Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-02-13
FURS OF SIBERIA
SUPPLY NEARING DEPLETION
AND PRICES RISING.
Marked Increase in the Demand and
Use Of Animal
Skins.
From the London Standard.


The chief center of the Siberian fur trade,
including that Of the Peninsula Of Kam-
schatka, Is Irkutsk. The greater part Of
the fells here collected from hunters and
trappers are bear, glutton, lynx. elk, rein.
deer, stag, musk-deer, fox. sable, marten,
mink, ermine, polecat. squirrel, Alpine
wolf, blue and silver fox, and one or two
kinds of wildcat Indigenous to Kamschatka.
The Siberian black hare is not now so often
found on the Irkutsk market. All kinds OF
furred skins have advanced in value during
the last few years. A blue fox fur now
brings about 80 rubles at Irkutsk, and that
figure is enhanced when a pair Of perfect
skins are offered. the price running up to as
much as 500 rubles for the two fells. From
Irkutsk the furs are, In the first instance.
chiefly distributed between the two fairs at
kirensk and Vercholensk. and thence they
find their way to the principal fur marts
In western Europe. Many of the English.
French and German furriers send buyers
to Irkutsk. 1t has lately been shown, how
ever, that one seldom buys at first hand
even in that Siberian center The most
valuable furs, bought at Irkutsk from
merchants who profess TO retain their own
hunters and trappers. have as a matter OF
fact, come through two or three pairs OF
bartering hands 1t would not be a very
difficult matter for the western buyers who
travel all the way to 1rkutsk to go a little
further, and establish trading relations at
| first hand with the trappers and trapping;
syndicates. An enormous economy would
be effected by such direct trading.
Output Below Demand.
Siberia, to which the civilized world has
long looked as one of the two chief sources
of the fur supply. is beginning, as our
Odessa correspondent informs US. to find
that the output no longer equals the de-
mand, SO that during the last few years all
kinds of furred skins have advanced In
price For ages the lonely forests and
tTndras Of Siberia offered ample pro-
lection to a host of wild animals. but the
Russian from across the Urals brought
with him, long afterward, the road and
the railway. Communication has become
easier, towns have sprung up, markets
have been opened; the Cossack has begun
to traverse regions where once the Sam
oyede, Ostiak or fungus wandered undis7
turbed, and skins are freely exchanged for
sundry luxurie5 from the white cars land.
The usual result has followed, and in al
most every part Of Siberia-as in North
America. the other great fur-producin&
region-skins and game are alike becoming
perceptibly rarer. Moreover. the task of
collecting furs for the market Is more than
ever subdivided. Irkutsk is the chief
center Of the trade but as that is now p
fourishing town, with over $4,000 inhabi-
tants on the long line Of the Trans Siberian
railway, we may be sure that little profitA
able hunting can be done within many o
league Of it. In fact, the enormous area
Of Siberia has hitherto made intermedt-
aries between the trapper and the exporter
a necessity, and il they become exorb.-
tant in their demands, 1t may be worth
while to establish direct dealing with thu
hunter Another center is Yakutsk, far
away to the northeast, the chief place OF
a province almost as large as Europe, ex-
Guiding Russia, and still thinly populate
ed that twenty years ago each person
might have been allowed seven square
miles.
Temperature at Yakutsk.
Yakutsk Is the coolest spot on earth, for
Its geographical position. In the winter It
enjoys for about two months an average
temperature Of quite 90 degrees of frost,
But people get used to many things, cold
included, and DR.. Landell says that with
q degrees Of frost children may be seen
running about in the open air stark naked.
It Is also famed for its furs, and the sables
caught in the WITHIN and Olekma forests
are reckoned the finest, blacklist and small
est in Siberia, and therefore the most val
liable. Its squirrels. too, are highly priced,
and are hunted only in winter, when the
fur is sometimes black, sometimes dark
gray; in summer it is red and in poor con-
dition. Another important center of the
fur trade is the district of the Lower Amur,
valuable sabes coming even from southern
Manchuria; 10000 skins were sold annually
at khabarofka some quarter of a century
ago. Time is ironcal in the changes It
brings; the coat of skins, the sole covering
of primeval man when he first wandered
away from climates where clothing was
needless, has become the decoration of rank
and the luxury of the wealthy. In early
days warmth and size would be chiefly val
ued; the sable and the ermine probably were
classed with the rabbit skin of the nursery
rhyme. to wrap Baby Bunting in" And
the same irony is in the furs them.
selves. The ermine, once reserved for roy.
atty is only the homely stoat, execrated by
the gamekeeper, which in arctic climates.
either for protective or preda cous purposes
has turned white, all but the tip of its
tail. The blue and other foxes whose skins
fetch so high price, are either Identical
with or closely allied to the familiar Rey-
nard, while the sable. whose skins a very
few years ago were sometimes worth from
81 to 45, even in Khabarofka and Yakutsk.
and in cases of rare excellence have real
lzed ten times that sum, is so close a rela-
ton to the pine marten of Europe that
some naturalists have doubted whether
they can be distinguished.