When sheep-skins are tanned tor common leather, oak-bark is 

 used instead of sumach. 



Morocco is classified in commerce under the head of fancy 

 leathers, because it always reaches market with a highly finished 

 and colored surface on the grain side. 



The color is imparted in the same manner as cloth is dyed — 

 by means of the chemical combination of a pigment with a mordant. 



Some tanners dye the skins when they reach the state prepara- 

 tory to going into the tan-liquor, by sewing them together edgewise, 

 with the grain outwards, then mordanting, and afterwards giving 

 them two immersions, of a half hour each, in the dye-bath. 



The most common method, however, is to take the tanned skins 

 as they come from the drying-loft, place two together, and then 

 rub them over exteriorly with a brush containing the mordant 

 solution, and afterwards to apply the dye liquor in the same 

 manner. When the dyeing is finished, they are to be rinsed, 

 drained, spread out, sponged with oil to preserve their flexibility, 

 and then sent to the curriers' shop to be finished. 



Black — This color is imparted by the application of a solution of 

 red acetate of iron; crimso}i^ by a mordant of alum or tin salt, 

 and decoction of cochineal; puce^ by mordant of alum and decoction 

 of logwood; blue^ by a solution of sulphate of Indigo; olive^ by 

 a weak solution of copperas, as mordant, and a decoction of bar- 

 berry containing a little of the blue bath, as coloring liquor; 

 violet^ by the consecutive application of decoction of cochineal 

 and weak Indigo bath. 



