90 LEATHER, MOROCCO 



stocks, which opens the pores, but at the same time prepares them for the action of the 

 liming and bate; as also for the introduction of the tanning matter. When the 

 fulling is too violent, the leather is apt to be too limber and thin. Mr. Lee conceives 

 that the liming is injurious, by carrying off more or less of the gelatine and albumen 

 of the skin. High-limed leather is loose, weighs light, and wears out quickly. The 

 subsequent fermentation in the bating aggravates that evil. Another process has 

 therefore been adopted in New York, Maine, New Hampshire, and some parts of 

 Philadelphia, called, but incorrectly, cool sweating, which consists in suspending the 

 hides in a subterranean vault, at a temperature of 50 F., kept perfectly damp, by 

 the trickling of cold spring-water from points in the roof. The hides being first 

 soaked, are suspended in this vault from 6 to 12 days, when the hair is well loosened, 

 by the mere softening effect of moisture, without fermentation. H.M. 



^BATHER, MOROCCO. (Maroquin, Fr. ; Saffian, Ger.) Morocco leather of 

 the finer quality is made from goat-skins tanned with sumach; inferior morocco 

 leather (roan) from sheep-skins. The goat-skins as imported are covered with hair ; 

 to remove which they are soaked in water for a certain time, and they are then sub- 

 jected to the operation called breaking, which consists in scraping them clean and 

 smooth on the flesh side, and they are next steeped in lime-pits (milk of lime) for 

 several days, during which period they are drawn out, with a hook, from time to time, 

 laid on the side of the pit to drain, and replunged alternately, adding occasionally a 

 little lime, whereby they are eventually deprived of their hair. When this has be- 

 come sufficiently loose, the skins are taken out one by one, laid on convex beams, the 

 work-benches, which stand in an inclined position, resting on a stool at their upper 

 end, at a height convenient for the workman's breast, who scrapes off the hair with a 

 concave steel blade or knife, having a handle at each end. When unhaired, the skins 

 are once more soaked in milk of lime for a few days, and then scraped on the flesh 

 side to render it very even. For removing the lime which obstructs their pores, and 

 would impede the tanning process, as well as to open these pores, the skins are steeped 

 in a warm semi-putrid alkaline liquor, made with pigeons' and hens' dung diffused in 

 water. Probably some very weak acid, such as fermented bran-water, would answer 

 as well, and not be so offensive to the workmen. (In Germany the skins are first 

 washed in a barrel by a revolving axle and discs.) They are again scraped, and then 

 sewed into bags, the grain outermost, like bladders, leaving a small orifice, into which 

 the neck of a funnel is inserted, and through which is poured a certain quantity of a 

 strong infusion of the sumach ; and they are now rendered tight round the orifices, 

 after being filled out with air, like a blown bladder. A parcel of these inflated skins 

 are thrown into a very large tub, containing a weaker infusion of sumach, where 

 they are rolled about in the midst of the liquor, to cause the infusion within to act 

 upon their whole surface, as well as to expose their outsides uniformly to the tan- 

 ning action of the bath. After a while these bladder-skins are taken out of the bath, 

 and piled over each other upon a wooden rack, whereby they undergo such pressure 

 as to force the enclosed infusion to penetrate through their pores, and to bring the 

 tannin of the sumach into intimate contact, and to form a chemical combination with 

 the skin fibres. The tanning is completed by a repetition of the process of intro- 

 ducing some infusion or decoction into them, blowing them up, and floating them 

 with agitation in the bath. In this way goat-skins may be well tanned in the course 

 of one day. 



The bags are next undone by removing the sewing, the tanned skins are scraped as 

 before on the curriers' bench, and hung up in the drying loft or shed ; they are said 

 now to be ' in the crust.' They are again moistened and smoothed with a rubbing 

 tool before being subjected to tie dyeing operations, in which two skins are applied 

 face to face to confine the dye to one of their surfaces only, for the sake of economising 

 the dyeing materials, which may be of several different colours. The dyed skins are 

 grained by being strongly rubbed with a ball of box wood, finely grooved on its 

 surface. 



Preparatory to being dyed, each skin is sewed together edgewise, with the grain on 

 the outside, and it is then mordanted either with a solution of tin, or with alum-water. 

 The colour is given by cochineal, of which from 10 to 12 ounces are required for a dozen 

 of skins. The cochineal being boiled in water along with a little tartar or alum for a 

 few minutes, forms a red liquor, which is filtered through a linen cloth, and put into 

 a clean cask. The skins are immersed in this bath, and agitated in it for about half 

 an hour; they are taken out and beaten, and then subjected to a second immersion in 

 the cochineal bath. After being thus dyed, they are rinsed and tanied with Sicilian 

 sumach, at the rate of two pounds for a skin of moderate size. The process is per- 

 formed in a large tub made of white wood, in the liquor of which the skins are floated 

 like so many bladders, and moved about by manual labour during four hours. They 

 are then taken out, drained, and again subjected to the tanning liquor; the whole pro- 



