AMENDED TRANSLATIONS. 169 



fallen in the market at New Tork to 2 r. 72 k. per skin, it still requests 

 you, as the prices are not high in other places, to ship the said beaver 

 skins (except 2,000, which are needed for Kiachta) to New York with- 

 out fail. The board will communicate to you hereafter concerning 

 further arrangements with regard to the beaver skins. 



Furthermore, the board of administration requests you to send no 

 other furs to New York, except, perhaps, white foxes, which have gone 

 down to almost nothing at Kiachta. You must send no furs to Shang- 

 hai without special instructions. 



At the same time the board of administration also requests you to 

 give strict instructions to the canoemen (MdarMmen) to stop, as far as 

 possible, killing the small gray seals, and on no account to ship them 

 from the colonies, because they greatly interfere with the profitable 

 sale of sealskins in Russia and in the foreign market, as the large skius 

 alone are in special demand and can be sold at good prices. 



V. POLITKOVSKY, 



Presiding Officer. 

 V. Klupfel, 

 A. Etholin, 

 M. Tebenkof, 



Members. 



No. 27. 



Letter from the chief manager of the Russian American colonics to the 

 board of administration of the Russian American Company. Written 

 from the colonies October 7, 1857. 



CONCERNING FUR-SEALS AND BEAVERS. 



In reply to the dispatches of the board of administration (Nos. C35 

 and 650, of June 5 and 10 of this year), received September 7, 1 have 

 the honor to report that in future the instructions with regard to seals 

 and river beavers given in those dispatches will be carried into due 

 execution. But of the sealskins now on hand 10,000 are packed up, 

 which will be sent by the ship Gesarevitch to Kronstadt, 5,000 will be 

 set apart for shipment to Kiachta by way of Ayan, and the remainder, 

 of which there will be about 9,000 (leaving out the small gray sealskins), 

 will be sent to New York, together with as many beaver skins as can be 

 collected after putting aside 2,000 of them for Kiachta. 



The sealskins need no preparation at New Archangel, but it would 

 hardly be safe to ship them to New York in the same packing (as di- 

 rected in the dispatch of the board of administration) in which they 

 are received from the districts — that is to say, tied up only with straps 

 in bundles of several tens each — owing to the fact that they must bear 

 transportation twice across the tropics and the equator. 



From information received by me from Messrs. Lobach & Shepler, of 

 New York, they are very well satisfied with the packing in which our 

 goods were shipped there, as they arrived in good condition ; and it 

 would probably be better, in sending goods in the previous packing, to 

 send only one or two bundles as an experiment in the packing in which 

 they are received from the districts of the colonies. 



Messrs. Lobach & Shepler advise me, in packing the skins taken, not 



