282 EXTRACTS FROM VARIOUS PUBLICATIONS. 



so that the loss this year on St. Pauls was but oue hundred and thirty 

 from all causes. The salt-houses are arranged with large bins, called 

 kenches, madeof thick planks, into which the skins are put, fur side down, 

 with a layer of salt between each layer of skins. They become suffi- 

 ciently cured in from five to seven days, and are then taken from the 

 kenches and piled up in books, with a little fresh salt. Finally they 

 are prepared for shipment by rolling them into compact bundles, two 

 skins in each, which are secured with stout lashings. The largest of 

 these bundles weigh sixty-four pounds, but their average weight is but 

 twenty-two. The smallest skins, those taken from seals two years 

 old, weigh about seven pounds each; and the largest, from seals six 

 years old, about thirty. 



The skins are counted four times at the island, as follows: By the 

 company's agent and the native chiefs when they are put into the salt- 

 houses, the latter given in their accounts, after each day's killing, to 

 the Government agent; again when they are bundled by the natives, 

 who do the work, as each is paid for his labor by the bundle; by the 

 Government's agents when they are taken from the salt-houses for 

 shipment; and the fourth time by the first officer of the company's 

 steamer, as they are delivered on board. An official certificate of tlie 

 number of skins shipped is made out and signed by the Government 

 agents in triplicate, one copy being sent to the Treasury Department, 

 one to the collector at San Francisco, the third given to the master of 

 the vessel in which they are shipped. The amount of the tax or duty paid 

 by the company to the Government is determined by the result of a final 

 counting at the custom-house in San Francisco. The books of the com- 

 pany show that it has paid into the Treasury since the date of the lease 

 $170,480.45 on account of the rental of the islands, and $1,057,709.74 

 tax on seal-skins, which sums also appear in those of the Treasury 

 Department. The latter sum is less by $1G,458.63 than the tax that 

 should have been paid had one hundred thousand skins been taken 

 each year since 1870, or, in other words, 6,269 fewer skins have been 

 shipped than the lease permitted. The record kept at the islands, by 

 both the Government's and company's agents, shows that in 1871 but 

 19,077 skins were on St. Georges instead of 25,000, the number allowed, 

 and that nearly every year since the number shipped has fallen a little 

 short of 100,000. 



EXTRACT FROM THE REPORT OF J. S. MOORE TO THE SECRETARY 

 OF THE TREASURY, 1875. » 



First in order is to report my investigation as to the number of fur- 

 seals killed on the two islands of Saint Paul and Saint George. I have 

 compared the custom-house entries and the certificates of tax paid with 

 the shipping books of the Alaska Commercial Company. These I found 

 differed during a term of five active tax-paying years, and in number of 

 404,638 skins by exactly 1,427 skins. 



This discrepancy, however, as will be seen in the appended statement 

 taken from the company's books, is reduced by the actual account of 

 sales of Messrs. Lampson & Co., in London, to a discrepancy of 559 

 skins only, and this latter I have no doubt is correct. The significance 

 I attach to this small discrepancy is rather favorable than otherwise, as 

 the very difficulty of a correct count by ignorant packers, who salt, pre- 

 pare, and pack the skins in casks for shipment, easily warrants a differ- 



1 House Ex. Doc, No. 83, Forty -fourth Congress, first session, p. 193. 



