Seattle daily post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, W.T. [Wash.]) 1881-1888, 1882-04-19
PACIFIC CeAsr rlsuERlEs.

EACAkAC COAST R1S088lES.
T. B. Merry, in the last Sunday Or
eyonian. has the fisheries Of the Pacific
Coust written up in the manner aud Ian
guage following:
Other avenues of wealth are open 10
disensaged capital, outside of salmon
cannerles, requiring less capital to inau.
gurate them. 10 hit out a cannery costs
from $23,Gu to $4,000. according TO the
number OF boats and nets supplied. A
boat with nets, lanterns and full outfit,
costs about $500 rs she shoves out for
her first drift. On the other hand. an
outfit for saaifshing would cost from
1 SotU to. $IJD, and comprises a small
sloop or schooner of about - tons bur
then. carrying two yawi boats and
manned by four men, one of whom acts
as captain and another as cook. They
have breach loading rifles with which
they shoot the seals, and then they have
to graphic thsCf before they SINK, Ii
sAot dead instantly they sink to the bot
tom. The fur zeal Is found near Cane
fiattery, bot his fur is vastly inferior TO
that of the seals found upon the islands
OF the Alaskan Archipelago Besides
| these the spotted seal Is found all along
tne coast, and Can be seen in the ColuIn-
bia river, all tie way up to the Cascades.
during the salmon season. His skin il
used for Office and dining room furni-
| ture, and they are nov beginning to use
them for cheap trunks. Some Of the
vessels engaged in seal fishing at Neah
Bay made
GOOD DEAL OF MONEY
Last year, but this season the catch has
been very light and none of the craft
have made more than expenses. The
sca-iion, which weighs about IA much
as any thirty seals, can be killed for
his OIL. which makes good skid grease
Tor logging camps. and can also he used
for iubricating the journals of heavy
shafts which do not require as fine oil
az lighter bearings. the canneries
should club together and lit out boats,
say one to every five canneries, to de-
stroy sea-lions, for if they only got
enough TO pay their current expenses
1t would be a good investment, for the
reason that one fuliy-grown sea-iion will
eat sixty pounds of salmon at a meal
II he GIN get it. OF all gluttons hs is
the worst, and there Is nothing cowardly
about him either. Some twenty years
ago, a hunter named Harry Barnstoff
had small sloop and hunted seals near
Point Arena. he had a double barrelod
rifle, with which he made his living
One day he came across sea-lion and
SHOT him through the neck. The en-
ragged beast camo after him before he
could reach his boat, for his second
barrel had snapped, and threw him
down. Harry got on. his knife and
killed the brute. but not before he had
CRIPPLED HIM FOR LIFE
With his terrible teeth and strong claws.
Seal oil and sea-li oil ere both inferior
TO tho dog -fish oil manufactured ON this
Coast, which bids fair to become the
lubricant of the future. Vhess dog-fs
are a species of shark and have the sand
paper cuticle peculiar to ell that tribe
The FIRST attempt at making oil from
their livers was begun by the IND. ms
along the Straits of Fuca-and it taxes
about twenty-five livsrs to make a gal
lon of oil, worth ono dollar before it is
refined. These fish are caught in great
numbers in the upper part of Puget
Sound, especially about Steilacoom.
Oil works are also established about
Sitka, notably those of The Northwest
Trading Company, of which Schulze is
president. The steamships and river
boats of the .. X. Il n. lines all use this
oil for lubricating purposes, and their
engineers report it fully rs good as the
best winter strained lard oil. and much
below it in first cost. DoRfish are also
very numerous in Yaquina Bay ut GER
tain seasons, and If some enterprising
fellow goes in there with few thousand
dollars he can soon double his money
by usiliZing Indian labor AZ much as
possible. San Francisco machinists arc
already beginning to learn the real e1-
| cellence of this oil, and it will soon
come into general use there.
FOR HALIBUT, OR HEILIGBUTT.
As it is called by the Norsemen, is also
a native of Pacific waters and is first
found on the st. Georges reefs below
the mouth of Rogue river, where IT is
caught in small quantities. As you go
northward You find these fish on banks
OF say thirty fathoms of water, all the
way up the coast, abreast of Coos, Va
quina ond TIllamook bays; and III tho
Straits of Fuca they are very large, Of
ten reaching $50 to 400 pounds. The
fish is fiat like founder, and swims
fiat near the bottom, cracking CLAIMS
and muscles with its strong jaws. Its
flesh is white and creamy, so much SO
that parties at Port Townsend are talk
ing about canning it for export to Aus
tralia. AT present ii is merely cut into
strips. salted and smoked, after remOv-
ing tho fins and fatty substance at the
nape OF the neck. These ''napes and
fins" naked together arc u standard art
icle of commerce and are generally sold
In kits of thirty pounds weight, picked
like nackerel or any other export fish.
As breakfast del.cacy they are not 10
be sneezed ut, and there are but few
Yankee homesteads that do not have
their kits of fins and napes in the cellar
for the winter months. Speaking of
these reminds us of
SALMON TIPS"
For the introduction of which We are
indebted to Charles i. Thomes, OF Asto-
ria. While employed ut Il. d. Huine's
csnnery at Bay View, he noticed that
large quantities of oil exudsd from n
pile of tips" lying on the floor; and
that fact suggested the idea that these
triangular bits Of flesh. caused by ampu- |
tatins the heads and extracting the
gills might be the richest part of the
fish. He accordingly picked half
barrel of them, and used them in his
family until his visitors began to clamOr
for kits of them to take home. The
next year J. w. and V. Cook OF Clifton
be9en the same operation but packed
them merely for their own use i'll their
boarding house the first season. Since
then they have packed them for sale.
and they are To DO found in every retail
grocery in Portland. The orthodox
way is TO boil potatoes in their Jackets
and boil the tips" with them. Tue
curing of tips" however, has not come
into general use ut the canneries, none
80. -. - al. .
above mentioned. But as they become
better known these delicious morsels will
grow into an article of general ex-
port.
THE COP fisHKRIEs
OF the Pacific begin abreast OF the
mouth of she Fraser river and extend
mort hu, IA inf. thu Kuss, an t,s,ssasaia.,a