The warehouses were stored with thousands on thousands of the richest furs of the Northland; sea-otter, worth today from $800 to $1,000 per skin, and not to be had at any price, were numbered by thousands in the earlier years; sealskins by shiploads, some killed off the harbor, but mainly from the Seal Islands; of land otter, the Hudson's Bay Company paid them two thousand skins each year for the lease of the territory from Portland Canal to Cape Spencer. The martin, the American sable, with its fluffy pelage. Foxes, blue, white, black, silver gray, red and cross, were there by thousands, brought from the Arctic, from the Aleutian Islands, from the Valley of the Yukon; mink, ermine, muskrat, beaver, land otter, pile on pile. Tons of ivory from the walrus herds of Morzhovia and bearskins and wolfskins from Cook Inlet and the Copper River. The right to the fur trade belonged exclusively to the Company by Royal ukase, and any employe who was found attempting to infringe on their rights was arrested and sent to Russia for punishment.[17] From the top of the Castle, over 100 feet above the sea, a light burned as a beacon to mariners entering the harbor, and this was the first light-house to throw its beams over the waters of this northern ocean. In the cupola which rose from the roof were four little square cups into which seal oil was poured and wicks burned in grooves rising from them, while back of the flame was a reflector that threw the light far out to sea among the islands. The stock of goods in the magazines was large and varied. It covered almost every article carried in the general European trade as a necessity, and many of the luxuries--sugar and sealing wax, tobacco, both Virginia and Kirghis, silk and broadcloth, calico and Flemish linen, ravens duck and frieze, arshins of blankets and poods of yarn; vedras of rum, cognac and gin; butter from the Yakut, from California and from Kodiak; salt beef from Ross Colony, from England and from Kodiak; beaver hats and cotton socks. In the arsenal were kept about a thousand muskets, three hundred pistols, two hundred rifles, as well as sabres, cutlasses, etc., while four fire engines provided against loss by conflagration. Some rare weapons were also found there. A saber set with gems valued at 560 rubles; a Persian carbine of a value of 450 rubles; two Persian yatighans, silver mounted; a Damascus saber, and two Persian pistols, silver mounted. The soldiers' guns were for a great part of French or English workmanship; rockets and false-fire for signalling ships were made each year. Tallow for candles was brought from California, moulded at the port and distributed so many candles to each employe according to their presumed needs each month.