THIRD BIENNIAL STATEMENT 159 



In 1918 the number was 34,890. 

 In 1919 the number was 27,821. 



The prices realized at the St. Louis fur auctions on the 

 sale of fur seal skins are revealed by these figures : 



In 1918 there were sold 8,100 skins for $375,385. Aver- 

 age, $46.34 per skin. 



In 1919 there were sold 19,157 skins for $1,501,603. Av- 

 erage, $78.38 per skin. 



In 1920 there were sold 9,100 skins for $1,282,905. Av- 

 erage, $140.98 per skin. 



If the average price of $140.98 at which the lot of 9,100 

 skins sold on February 2, 1920, should hold for the entire 

 catch of 27,821 skins taken in 1919, the total gross revenue 

 for the lot would be $3,922,204.58. 



In view of the feverishly advancing prices of all kinds 

 of real fur, the growing scarcity of the supply, and the 

 clamorously insistent demands, both of the rich and the 

 poor, there are good grounds for the belief that very soon 

 we will see good raw fur-seal skins selling at auction at 

 an average price of $250 each. With 110,000,000 people 

 in America demanding "fur", the future of the trade in 

 real fur is remarkably bright, — so long as the supply lasts, 

 — and Congress may regard the future of the nation's fur 

 seal industry with entire complacency. The saving of the 

 fur seal herds was a good investment. 



In the future, when all other bearers of good fur have 

 been utterly exterminated — as they soon ivill be — the pro- 

 tected fur seal herds will produce, by sure-and-certain 

 arithmetical progression, a really vast quantity of the finest 

 fur in the world. It needs no stretch of prophecy to fore- 

 tell the annual increment to the three nations who now are 

 so sensibly preserving the fur seals of Alaska from killing 

 at sea. When we begin to take, as we formerly did in the 

 days of the fur seal millions, an annual catch of 100,000 



