Maritime Geography and Statistics (4)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1815 edition. Excerpt: ...from India, one from Ostend, and four from London., q....-....ot These voyages had different degrees of success, MX0v-vf5rirj boM site. r- both on the coast and at China, some procuring a large cargo of furs, while others found the natives exhausted by preceding vessels; and again the prices greatly varying at Canton, according to the plenty or scarcity at the moment, from thirty to 100 dollars for a prime sea otter skin. The skins collected by the Russians are sent to Okotsk, and from thence through Siberia by Iakutsh and Irkoutsk to Kiachta, where they are purchased by the Chinese. In the year 17S6 the Spaniards first began to collect sea otter skins at their settlements of Monterey and San Francisco, which they sent to Acapulco; from whence they were conveyed by the galleon to Manilla, and thence to Cluna. Besides sea otter skins, the north-west coast aflbrds beaver, martin, zibelline, river otter, ermine, foxes red and black, wolves, grey, white, and red, wolf deer, squirrel, marmotte, bear, mountain sheep, racoon, moose deer, stag, and brown lynx. The best articles for barter with the Indians are coarse The sea otter is the most valuable of amphibious animals, from Uie beautiful fur with which it is cloathed. The greatest length is five feet. When young, the fur is coarse and of no value, but the flesh is thea equal to that of a sucking pig. The fur on those arrived at maturity ia black with a few white hairs, thick, soft, and two inches long, and unlike that of other animals, sticks out from the body. This animal seem to be peculiar to the N.W. coast of America, between the latitudes of 30 and G0-, and to the Aleutian Islands, and the opposite coast of Asia. Th- unmerciful war that has been waged against them since...