THE RUSSIAN SEAL SKIN COMPANY. 121 



The entire sealing business is exclusively in the hands of the local administration, 

 and the company has nothing further to do with it but to receive the stins at the side 

 of the vessel, except that it accepts or rejects the skins immediately upon their being 

 brought from the killing grounds and superintends the salting of the skins, for which 

 purpose it also furnishes the salt. The administrator, therefore, has unlimited power 

 to determine how many seals are to be taken, and also how, when, where, and by whom 

 they are to be taken. The Government undertakes the driving, killing, skinning, 

 salting, bundling, and delivery. The administration takes the temporary receipt for 

 the skins issued by the company's overseer at the salt houses and finally the agent's 

 receipt when the skins are received on board the company's vessel. The skins are 

 then brought to Petropaulski, where the ispravnik can not give clearance papers with- 

 out first receiving the certificate of the administrator of the islands that the company 

 has complied with the Government requirements. 



Like Hutchinson, Kohl, Philippeus & Co., whose establishments both on the 

 islands and in Petropaulski the Eussian Seal Skin Company acquired, the latter has 

 the exclusive right to keep a store on each island in which to sell to the natives such 

 staples and articles as are necessary for their existence and comfort. The company 

 is not allowed to bring such articles as it may deem thus necessary, but the adminis- 

 trator each year makes out a detailed list of quantities and qualities, specified in the 

 minutest details, which goods the company, upon his requisition, are obliged to bring 

 during the year and to sell to the natives at a certain stipulated percentage over the 

 certified market price, the Government showing a decided preference for Eussian 

 goods. Should any of the goods thus ordered remain unsold on the company's hands, 

 the loss falls upon the company. As a rule the company sells for cash to the natives, 

 unless the administrator expressly authorizes a family head to take goods on credit, 

 in which individual case the amount is specifically limited. At the first distribution 

 of money for work or furs the amount is paid and the debt canceled before new sales 

 can be made. 



For the privilege of thus trading the company has to pay all the various license 

 and guild fees to which the Eussian merchants are liable, in this case amounting to 

 many hundred rubles. 



The carrying of supplies and skins is done by the company's steel steamer Kotilc 

 (272 reg. tons net; 400 tons gr.), Capt. C. B. Lindquist (pi. 66, fig. a). 



Like the Alaska seal skins, nearly all the Commander Island skins are sold at 

 auction in London, where they are known as Copper Island skins. 



I append the following table by Mr. Alfred Fraser, showing the sales and prices 

 of Commander Island skins in London since 1870 (Fur Seal Arb., ix, p. 576). The 

 figures since 1892 were kindly furnished by Mr. Fraser in letter of February 15, 1897. 



