INVESTIGATION" OP THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 623 



Mr. Lembket. Exactly. There may be long-armed men and short- 

 armed men both working at the same time on the same-sized skins. 



The Chairman. They do it as I illustrate with the two ends of this 

 lead pencil, do they not ? 



Mr. Lembket. Just that way. The skin is thrown down in front 

 of the man and the salt is thrown onto the skin, and he then grasps 

 either end in this manner [indicating], after which he spreads the salt 

 over the skin with his hands, to be assured, more than anything else, 

 of the fact that none of the edges of the skin have curled back on to 

 itself. If that were to happen, the skin would putrify under the curl, 

 notwithstanding the immense amount of salt that is thrown into the 

 kench. That is one reason why we remove all skins from the salt five 

 days after their first salting. 



Mr. Bruckner. It has got to be flat. 



Mr. Lembket. It must be flat, otherwise there will be imperfec- 

 tions in the salting that I have mentioned, particularly through the 

 curling over of the skin. In five days an imperfection of this charac- 

 ter shows on the skin by the area so overlapped becoming slightly 

 Einkish. That shows that incipient putrifaction has set in, but it 

 as not gone to the stage where it injures in any way the value of the 

 skin. That is at once cured then by the second salting, which we call 

 the book. 



Air. McGuire. Any skin after being taken from the animal first has 

 a tendency to shrink and roll at the edges ? 



Mr. Lembket. It does. 



Mr. McGuire. Very well. You may proceed. 



The Chairman. What is the object of stretching the skin. I did 

 not hear that. 



Air. Lembket. The object of stretching the skin is to have it as long 

 as possible in its salted state. That is, as I understand, the object. 

 It is generally understood that the length of the skin contains the 

 greatest value and not the breadth of it. 



The Chairman. Are they stretched so that they will bring more 

 money ? 



Air. Lembket. That is the idea; yes. The reason for that is this: 

 That the fur on the back of any animal is more valuable than the fur 

 on the belly, and the more back you show on the skin the more value 

 you show; the more belly it shows the less value it has. 



The Chairman. If you stretched a skin at the sides, you would con- 

 tract the length of the skin ? 



Air. Lembket. I should say it would; yes. It must necessarily. 

 That would be the result. 



The Chairman. It is stretched at the ends to give it more value ? 



Air. Lembket. Yes, sir. 



Air. AIcGutre. You may go on with your statement. 



Air. Lembket. Air. Elliott has submitted to the committee a long 

 tabular statement appearing to assert that if the sealskins composing 

 the catches of 1910, 1911, and 1912 on the Pribilof Islands had been 

 properly skinned the Government would have received a much greater 

 sum of money in return for these skins than it actually did receive. 

 Just what is meant by this statement it is impossible for me to dis- 

 cover, but it seems to contain a charge of impropriety of some char- 

 acter in the taking of the sealskins for the years mentioned. It is 



