skins at the Farallones in a single season. 



In 1810-11 the Albatross, one of the vassels engaged in the fur trade, 

 touched at the Santa Barbara Islands, where were found few seals but 

 many sea otters. During the same years, according to the log of the 

 captain's clerk, W. A. Gale, this ship took from the Farallones 73,402 

 fur seals. In addition they took from the coast 248 beaver, 21 raccoon, 

 6 wildcat, 153 land otter, 4 badger, 5 fox, 58 mink, 8 gray squirrel, 

 1 skunk, 11 muskrat, and 137 mole skins. Sea otter skins to the amount 

 of 639 and 631 otter tails were also taken. The estimated value of this 

 catch at Canton prices was $157,397. 



