This widespread abundance in tanning essentials is illustrated 

 by a 1731 description of South Carolina that primarily bemoaned 

 the Colony's lack of skilled artificers but at the same time stressed 

 the plentitude of tanning materials. Most leather goods, accord- 

 ing to the author, came from England, and the reasons: "Not 

 but that they have Hides enough, and very cheap, an Ox's Hide 

 being sold for 20s. neither are they destitute of the Means to Tan 

 them; for they make very good Lime with Oyster-shells, and the 

 Bark of Oak-trees is so plentiful, that it costs nothing but the 

 trouble of gathering." l^nlike the settlements to the north, the 

 South Carolinians of the 18th century lacked "a sufficient number 

 of good Tanners and Shoemakers." ^^ 



In most areas trade quickened after 1700, and where leather 

 workers were plentiful the extended commerce brought increased 

 quantities of hides, imported to supplement the domestic supply 

 either from the West Indies, Lisbon, the Azores and Canaries, or, 

 much later, directly from South America. The term "Spanish" or 

 "Barcelona" or "Buenos Aires" as applied to hides became the 

 common nomenclature in importers' advertisements. Tanners in 

 the vicinity of seaport towns eagerly scanned notices ot ship 

 arrivals, hoping to strike a bargain for a cargo of heavy hides in 

 exchange for a consignment of finished leather. "° 



Knowledge of Old World developments came to America either 

 firsthand or in books. The secrets of the tanner, although omitted 

 from Moxon's Mechanic Exercises or Dochines of Ha7uiy-JFork,-^ 

 had already received some attention by the Royal Society in 

 1674.-- Perhaps a few colonists knew of the Trmisactions or oi the 

 various dictionaries of the arts and sciences that followed, such 

 as the one published at London-''^ in 1764. English works were 

 not the only accounts of the trade, or necessarily the best, par- 

 ticularly when compared with the "Art du Tanneur," so fully de- 

 scribed and illustrated by Jerome Lalande for Duhamel's Descrip- 

 tions des Arts et Metiers, or with Diderot's encyclopedic coverage 



18 Commons, ed., Docitmentarv History, vol. 2, p. 175, "Description of the Province of South Carolina 

 drawn up at Charlestown in September, 1731." Force, compil., Tracts, no. 11, p. 7. 



2° Advertisement of Broom, Hendrickson, and Summerl in Delaware Gazette, Wilmington, October 

 13, 1792. See also Hoover, Location Theory and the Shoe and Leather Industries, chapt. 8. 



2' The 3rd edition, 1703. 



-2 "Brief Directions How to Tan Leather according to the New Invention of the Honourable 

 Charles Howard of Norfolk," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (1674), vol. 9, pp. 93-96. 



23 New and Complete Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences; Comprehending all the Branches of Useful 

 Knowledge, 4 vols. 



