by it, and that the leather is of deficient quality. The great quantity of 

 tannin presented to the skins, tans their surfaces rapidly, and prevents the 

 entrance of the liquid into the interior. 



The patentees use, besides the ground oak-bark, the chips and sawdust of 

 the wood, and ordinary furze, and recommend the employment of young 

 shoots, the roots, and superfluous branches of the oak, by the use of which 

 they say that they procure a stronger decoction than that from the bark of 

 the trunk which contains a thick matter incapable of being separated- 



In 1819, additional improvements were introduced. The trunks, roots, 

 branches, and leaves of oak being asserted to contain enough tannin to war- 

 rant their employment in tanning, were reduced to the state of chips or 

 coarse powder, boiled in water, and used in the following manner: 



For the tanning of calf or other light skins, one hundred pounds of the 

 middle parts or branches of the oak in chips, is boiled in a copper boiler, with 

 fifty-two gallons of water until the latter is reduced to thirty-nine gallons. 

 This liquid is decanted, and upon the residue, is poured a second quantity of 

 thirty-nine gallons of water, which is boiled away to twenty-one gallons. 

 This decoction is set aside and serves for the first bath of the caU-skins after 

 they have been cleaned upon the horse, while the first liquor is used for the 

 second bath. 



To tan common skins, a hundred pounds of the middle parts or branches of 

 oak in chips, seventy-five pounds of fresh coarse tan, and twenty-seven and 

 a half pounds of the root, are boiled in sixty-six gallons of water, until the 

 latter is reduced to two-thirds. The decoction is then decanted oflF from 

 the partially exhausted matter, and fifty-two gallons more of water are poured 

 upon it and boiled until reduced to one-half. This liquid is used as the first 

 bath for the skins, and the one previously obtained as the second; and when 

 they have been exposed long enough to both, enough fresh bark or tan- 

 liquor to complete the tanning is added. This method seems to be very 

 incomplete throughout and the inventors have failed to make known the 

 proportions of tanning material to the number of skins, and the length of 

 time required for the completion of the processes. 



In these tannings, the skins were not thrown promiscuously into the 

 vats, but were suspended vertically at intervals of about an inch from each 

 other, so as to prevent the surfaces from touching; and to facilitate this 

 mode of suspension, they directed the heads of the skins to be cut off, and 

 bands on each side having attached to them the legs and parts of the bellies, 

 to be removed. The bodies of the skins were to be divided into pieces pro- 

 portioned to the depth of the vats, which pieces were to be suspended in 

 them, while the other parts, being of less value, were thrown together into 

 the bottom. 



In tanning skins for uppers, after washing and fleshing them, Seguin 

 directs that they be freed from hair by soaking in clear lime-water, and 

 then, without being raised, tanned in weak solutions of bark made into a 

 kind of ooze. The strength of these solutions was to be gradually increased, 

 but not to the point of complete saturation, as in the case of strong hides. 

 He succeeded in this way in tanning leather for uppers in three or four days. 



The method of tanning proposed by Seguin are rapid in the extreme, but 

 they have not been generally adopted, since the leather made by them is 

 inferior to that by the old process, and is less merchantable. It is possible, 



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