426 REPORT OF THE BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 



they are handled in liquor six or seven days, then laid away in ground 

 barks; each layaway extends over about seven weeks. They are 

 tanned six to eight months and are then hung in the air to harden, 

 then dampened and split. The sides are flattened and leveled by the 

 currier. In finishing they are scoured and stuffed, set out, whitened 

 and finished by machines, and blacked with soap blacking or other 

 compounds. Two pieces on the rump of the horse-hide are known 

 as "the shell." After the hide is through the lime this shell is cut 

 out and tanned separately, as it requires different treatment and 

 makes finer leather than the other portion. It is finished on the flesh 

 side, while the rest of the hide is finished on the grain. 



ALLIGATOR LEATHER. 



Only the belly and sides of the alligator are tanned. The back is 

 scaly, and not fit to be turned into leather. The skins are soaked 

 two to four days in clear, cold water. They are then limed from 

 eight to fourteen days, according to size of skins, after which they 

 are bated with hen manure, made weak, and in this way they are 

 handled ten to fifteen hours, and then cleansed and thrown into a vat 

 of weak hemlock liquor, which is gradually strengthened to 20 degrees 

 in twenty days' time, when they are taken out and hung in the open 

 air. They are softened on the flesh side with a tool made for the pur- 

 pose, then handled in tan liquor of 10 degrees for six or eight days, 

 taken out, scoured and slickered on both flesh and grain sides and 

 stuffed with tallow and oil, set out, blacked with logwood and cop- 

 peras on the grain side, glassed, " pasted over the black, "glassed again 

 and finished on the grain side with gum tragacanth. When these 

 skins are intended for satchels and pocket-books they are not blacked, 

 but finished natural color or by the application of aniline dyes. 



Imitation alligator leather is made from split steer-hides, prepared 

 in the ordinary process by tanning in a drum with gambier or oak 

 tanning liquors, dried and treated with a composition of linseed oil, 

 boiled with litharge or sugar of lead, mixed with naphtha, benzine, or 

 camphine, with sufficient lampblack to give it coloring. Feur or five 

 layers of this composition are applied, the hide being dried and 

 pumice-stoned between each operation. The last coat is not smoothed 

 off, but the side is then dampened and passed between rollers or dies, 

 when it is embossed with the desired impression to represent an 

 alligator-hide. Any desired impression for furniture-leather, wall- 

 leathers or hangings can be given by rolls made to produce any figure 

 required. 



THE COMPARATIVE COMPOSITION OF AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN 



BEEF. 



By Prof. CHARLES D. WOODS. 



A comparison of the analyses of American and European beef,. as 

 made by prominent chemists, reveals the fact that there is a very im- 

 portant difference in the composition of this article of food as it is 

 produced on the two continents. The following table, which has 

 been compiled from Konigs Nalirungsmittel, and from the analyses 

 of Prof. W. 0. Atwater, of Wesley an University, contains the greater 

 part of the reliable chemical investigation of this subject : 



