d skirted the Pacific Coast from Cape Horn to Alaska,
and had brought to the attention of the fur-dealing and fur-wearing
world the sea-otter of the Northern Pacific. He also gave a
psychological prophetic glimpse of the insidious sealskin sack.

In Seventeen Hundred Ninety, a ship from the Pacific brought a hundred
otter-skins to New York. The skins were quickly sold to London buyers at
exorbitant prices.

The nobility wanted sea-otter, or "Royal American Ermine," as they
called it. The scarcity boomed the price. Ships were quickly fitted out
and dispatched. Boats bound for the whale fisheries were diverted, and
New Bedford had a spasm of jealousy. Astor encouraged these fur-seeking
expeditions, but at first declined to invest any money in them, as he
considered them "extra hazardous." He was not a speculator.

* * * * *

Astor lived over his store in Water Street until the year Eighteen
Hundred when he moved to the plain and modest house at Two Hundred
Twenty-three Broadway, on the site of the old Astor House. Here he lived
for twenty-five years.

The fur business was simple and very profitable. Astor now was confining
himself mostly to beaver-skins. He fixed the price at one dollar, to be
paid to the Indians or trappers. It cost fifty cents to prepare and
transport the skin to London. There it was sold at from five to ten
dollars. All the money received for skins was then invested in English
merchandise, which was sold in New York at a profit. In Eighteen
Hundred, Astor owned three ships which he had bought so as absolutely to
control his trade. Ascertaining that London dealers were reshipping furs
to China, early in the century he dispatched one of his ships directly
to the Orient, loaded with furs, with explicit written instructions to
the captain as to what the cargo should be sold for. The money was to be
invested in teas and silks. The ship sailed away, and had been gone a
year. No tidings had come from her. Suddenly a messenger came with the
news that the ship was in the bay. We can imagine the interest of Mr.
and Mrs. Astor as they locked their store and ran to the Battery. Sure
enough, it was their ship, riding gently on the tide, snug, strong and
safe as when she had left.

The profit on this one voyage was seventy thousand dollars. By Eighteen
Hundred Ten, John Jacob Astor was worth two million dollars. He began to
invest all his surplus money in New York real estate. He