INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 597 



tion to which you were appointed instead of Mr. Morton? Did 

 Liebes recommend you ? 



Mr. Lembkey. He did not, to my knowledge. 



Mr. McGuTRE. I believe you stated you did not even know him at 

 that time ? 



Mr. Lembkey. I did not know him at that time. 



Mr. McGutee. Who appointed you ? 



Mr. Lembkey. The Secretary of the Treasury appointed me. Just 

 who he was at that time, I do not know, but I would infer it was 

 Mr. Gage. 



Mr. McGuire. How long had you then been in the employ of the 

 Government ? 



Mr. Lembkey. For about 11 years, as nearly as I can remember. 

 I was appointed first in 1890 as a clerk in the Treasury. 



Mr. McGuire. You may proceed with the next proposition which 

 you have in mind. 



Mr. Lembkey. I wish to take up briefly the effect of salt on seal- 

 skins. In the previous hearings of the committee considerable stress 

 was laid upon the question whether sealskins gain or lose weight as 

 the result of being salted. Special attention was paid to this point 

 because it was charged by Mr. Elliott that agents of the department 

 had purposely and wrongfully killed on the islands seals having skins 

 weighing less than the regulations permitted, which skins when 

 salted wculd gain enough weight through salting to bring them 

 within the limits of weight prescribed by the department. Mr. 

 Elliott claimed that the effect of salting was to increase considerably 

 the weight of a skin. Mr. Elliott's argument was that the skin would 

 absorb a portion of the salt with which it came in contact, thereby 

 increasing the weight to that extent. 



The argument of Dr. Evermann and myself was to the effect that 

 salt extracted the animal juices from the pelt and the blubber through 

 the action of osmosis, substituting for those juices a saline solution, 

 and that the net result of this interchange of fluids was a loss in weight 

 in the pelt. As evidence, the weights of green skins taken on the 

 islands for several years were produced before the committee by me 

 and others, together with the weights of the same skins taken in 

 London after those skins had been in salt for some months. A com- 

 parison of the island green and the London salt weights showed that 

 no increase in weight from salting had occurred in those skins. 



Mr. Bruckner. Did not Mr. Clark state Monday morning that the 

 skin was three or four ounces heavier after it was salted ? 



Mr. Lembkey. I did not hear him make that statement. 



Mr. McGuire. No; he did not make that statement. He stated 

 that these particular skins were heavier because the rock salt was left 

 in there. 



Mr. Bruckner. Oh, yes, that is right. 



The Chairman. I want to direct the attention of the witness to 

 something which may help him to clear it up : These 400 skins that 

 were discussed before the committee were weighed on the islands 

 before they were salted and after they were salted, were they not ? 



Mr. Lembkey. I superintended the weighing of them before they 

 were salted. I understood that afterwards they were weighed by 

 others. I was not present at that weighing. 



