606 INVESTIGATION OF THE PUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OP ALASKA. 



Mr. McGuire. Were you through with your narration with respect 

 - to the weighing of these skins ? 



Mr. Lembkey. Not quite. 



Mr. McGuire. Proceed. 



Mr. Lembkey. This list which I have submitted shows that of the 

 .200 odd skins under examination, each one of which was weighed green 

 and again weighed after being in salt some days, not one of them 

 increased in weight as a result of salting, but on the contrary all lost 

 weight from having been in salt. This can be taken as conclusive 

 evidence of the fact that these skins do not gain weight in salt, and 

 that the agents could not have killed seals having less weight than 

 the regulations permitted and then, by salting, so increased the 

 weights as to bring the skins within the regulations which prescribe 

 a minimum weight of five pounds. 



Mr. McGuire. What was Mr. Elliott's statement with respect to 

 the weight of the skins before and after salting that occasioned these 

 remarks which you have just made regarding the weighing and salt- 

 ing of skins ? 



Mr. Lembkey. His statements were to the effect that skins gained 

 Weight as a result of having been salted, and the statement was made 

 in an effort to prove or substantiate another statement made by him 

 to the effect that skins much smaller than the regulations permitted 

 had been taken on the islands by the Government agents. 



Mr. McGuire. Have you his statement before you ? 



Mr. Lembkey. I am not able at this moment to turn to it. It is 

 in the previous hearings of the committee, however, and I shall be 

 glad to furnish a memorandum of where it may be found. 



Mr. McGuire. All right; you may proceed. 



Mr. Lembkey. In this connection I wish to furnish the committee 

 also with the record of an interesting experiment performed to deter- 

 mine the difference between the weights of green skins and of the 

 same skins salted, performed not by myself, but by Mr. M. C. Marsh, 

 a naturalist in the employ of the Fish Commission detailed to act 

 as naturalist on the islands. In connection with this question I 

 understand the instructions of Mr. Marsh to have been that he was 

 to make experiments for the purpose of determining this question 

 of gain or loss in weight of skins through salting, and in pursuance of 

 those instructions he performed this experiment on 60 skins. Each 

 of those skins was provided with a copper tag bearing serial numbers 

 from 1 to 60. These skins appear to have been taken on October 19, 

 1911, and at that time were weighed in their green state. They were 

 allowed to remain in salt until the 23d of May, 1912, a matter of seven 

 months or thereabouts, when they were again weighed, as I understand 

 by Mr. Marsh. 



According to Mr. Marsh's instructions, as I understand it, the ques- 

 tion to be determined was the abstract one as to whether skins gain or 

 lose weight in salt, and in order to determine that question it was 

 necessary for him, after these skins came out of salt, to divest them, 

 as much as he could, of such salt as might still adhere to the skins as 

 a result of their having been in contact with it for many months. So 

 Mr. March, as I understand, brushed as much of the salt off of those 

 skins as he could before weighing them in their salted state. 



He finds, as a result of that experiment, that the average loss in 

 Weight from salting of those 60 skins was 0.45 of 1 pound each, or 6.8 



