106 ALASKA FISHERIES AND FUR INDUSTRIES IN 1915. 
skins to any person. The act of Congress approved August 24, 1912, 
giving effect to this convention, restricts this privilege to the extent 
of prohibiting the killing of fur seals by any person within the 3-mile 
limit in waters of Alaska. So far as the Bureau is informed none of 
the natives of Alaska availed themselves in 1915 of their privilege. 
The Department of the Interior advised that no fur seals were taken 
in the year by Indians of reservations in the State of Washington. 
DISPOSITION OF SKINS SHIPPED FROM PRIBILOF ISLANDS IN 1915. 
The annual shipment of fur-seal skins and fox skins was made in 
September. The shipment consisted of 3,000 sealskins, 253 blue-fox 
skins, and 40 white-fox skins. The skins were transported from the 
Pribilof Islands to Oakland, Cal., on the Navy collier Saturn. From 
that pomt they were forwarded (with the exception of one skin, 
from an albino seal, which was sent to Washington) via the Southern 
Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads to Funsten Bros. & Co., St. 
Louis, Mo. 
The fox skins together with the 256 blue-fox skins and the 25 
white-fox skins shipped in 1914 were sold at public auction on October 
21, 1915, by Funsten Bros. & Co. After deducting 24 per cent dis- 
count allowed purchasers, the gross proceeds from the blue pelts 
were $57,257.85 and from the white pelts $1,556.10. After deducting 
broker’s commissions, $2,352.56, certain storage charges, $25, and ex- 
press charges on the 1915 shipment, $39.56, a balance of $56,396.83 re- 
mained as net proceeds. The freight charges on the fox skins shipped 
in 1914, amounting to $16.14, were included in a voucher stated pre- 
vious to the sale and consequently this amount was not deducted 
from the gross proceeds of the sale. 
The sale was successful from every point of view and unusually 
good prices were obtained for a considerable number of pelts. Five 
lots, consisting of 4 blues each, brought $1,092, $1,020, $1,012, $1,000, 
and $980, respectively. The prices obtained for the white-fox pelts 
ranged from a minimum of $17 to a maximum of $30 per pelt. 
The 3,000 commercial sealskins shipped in 1915, together with the 
2,896 shipped in 1914, and the 400 which were included in the 1913 
shipment but withheld from the sale in December of that year, a 
total of 6,296, remained on hand in the States at the end of the year, 
December 31, 1915. 
POSTPONEMENT OF SALE OF SEALSKINS. 
It was deemed that market conditions did not warrant the sale of 
any fur-seal skins at any time m the year. Public resolution no. 65, 
Sixty-third Congress, approved February 24, 1915, amended the act 
of August 24, 1912, giving effect to the North Pacific Sealing Conven- 
tion of July 7, 1911, in that it made discretionary with the Secretary 
of Commerce as to when the fur-seal skins taken on the Pribilof 
