Southwest Washington labor press. [volume] (Hoquiam, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1925-05-29
NORTHWESTERN SHARK
A COMMERCIAL ASSET

The Norwegian fears not the shark.
= catches him and works up his
head into glue, his flesh into fertili-
ger, his teeth into ivory" ornaments,
his hide into leather and his liver in
to 'scodliver" oil. Nelson Macdonald
of Vancouver Island, believes that the
catching and industrial exploitation
of the shark is going to make the for
tune Of British Columbia. The wat
ers Of the province abound in sharks,
sayS 4 correspondent Of The Evening
Post New York;,
"There are millions Of sharks in
these North Pacific waters says Mr..
Macdonald, and there will never be
a shortage of them. The further
north you go the more sharks you
find, and from Vancouver to Alaska
are their feeding grounds. Taking
them from the bottom of the sea is
automatic. Norway has hundreds Of
such industries; in fact, the only real
hook for catching them works on a
swivel and comes from Norway, as
does also the so-called 'cod-liver oil
which invades the markets of the
world and is really shark-liver oil
manufactured in Norway
@In the shark plant, when the huge
fish is. being turned into so many
substance sand articles, there is alb
solutely no waste.
Business men from Vancouver,
Victoria, Seattle, and other North Pa
eifc seaport cities sat around table
in Victoria, Vancouver Island, recent
ly, where q firm from Seattle showed
the various processes through which
sharks passed, and the results at
tanned in glue, leather, fertilizer and
other marketable, needful products.
"At this meeting a Seattle company
showed large number of shark hides
in every stage Of tanning Many of
the men assembled were leather
men,, and they fingered the product
carefully and satisfied themselves
that the leather business was enter
ing the initial stage Of making up
goods of which heretofore they had
hand no conception.
SHARK hides run from an inch in
thickness in the ilder fish to the con-
sistency of paper in the baby shark.
Soles of boots, leather for the finest
suede shoes, black pigmented pro-
duct that would make club bags of
most lasting quality, uncrackable
lengths of leather that outstrip any
patent leather ever made and which
the leather shoemen said was the
finest they had ever seen, were among
the exhibits, and the thought of all
this material right at hand was a
revelation to men who had known
that there were sharks but thought of
them only as a menace to swimmers
and destroyers of marketable fish.
an Seattle hip-boots from shark
hides are being made, and one Van
couver bootmaker has been using
shark leather for other boots. Finer
grades Of the tanned leather are used
for upholstering; colored and stamp
ed, it is everweering and rich 20 look
upon.
sThe outer skin Of 'shargrin' must
come off in the first place and a pro-
cess has been successfully developed
which takes this away. It has the ex,
act properties of sandpaper Of the
rough variety. For very fine work OF
wood polishing, the 'shagrin' of tn,
baby shark can not be exeelled. I'm
derneath, section torn of reveals
one of the greatest properties Of To-
shark hide. This texture is lover
and interlaced as if by a machine, anG