RELATING TO FUR-SEALS AND SEALSKIN INDUSTRY. 381 



chase of skins of various kinds for said company in the Aleutian Islands 

 and Alaska; that he never knew or heard of the said company having 

 fitted out, employed, or been directly or indirectly con- 

 nected with any vessels engaged in taking young fur- -Alaska Commercial 



■, ,, ' i .? o i -ji j i -i (Jo., never engaged, in 



seals or any other class of fur-seals with nets while pelagic sealing. 

 going through the Aleutian passes or anywhere else; 

 that if the said company had been in any way interested in any such 

 venture deponent is convinced he would have known thereof, as such 

 skins so taken would doubtless have been delivered to him for trans- 

 shipment to San Francisco. 



Deponent further says: 



That the price paid for the skins of young pup-seals is now about 

 one dollar; that formerly, when more sealskins were 

 taken from the Pribilof Islands, the price for such 

 skins, that is, gray pup-skins, was from seventy-five to eighty-five cents; 

 that up to within five or six years from 1,500 to 2,500 such skins were 

 annually purchased at the last-mentioned prices from the native hun- 

 ters on the Aleutian Islands, but that since that time the number so 

 taken and sold had decreased yearly. 



And deponent further says : 



That never during his experience has he purchased at one time as many 

 as seven hundred pup sealskins or any number approxi- 

 mating, and that he has never paid as much as two sktaTpu C rchased pup ' 

 and one-half dollars for a pup sealskin, nor has he ever 

 heard, nor does he believe any such sum was ever paid for such seal- 

 skins by any person in the employ of the Alaska Commercial Company. 



Eudolph Neumann. 



Subscribed and sworn to before me this 14th day of November, A. 

 D.1892. 

 [seal.] Clement Bennett, 



Notary Public. 



Deposition of Qustavc Nicuanm, vice-president of the Alaska Commercial 



Company. 



State of California, 



City and County of San Francisco, ss : 



Gustave Mebaum, being duly sworn, deposes and says: 



That he is a resident of San Francisco, Caifornia; that he has been 

 a member of the Alaska Commercial Company since 

 its organization; and that he is now the vice-president x P erienc e. 

 of said company. 



That it has been his custom for the past twenty years to examine a 

 few bundles of each cargo of sealskins received by said company from 

 the Pribilof and Commander Islands, in order to find out in what con- 

 dition they had been packed and whether any improvement could be 

 made in the methods employed. For this purpose from fifteen to twenty 

 bundles of each cargo were opened and an examination made. 



And deponent further says : 



That during his entire connection with said company he has never 

 seen or heard of more than two sealskins being placed 

 in one bundle; that to put three skins in a bundle ™lJfi£ skins in 

 would be not only very injurious to the fur, but could 

 at once be detected, because it would be impossible to fold and roll the 

 skins together without exposing some portion of the bare side of the 



