260 The Commercial Products of the Sea. 



Shoes have been made in Gloucester, Massachusetts, 

 from the skins of the cusk or torsk (Brosmus vulgaris), the 

 use of which has been patented. If this material for shoes 

 proves what it promises, it will open up a new market for 

 fish skins, which will no doubt be highly profitable. In 

 Egypt fish skins from the Red Sea are used for soles of shoes. 

 In the Animal Products Collection at the Bethnal-green 

 Museum, there are some tanned sole skins shown. The 

 skin of the losh or burbot (Lota maculata), cleansed, 

 stretched, and dried, is used by the country people in many 

 parts of Russia and Siberia to trim their dresses, and 

 instead of glass for the windows of their dwellings, being as 

 transparent as oiled paper. It is also utilized by some of 

 the Tartar tribes, as material for their summer dresses, and 

 the bags in which they pack their animal skins. The 

 inhabitants of the eastern coasts of the middle of Asia 

 clothe themselves with the tanned skins of the salmon. It 

 is asserted that it makes a leather as tough as wash-leather. 

 The scale-marks give a very neat pattern to the leather. 



W. Brozowsky, in his " Waarenkunde," Vienna, 1869, 

 under " Fish Skin," says this is obtained from the sea-angel 

 (Sqttalus squatina, Lin. ; Squatina l<zvis y Cuv.), the thorny 

 shark (Squalus accnitldas, S. carcJiarias\ the tigered shark 

 (S. caniculata), and some skates, as the angel skate (Raja 

 rJiinobatis], R. SepJicn, etc. The skins of these skates and 

 sharks have spines of different sizes instead of scales. The 

 skins are used for polishing, and, after the star-formed 

 spines have been smoothed down with sandstone, for cover- 

 ing boxes and cases, etc. 



Guibourt (sixth edition, by Dr. G. Planchon, 1870-71, 

 vol. iv.), says the sephen of the Red and Indian Seas, 

 belonging to the genus Trygon, produces the tuberculous 

 and hard skin called galuchat, after the name of a Paris 



