“Then expert skinners strip off the skin, making cuts around the snout, tail, and flippers. Next the skins are carried to the salt-house, piled on each other in bins, ‘fur to fat,’ in layers like piles of paper; salt is thickly strewn on them, and they are held in place by heavy planks. In two or three weeks they are taken out, rolled in bundles, two skins together, corded tightly, and shipped to London to be dressed. Now, my Catherine, we must leave the Pribylov Islands, and go to London to follow the fortunes of your seal-skin coat.[84] “In the seal-skin dressing establishment the skins are carefully heated to loosen the coarse hair and not disturb the fur; then the hair is very carefully combed out, leaving the soft, silky fur, which is at once dyed to a rich, even brown color. The difference in the price of seal-skin garments arises chiefly from the greater or less labor and skill expended in combing and dyeing them. “The process of preparing the skins is this: they are stretched on frames or beams, and the flesh side is well scraped; the skins are next washed to remove grease, and are then dried, tacked on frames to keep them smooth. When dry they are again soaked and well cleaned with soap and water. Next the skin is dried by heat, and while still warm the coarse hair is combed out, the skin being kept warm and pliable, so that the hairs will not break. Once more being dried, the surface of the fur is shaved evenly. Then the skins are made soft by a fulling mill, or by being covered with sawdust and then trodden upon until pliable. “After all this the skins are examined, mended where torn, and two skins are laid together fur to fur, with paper fastened between. In this way they are shipped to the United States. It requires three skins to make your coat, my Catherine; if the style demanded very long coats it would require five. Being safely at the furriers in the United States, the skins are cut into coats and muffs and collars of the latest fashion, beautifully lined with quilted silk, and you, my Catherine, walk forth defiant of the cold, clad in the soft, warm garments which a year ago were swimming, rolling, plunging, feeding, sleeping in Bering Sea.” FOOTNOTES: [82] See U. S. Govt. Reports of the Pribylov Fisheries. [83] A kind of cuttle-fish. [84] Many seal skins are also dressed and dyed in Germany. LESSON XLV. A FLYING MAMMAL. “Silent they rest in solemn salvatory, Sealed from the moth and the owl and the flitter-mouse.” --JEAN INGELOW.