< 42 THE FARMER AT HOME. 



unites with most of the metals, particularly tin, which, in union with 

 lead, forms the solder used by plumbers. The carbonate of lead, 

 which is a powder, is better known by the name o/ white lead ; the 

 red oxide of lead is otherwise called red lead. 



LEATHER. This remarkable substance, which is universally 

 employed throughout the civilized world, is prepared from the skins 

 of animals, or, it would perhaps be more correct to say, consists of that 

 substance after it has been chemically changed by the process of tan- 

 ning. This change is effected by means of a substance residing in 

 several vegetable matters, to which tb3 name of tannin has been 

 given. When this tannin, which is soluble in water, is applied to 

 the hides of animals, from which the hair, epidermis, and any fleshy 

 or fatty parts adhering to them are removed, and which hides then 

 consist wholly of gelatin, also soluble in water, these two soluble sub- 

 stances, so unite chemically, as to form the wholly insoluble substance 

 called leather. Of the ox-hides which are converted into leather, 

 those supplied by bulls are thicker, stronger, and coarser in the grain, 

 than those of cows ; while the hides of bullocks are intermediate be- 

 tween those of the bull and the cow. Such leather is employed for 

 the soles of boots and shoes ; for most parts of harness and saddlery ; 

 for making leather trunks, buckets, hose for fire engines and pump- 

 valves ; for the thick belts used in military accoutrements and ma- 

 chine shops, and for the gloves of cavalry. 



LEAVES. In Botany, are membraneous or succulent organs, 

 usually of a green color, arising immediately from the root, or attached 

 to the stern and its branches. The point by which a leaf is attached 

 to the plant is termed its base, the opposite extremity is the summit, 

 the intermediate portion of the leaf is its expansion, and the boundary 

 of the expansion is its margin. The superior surface is more even, 

 and usually of a deeper green ; and the other exhibits more promi- 

 nently the fibres of the diverging vessels. 



The magnitude of leaves varies almost as much as their forms. 

 In the mosses which abound in cold climates, they are extremely 

 minute ; and the forest trees of the north are adorned with leaves 

 which appear diminutive when compared or rather when contrasted 

 with the foliage of equatorial plants. There we find the leaves of the 

 banana, perhaps the same which were employed by our first parents, 

 to supply the want of a more artificial dress ; they being, in the opinion 

 of many writers, the ' fig-leaves" of sacred history. In Ceylon, a 

 country alternately exposed, for many months in succession, to the 

 rays of a vertical sun, and the inclemencies of an unceasing storm, is 

 found the singular talipot, a single leaf of which is sufficiently large 

 to shelter twenty men from the vicissitudes of the climate in which 

 they dwell. This tree is venerated by those who find beneath its 

 branches so kind a shelter, and travellers consider it as the greatest 

 blessing which Heaven has bestowed on the country. And when we 



