HUNTING AND THE FUR INDUSTRY. 



135 



of the year, to the number of not more than 100,000 skins In the season on' both islands 

 The contract was concluded for 20 years till the 1st of May, 1890. For the same term the 

 company on the 18th February, 1871, concluded a contract with the Russian Government for 

 catching seals on the Commander Islands, Behring and Miedny, and on Tiulen Island. They 

 bound themselves: 1. to lake into their body a Russian subject; 2. to pay 5,000 roubles a 

 year and two roubles for each fur seal skin taken from the said islands, and further to pay 

 50 kopecks to the inhabitants of the islands for each full-grown and perfect skin received 

 from them. In 1877 these conditions were subjected to substantial alterations in respect to 

 the payment per skin, so that the inhabitants were paid at the rate of one rouble instead 

 of 50 kopecks for the first 30,000 skins, and the Crown received at the same time instead of 

 two roubles only one rouble 75 kopecks. 



The new company without delay set about placing the trade in seal skins on a more 

 regular footing, to which contributed in particular the opening not long before, in 1869, of 

 the Paciiic Railway connecting the Atlantic with that ocean. Thanks to this new communi- 

 cation the Alaska Company was in a position to forward its fur goods from the Pribylov and 

 Commander Islands to London in a shorter time. Independently of the shortening of the 

 route, it was then recognized as advisable for the convenience of the preparation of the skin 

 and its preservation from damage during the voyage, to salt it without previously removing 

 the fat, which with the former method of transport oxidised and spoiled the goods. Soon the 

 Alaska Company began to put on the London market a large quantity of skins, striving at 

 the same time to improve the quality of their goods and to attain uniformity of selection. 



The Company introduced order and system into the selection of the sort of skins 

 and in their preparation for transport, attaining in this respect the very best results. Its 

 goods became exemplary. During the time of its existence from 1871 to 1891 the Alaska 

 Company got skins to the following amounts. 



Judging by these data, the catch of seals on the Commander Islands is systematically 

 increasing, while in the figures for the yield on the Pribylov Islands a certain diminuticii seems 



