7 12 INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 



them. We stretch them out about 2 or 3 inches as we spread them, then put salt on 

 them, and then they shrink back into their natural shape. 



Q. Do those "green" skins ever shrink 4 or 5 or 6 or 8 inches during those four or 

 five days that they harden in salt while in the kenches? — A. Yes; they shrink. When 

 we salt the skins we stretch the skins, and while in the salt they shrink again, about 

 2 or 3 or 4 inches. 



Q. After they come out of the kench to be bundled and while bundling, do they 

 shrink any more? — A. Some of them shrink after they are taken out of the kench and 

 booked, if they are put in the air. Otherwise they do not. Only where the salt does 

 not catch the skin do they shrink. If they salt all right the skin does not shrink. 



Natives' Town Hall, 

 St. Paul Village, Friday, 5.30 -p. m., July 25, 1913. 



These questions have all been read to us, by George Korchugin, in Aleut, and our 

 answers to them in turn, in Aleut, from this paper, which we sign below, as being our 

 own voice and correct in every particular, to the best of our knowledge and belief. 



Karp Btjterin, Alex. Galaktionof, 



Elary Stepetin, Peter Tetoff, 



Porfiro Pankoff, Fedosay (his x mark) Sedick, 



Nicholai Kozloff, Neon Tetoff. 



Peter Onstigof, 



St. Paul Island, Alaska, 

 Village of St. Paul, Town Hall, Friday, July 25, 1913 



The signatures, as above, were all affixed to this paper by the signers, in our presence, 

 after the foregoing questions and answers had been read to these men in Aleut by 

 George Kocherin, from this original typed copy. 



Attest: Henry W. Elliott. 



A. F. Gallagher. 



(Hearing No. 1; pp. 115-117; Jan. 17, 1914, House Committee on Expenditures in 

 the Department of Commerce.) 



By that improper salting, those "2-year-old skins" which should 

 have an average length when salted of \\ to 5 inches less length than 

 the body lengths above quoted, are all improperly shrunken from 

 4£ to 7 inches below their proper lengths, which those native sealers 

 and expert salters would have given them! 



This trick ordered so as to bring them (those 2-year-old and 3-} 7 ear- 

 old skins) down into the salted lengths of "small pups" and extra"small 

 pups," London sales. The natives salters exposed the trick to the 

 agents of the House Committee on Expenditures in the Department 

 of Commerce, as above duly presented. 



Mr. Watkixs. What was the object of that salting, if it reduced the 

 size of the skins ? 



Mr. Elliott. That would bring them within the class of "small 

 pups" in London sales. In other words, they would be able to say 

 that this was a correct experiment, and it declared the fact that salted 

 34-inch sealskins were 2-year-old skins. 



Mr. Watkixs. Oh, I see; that would be an average for the small 

 skins ? 



Mr. Elliott. Yes, sir. But, fortunately, by the patriotic energy, 

 and zeal and honesty of those officials of the Bureau of Fisheiies, and 

 savants of the advisory board, in bringing down three typical salted 

 skins of yearling seals, by official orders of the bureau August 18, 1911, 

 and submitting them here, they exposed and prevented that trick 

 of Mr. Clark (in 1912), from being put over here, to-day, or hereafter. 

 Please take note of the following sequence: 



