PRODUCTS. 133 



Products. The commercial products of the Walrus are its 

 oil, hide, aud tusks. The oil is said to be much inferior in quality 

 to that of Seals, but is used for nearly the same purposes.* The 

 yield is also much less in proportion to the size of the animal, in 

 the largest specimens seldom exceeding five hundred pounds.t 

 The hide is said to be a valuable commodity, and '' sells for from 

 two to foiu^ dollars per half skin, calves only counting for a half; 

 it is principally exported to Eussia and Sweden, where it is used 

 to manufacture harness and sole leather ; it is also twisted into 

 tiller-ropes, and is used for protecting the rigging of ships from 

 chafing. In former times nearly all the rigging of vessels on 

 the north coasts of Norway and Eussia used to be composed of 

 Walrus-skin. [|] When there is a superfluity of the article in the 

 market I believe it is boiled into glue. It is from an inch to an 

 inch and a half thick, very pliable in its green state, but slightly 

 spongy, so that I should doubt the quaUty of the leather made 

 from it." 



As noted in the earlier portions of this paper, the tusks were 

 in very early times a valuable article of traffic among the bar- 

 barous tribes of Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. Brown 

 states that "there is said to be a letter in the library of the 

 Vatican proving that the olcl Norse and Icelandic colonists in 

 Greenland paid their 'Peter's Pence' in the shape of Walrus 

 tusks and hides." || The ivory afforded by the tusks, though 



* Lamont says it is usual to mix the Seal and Walrus oil Ludiscrimiuately 

 together, and that "the compound is always exported into Southern Europe 

 under the name of Seal oil." Yachting in the Arctic Seas, j). 89. 



t Scoresby states that he "never met with any that afforded above twenty 

 or thirty gallons of oil." Account of the Arctic Regions, vol. i, p. 503. 



t [In the instructions given to Jonas Poole by the Muscovie Company in 

 March, 1610, occurs the following : "And in as much as we have agreed here 

 with a Tanner for all the Morses hides which wee kill and bring into England, 

 and have sent men of purpose for the slaying, salting, and ordering of the 

 same, whereof we have appointed one to goe in your ship : We would have 

 you reserve the hides, and stoore your ship therewith in stead of ballast. 

 And if you obtayne a greater quantitie then you can bring away with you, 

 having alwayes regard to commodities of more value,- which are Oyle, Teeth, 

 -and Whales finnes [whalebone], that none of them be left behind ; We would 

 have you leave the said overplus of hides in some convenient place, tiU the 

 next yeere, that we send more store of shipping." Purchas his Pilgrimes, vol. 

 iii, p. 709.] 



Seasons with the Sea-horses, p. 77. 



]|Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1868, p. 434. 



