378 CALLORHINUS URSINUS NORTHERN FUR SEAL. 



coarser hairs. It will be seen that great care must be used, as 

 the skin is in that soft state that too much pressure of the knife 

 would take the fur also ; indeed, bare spots are made ; carelessly- 

 cured skins are sometimes worthless on this account. The 

 skins are next dried, afterward dampened on the pelt side, 

 and shaved to a fine, even surface. They are then stretched, 

 worked, and dried j afterward softened in a fulling-mill, or by 

 treading them with the bare feet in a hogshead, one head being 

 removed and the cask placed nearly upright, into which the 

 workman gets with a few skins and some fine hard- wood saw- 

 dust, to absorb the grease while he dances upon them to break 

 them into leather. If the skins have been shaved thin, as 

 required when finished, any defective spots or holes must now 

 be mended, the skin smoothed and pasted with paper on the 

 pelt side, or two pasted together to protect the pelt in dyeing. 

 The usual process in the United States is to leave the pelt suf- 

 ficiently thick to protect them without pasting. 



" In dyeing, the liquid dye is put on with a brush, carefully 

 covering the points of the standing fur. After lying folded, 

 with the points touching each other, for some little time, the 

 skins are hung up and dried. The dry dye is then removed, 

 another coat applied, dried, and removed, and so on until the 

 required shade is obtained. One or two of these coats of dye 

 are put on much heavier and pressed down to the roots of the 

 fur, making what is called the ground. From eight to twelve 

 coats are required to produce a good color. The skins are then 

 washed clean, the fur dried, the pelt moist. They are shaved 

 down to the required thickness, dried, working them some 

 while drying, then softened in a hogshead, and sometimes run 

 in a revolving cylinder with fine sawdust to clean them. The 

 English process does not have the washing after dyeing. 



" I should, perhaps, say that, with all the care used, many skins 

 are greatly inj ured in the working. Quite a quantity of English- 

 dyed seal were sold last season for $17, damaged in the dye. 



" The above is a general process, but we are obliged to vary 

 for different skins 5 those from various parts of the world require 

 different treatment, and there is quite a difference in the skins 

 from the Seal Islands of our country I sometimes think about 

 as much as in the human race." * 



HISTORY AND PROSPECTS OF THE FUR SEAL BUSINESS AT 



* Condition of Affairs in Alaska, pp. 85, 86. 



