UTILIZATION OF THE SKINS OF AQUATIC ANIMALS. 303 



and were the finest ever tound. The next season we prepared a lot of hair-seal caps 

 which took well in the Southern markets. In the fall of the following season (1825) 

 we succeeded in coloring both the fur-seal and the hair-seal skins, the first ever 

 colored in this country, thus enhancing their value 100 per cent. 



Mr. Williams was quite successful in the fur-seal cap business, 

 establishing agencies in Boston, New Orleans, and Nova Scotia, and 

 having made a net profit of 160,000 in four years, retired in 1827. 

 The business was continued by Mr. Williams's former associates, 

 Messrs. Packer, Prentice & Co., who built up a large trade, their 

 manufacture of various furs in 1831 amounting in value to half a mil- 

 lion dollars. In 1833 Mr. George C. TreadVell, who in later years 

 enjoyed so prominent a reputation in fur-seal dyeing, began dressing 

 the skins, and in a few years others embarked in the business, making 

 Albany the principal center in the United States for this industry. 

 Fur-seal skins constituted a large item in the business, 20,000 being 

 unhaired and d3^ed in a single year, nearly all of which were used in 

 the manufacture of caps. Previous to 1835, most of the skins were 

 d3'ed ""London brown." In that year Mr. James Chase, of the 

 Treadwell compan}^, discovered how to give them a dark plum color, 

 and afterwards deepened it to a deep sable hue. 



The skins were obtained from the South Shetlands and other places 

 in the vicinity of Cape Horn and from various places on the west coast 

 of Africa. With the decrease in yield from these localities about 

 1840, the business at Albany began to wane, and finall}" fur-seal skins 

 became so scarce that nearly every manufacturer ceased using them. 

 Mr. Treadwell continued their use for caps and gloves, obtaining his 

 supply of raw skins from the occasional lots received from the southern 

 seas, supplemented by shipments of Pribilof skins from London. 



The attention of Mr. Treadwell having been called to the growing 

 demand in London for fur-seal sacques, he began dressing and d3"eing 

 the skins for the trade in the United States. He did not produce the 

 seal-black fashionable at the present time, but a reddish brown, which 

 became known as seal-brown. This product gave excellent satisfac- 

 tion, the d3'e retaining its bright color without fading. Meeting with 

 sufficient demand for his output, he did not attempt to secure the black 

 shade of color finally adopted b3' the London dyers in response to the 

 demands of fashion. 



Mr. Treadwell was the only fur-seal dresser in this countr3^ up to 

 the 3'^ear 1878, when Mr. J. D. Williams, of Brooklyn, the son of Mr. 

 Denison Williams, referred to above, began dressing and d3'eing the 

 skins a dark brown, similar to the London color. At the present 

 time, the sons of the late Mr. J. D. Williams, above noted, are the 

 onl3' fur-seal dressers and dyers in this countr3^, although there are 

 many who red3^e skins. The reason fur-seal skins are not dressed and 

 d3"ed more extensively in the United States is not due to the high cost 

 of labor here, for that is more than counterbalanced b3^ the 20 per cent 



