Appendix 

 The Process of Tanning in i 764 



(From A New and Complete Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences; Comprehending 

 All the Branches of Useful Knowledge^ vol. 3, pp. 3154-3155.) 



Method of Tanning oxen-hides. The skin being flayed off" the 

 carcase, if it is intended to be kept, is salted with sea-salt and alum, 

 or with a coarse kind of saltpetre. If it is not for keeping, the salt- 

 ing is saved, as being of no use but to prevent the hide from cor- 

 rupting before it can be conveniently carried to the tanhouse. 

 Whether the hide have been salted or not, the tanner begins with 

 taking; off the horns, the ears, and the tail, after which it is thrown 

 into a running water for about thirty hours, to wash off the blood 

 and other impurities adhering to the inside. This done, it is laid 

 over ni^ht in a lime-pit, already used, whence it is taken and left to 

 drain three or four days on the edge of the pit. The first and 

 slightest preparation over, it is retained into a strong lime-pit for 

 two days, then taken out for four days more; and thus for six 

 weeks alternately, it is taken out and put in twice a week. At the 

 six weeks end it is put into a fresh pit, where it continues eight days, 

 and is then taken out for so many, and thus alternately for a year 

 or eighteen months, according to the strength of the leather and 

 the weather; for in great heats they put in fresh lime twice a week; 

 and in frost they sometimes do not touch them for three months. 

 Every fresh lime-pit they throw them into, is stronger and stronger. 

 At the end of four, five, or six weeks, the tanner scrapes off the hair 

 on a wooden leg or horse, with a kind of knife made for that pur- 

 pose. And after a year or eighteen months, when the hair is per- 

 fectly gone, he carries it to a river to wash, pares off the flesh on 

 the leo; with a kind of cutting knife, and rubs it briskly with a sort 

 of whetstone, to take off any remains of flesh or of filth on the side 

 of the hair. The skin is now put into tan, that is, it is covered 

 with tan as it is stretched in the pit, and water is let in upon it; if 

 the skin is strong, five coverings of tan will be required; for weaker, 

 three or four mav suffice. When the skin has not been kept long 

 enough in lime, or in the tan-pit, upon cutting it in the middle 

 there appears a whitish streak, called the horn or crudity ol the 

 skin, and it is this crudity that is the reason why the soles of shoes, 

 boots, (5cc. stretch so easily and take water. When the hides are 

 sufficiently tanned, they are taken out of the pit to be dried, by 



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