INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 619 



and lie therefore has no means of determining from his own experi- 

 ments whether these 400 skins had shrunk since their removal from 

 the body, or whether any other change in their size had occurred. 



The Chairman. It is now 12 o'clock. The committee will take a 

 recess until 2 o'clock this afternoon. 



(Thereupon, at 12 o'clock noon, the committee took a recess until 

 2 o'clock p. m.) 



AFTER RECESS. 



The committee at the expiration of the recess, Hon. John H. 

 Rothermel, chairman, presiding. 



Mr. McGttire. You may proceed, Mr. Lembkey, with your narra- 

 tion. 



Mr. Lembkey. I had stated that Mr. Elliott was not in a position 

 to claim that any of these salted skins of a certain size came from an 

 animal which must be of a certain size, because he does not know and 

 could not ascertain, with regard to these skins, the size of the animals 

 from which the skins were taken. He can not claim that any 35-inch 

 skin among them must have come from an animal 39 inches long, 

 because he does not know and never made an effort to ascertain what 

 the length of the animal was as a matter of fact. He did not and 

 could not gather any evidence of the length of the animals from 

 which these 400 skins were taken, because the animals had been killed 

 and the skins salted before his arrival on the island, and the carcasses 

 had been consumed by the natives for food. For this reason he 

 could not measure the animals which produced these skins; and 

 since he did not and could not measure the animals, he had no means 

 of arriving at their actual size. He therefore had to assume and did 

 assume what the length of the animals should be and upon that 

 assumption he bases his charge and his argument that these seals 

 were of a size demonstrating them to be yearlings. If he had cared 

 to, he could have measured other animals and afterwards meas- 

 ured the skins that would have been taken from those animals and 

 then he would have found, I will assert, that in many instances skina 

 from seals 45 inches long or over, when salted in the ordinary manner, 

 do not measure more than 35 inches, and sometimes less. As a 

 matter of fact there were no yearling skins among those measured by 

 Mr. Elliott, because there are no yearling skins in the drives made at 

 the time when these 400 skins were taken, unless, perhaps, a solitary 

 instance or two. The yearlings do not appear in the drives until 

 about two weeks later than when these 400 skins were taken. Evi- 

 dence to support this statement has been repeatedly furnished the 

 committee. 



Mr. McGuire. Have you produced evidence yourself to support 

 that statement ? That is, have you in mind the production of testi- 

 mony or the idea of making this statement whereby to show the 

 branding that was done on the islands of seals for the purpose of 

 determining when they returned ? 



Mr. Lembkey. I was just about to make a statement of that 

 experiment which was mentioned in the testimony of Mr. Clark. 



