600 INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 



of string attached to the tag through one of the flipper holes. The tagged skins were 

 then carried into the salt house and placed on a large table, care being taken that the 

 skin should not come into contact with salt until after its green weight was taken. 

 On the table with the skins was a smell pair of beam scales, with a scoop on one side 

 and counterpoise and loose iron weights on the other, and with a brass notched plate 

 in front, graduated to quarter ounces and provided with a movable poise. The scales 

 were manufactured by Fairbanks-Morse, and were calibrated with weights furnished 

 by the sub treasury in San Francisco. To facilitate weighing, each skin on the table 

 was folded up into a compact bundle with its tag hanging outside. A series of sheets 

 of paper serially numbered also had been prepared. 



In weighing, each skin was taken up from the table by one man who announced the 

 number on its tag to the man who was to record the weights. The skin was then laid 

 on the scoop and the scale carefully balanced by a third person, who announced the 

 weight of the skin. This weight as announced was written down on the serially num- 

 bered sheets in the space opposite the proper tag number. After this number was 

 recorded and checked back, the green skin was for the first time tossed aside upon 

 the loose salt. When all the skins in the killing had been weighed, they were salted 

 in kenches. After five days they were taken out of the kenches, examined on a table 

 for places defectively salted, and then more lightly salted outside the kenches in a 

 pile called the "book." 



Under usual circumstances, the weight of the salted skin was not ascertained until 

 it was taken out of the book for bundling. In the case of over 200 skins, however, the 

 salt weights were ascertained immediately upon being taken out of the kench, and 

 likewise again when taken out of the book. A report on these latter skins, with the 

 data obtained from weighing them out of the kench, appears elsewhere. 



In recording the salt weights the sheets previously used for recording the green 

 weights were again taken into the salt houses, and the salt weights inserted thereon 

 in the blank spaces left for that purpose opposite the serial number and the green 

 weight. At the time of taking the salt weights the salted skin was also measured for 

 greatest length along the median line of the back, and for greatest width across the 

 skin at the fore-flipper holes. These measurements were also recorded opposite the 

 serial number and the weights, so that each sheet contains a completed record of the 

 serial number, green and salt weight, and salt measurement of each skin recorded on 

 it. Copies of these completed sheets are on file at the Bureau of Fisheries. 



In making these data, as before described, the greatest attention was paid to accu- 

 racy. Having only a few skins, there was time enough to weigh and measure each 

 skin carefully. To kill some 200 seals, however, and to weigh the skins in the manner 

 in which it was done last summer occupied the time from early morning until after 

 3 in the afternoon, a delay that will be impossible when the number of skins taken 

 becomes larger. It was thought, however, that if complete data regarding the changes 

 that might occur to skins through salting were gathered this year, it would establish 

 a principle, and would make it unnecessary to repeat the labor in subsequent years. 



SPECIAL EXPERIMENTS IX MEASURING AND WEIGHING SEALSKINS. 



In addition to comparing the weights of skins green and after salting, and ascertain- 

 ing their measurements in the salted state, efforts were made to obtain also as accurate 

 information as possible of the measurements of skins when green — i. e., before being 

 salted — with a view of determining what change, if any, occurs in the size of the skin 

 from the action of salt. To acquire this information it was necessary to measure the 

 animal before it was skinned, to measure the fur remaining on the animal after skin- 

 ning, to measure as accurately as possible the green skin itself, and, finally, to measure 

 the skin alter it had been in salt. 



It has been a much-mooted question whether green skins could not be measured 

 and thereby furnish a much better test of the age of the animal than the present method 

 of weighing the skin. By those familiar with the subject it has been contended that 

 the skin when green is so elastic and pliable that by the smallest pressure it can be 

 made to stretch inches; also that the tendency of the green skin is to retreat or curl 

 into itself, and merely to uncurl it requires pressure enough to stretch the skin in any 

 direction the pressure may be applied. To have actual experiments made in at- 

 temps to measure green skins was the only exact method known of determining the 

 question raised, and was the object of the work about to be detailed. 



On July 9, 110 large 2-year-old seals were killed for this purpose and to furnish 

 food for the natives. The method employed was as follows: 



The seals were first stunned by clubbing and laid in a row. One of the serially num- 

 bered leather tags already mentioned was then affixed to the hind flipper of each seal. 

 This remained until the skin was removed, when the tag was at once taken off the 



