234 DESCRIPTION OF BERING ISLAND 



underneath, which thereby almost looks like the surface of a 

 thimble. This outer coating, which can easily be detached from 

 the skin, is, in my opinion, a crust that has coalesced from 

 juxtaposed transformed hairs, w^hich type I have also found in 

 whales.^^^ The inner skin is somewhat thicker than an oxhide, 

 very strong and white in color. Under both of these the whole 

 body of the animal is surrounded by a layer of fat or blubber i" 

 four fingerbreadths thick, after which comes the meat. The 

 weight of this animal with skin, fat, meat, bones, and entrails 

 I estimate at 1200 poods, or 480 long hundred-weights. The fat 

 of this animal is not oily or flaccid, but somewhat hard and granu- 

 lar, snow-white and, when it has been lying a few days in the sun, 

 as agreeably yellow as the best Holland butter. The fat itself 

 when boiled surpasses in sweetness and taste the best beef fat; 

 when tried out, it is like fresh olive oil in color and liquidity and 

 like sweet almond oil in taste and is of such exceptionally good 

 flavor and nourishment that we drank it by the cupful without 

 experiencing the slightest nausea. In addition it has the virtue 

 that when taken somewhat often it acts as a very mild laxative 

 and diuretic, for which reason I consider it a good remedy against 

 protracted constipation as well as gallstone and retention of the 

 urine. The tail consists wholly of fat which is much more agree- 

 able even than that found on the other parts of the body. The 

 fat of the calves is entirely like the meat of }oung pigs; the meat 

 itself, however, like veal. It is boiled through in half an hour and 

 swells up to such an extent that it takes up twice as much space 

 as before. The meat of the old animals is not to be distinguished 



166 These two sentences in the MS read: "The individual bulbs of the 

 fibers are round underneath, and the upper crust can therefore easily 

 be detached from the true skin. In the skin itself, however, the acetabula 

 bidborum [cavities of the bulbs] remain and cause the surface of it to 

 appear like the top of a thimble. In my opinion the outer skin is con- 

 sequently a composite of many hairs into a continuum corpus crustae 

 [continuous crustal body]." See also, above, p. 230, footnote 153. 



1" Instead of "by a layer of fat or blubber" the MS reads "by the 

 paniculiis adiposus, i.e. a layer of fat." 



