Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/851

Rh the turkey red of printers. The chemist depends upon animals to a large extent. Portions of the dog are used in tanning hides; albumin of the blood in refining sugar and various secretions in printing calico; while the chemist finds pepsin in the stomach of hogs and calves. Phosphorus for matches is taken from bones; the physician obtains his vaccine lymph from cows, by this means saving thousands of lives; while ammonia and lime are common products from bones and horn.

Among the special animals that are of great value to man is the whale. In 1884 a single animal sold for over fifteen thousand dollars, the oil bringing $3,490, the bone $12,230. Besides these products there is the ambergris, a secretion in the intestine; the valuable ivory of the teeth used by the Japanese in their carving; the skin as leather; the bones for knife handles and for various purposes.

The delicate mole is a valuable aid to the agriculturist. An individual will eat twenty thousand grubs in a year, while the fur is highly esteemed. The fur dealers use nearly ten million skins of rabbits and hares a year. Twenty thousand bears are sacrificed yearly, the hides being employed as leather, and even teeth for Indian chisels, knives, and ornaments. In 1880 the trade absorbed seven hundred tons of elephant ivory, one hundred thousand of these noble animals being killed that we might have billiard balls, chessmen, carved figures, and countless other objects for use and ornament.

The furs of animals keep us warm in winter, while the wool of our undergarments comes from another group representing vast industries giving support to thousands of persons.

Statistics in which this paper abounds are dry and uninteresting, but they alone tell the story of man's dependence upon the lower animals. One hundred thousand Persian lambskins are used annually by the trade; six hundred thousand Astrakhans and two hundred English skins—suggestive of an array of workers.

From the goat come mohair, cashmere; while the interesting Angora goat, which has been introduced into California, produces fifteen million pounds of wool per annum; every hoof, hide, and horn has its value in the great world of trade. The camels and their allies produce the hair for shawls and other valuable articles of wear.

The demand for objects of luxury is tending to the extinction of some of our most valuable animals. The buffalo has been almost wiped from the face of the earth, that we might have sport, robes, and buffalo tongue. The five hundred lion skins which the trade uses annually for rugs and leather have marked the royal cat for early extinction; while the rhinoceros, giraffe,