342 



OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



rapidly to cut the skin, clean and free from the body and blubber, 

 which he rolls over and out from the hide by hauling up on it as he 

 advances with his work, standing all this time stooped over the 

 carcass so that his hands are but slightly above it, or the ground. 

 This operation of skinning a fair-sized " holluschak " takes the 

 best men only one minute and a half, but the average time made 

 by the gang on the ground is about four minutes to the seaL 



The Carcass after Skinning The Skin as taken therefrom. 



Nothing is left of the skin upon the carcass, save a small patch of 

 each upper lip on which the coarse mustache grows, the skin on 

 the tip of the lower jaw, and its insignificant tail. After removal 

 of the skin from the body of a fur-seal, the entire surface of the 

 carcass is covered with a more or less dense layer, or envelope, of 

 soft, oily blubber, which in turn completely conceals the mus- 

 cles or flesh of the trunk and neck. This fatty substance, which 



