PART II. SKINS FOR LIGHT LEATHERS 



SECTION I. --PRINCIPLES AND GENERAL 

 METHODS OF LIGHT LEATHER MANU- 

 FACTURE 



THE term "skin," like the term "hide," in its widest sense 

 applies to the natural covering for the body of any animal, 

 but is generally used with a narrower meaning in which 

 it applies only to the covering of the smaller animals. Thus 

 we speak of sheep skins, goat skins, seal skins, pig skins, 

 deer skins, and porpoise skins. It is in this sense that it 

 will be used in this volume. The treatment of such skins to 

 fit them for useful purposes comprises the light leather trade. 

 Whilst this branch of the leather industry is certainly 

 utilitarian, the artistic element is a great deal more promi- 

 nent in it than in the heavy leather branch. Thus the 

 light leathers are often dyed and artistically finished, and 

 their final purposes (such as fancy goods, upholstery, book- 

 binding, slippers, etc.) have rather more of the element of 

 luxury than of essential utility. The total weight and value 

 of the skins prepared, and of the materials used in their 

 preparation, are naturally considerably smaller than those 

 of the heavy leather trade. In the latter, moreover, one 

 has to consider the purpose in view from the very com- 

 mencement of manufacture and vary the process accord- 

 ingly, but in light leather manufacture one aims rather, in 

 the factory, at a type of leather such as morocco leather, 

 and only after manufacture is it fitted to such purposes as 

 may be particularly suited to the actual result. These 

 results depend very largely upon the " grain pattern " 

 which is natural to the skin of any one species of animals. 

 Hence in Part II, of this volume it has been found most 



