LEA 



LEC 



hold to the lessee or purchaser, which 

 vests in him the use of the term for a 

 year ; and then the statute of uses, 27 

 Henry VIII. c. 10, immediately transfers 

 the use into possession. He therefore, 

 being 1 thus in possession, is capable of re- 

 ceiving 1 a release of the freehold and re- 

 version ; and, accordingly, the next day a 

 release is granted to him. 



This conveyance was invented by Ser- 

 jeant Moore, soon after the statute of 

 uses, and the principle upon which it is 

 founded has been properly questioned, 

 there being no actual entry in general 

 under the lease, before the release 

 is made. When a corporation conveys, 

 either a feoffment or actual entry is 

 still necessary. But this mode of con- 

 veyance having been long- adopted, and in 

 constant practice, its validity cannot now 

 be questioned. This conveyance does 

 not properly operate, unless there is 

 either an actual entry, or a lease with a 

 valuable consideration, as a bargain and 

 sale for a year. 



LEATHER, the skin of several sorts of 

 beasts dressed and prepared for the use 

 of the various manufacturers, whose bu- 

 siness it is to make them up. The 

 butcher and others, who flay off their 

 hides or skin, dispose of them raw or 

 salted to the tanner and lawyer, and they 

 to the shamoy, morocco, and other kind 

 of leather-dressers, who prepare them 

 according to their respective arts, in order 

 to dispose of them among the curriers, 

 glovers, harness-makers, coach-makers, 

 saddlers, breeches-makers, gilt leather- 

 makers, chair-makers, shoe-makers, book- 

 binders, and all in any way concerned in 

 the article of leather. * 



The three principal assortments of 

 leather are, tanned or tawed, and oil and 

 alum-leather; and it may be affirmed, 

 with great truth, that the skins of our 

 own production, and those imported 

 from our colonies, when dressed in this 

 kingdom, make the best leather in the 

 world, and that therefore this is an article 

 of great importance to the trade of the 

 nation. 



Though there is no little difference be- 

 tween the dressing of shumoy-leather, 

 alum-leather, Hungary leather, Morocco 

 leather, parchment, and tanning; yet the 

 skins which pass through the' hands of 

 these several workmen, ought to have 

 been for the most part, at least, washed 

 clean from blood and impurities in a. run- 

 ning water; set to drain, worked with the 

 hands, or pounded with wooden pestles 

 in a vat ; put into the pit (which is a hole 



lined either with wood, or with stone and 

 mortar) filled with water in which quick- 

 lime is dissolved, in order to lor* 

 hair, that it may be easily rubbed off with- 

 out injuring the skin ; drawn out, and set 

 to drain on the edge of the pit; stretched 

 on the leg or horse, in order to have the 

 hair scraped off with a blunt iron knife, 

 or wooden cylinder: the membranes on 

 the fleshy side, and the scab- or rough- 

 ness on the grain side paved off with a 

 sharp knife, and the skins rubbed \vith a 

 whetstone, to take off anv particles of the 

 lime, or any thing else that may occasion 

 hardness ; thickened by different sorts of 

 powder, whereby they become greater in 

 bulk, and so much lighter, as gradually to 

 rise to the surface of the water ; stretched 

 out green or half dried, and piled one 

 over another; or put up separate after 

 they are dried, and hung out to air upon 

 poles, lines, or any other way ; which 

 must be repeatedly done in the dressing 

 of small skins. This alternate transition 

 from the liquid of the air into that of 

 water, and from water into the air, with 

 the assistance of lime, salts, and oils, 

 opens the inmost fibres of the skin so 

 effectually, as greatly to facilitate the in- 

 troduction of substances proper for mak- 

 ing them pliant without rendering them 

 thinner. 



The alum-leather dresser dresses all 

 sorts of white leather, from the ox-hide 

 to the lamb-skin ; for dressing the sad- 

 dler's leather, he uses bran, sea-sait, and 

 alum ; and tor that which the glover uses, 

 after the common preparatives, he first 

 employs bran, and then with salt, alum, 

 fine flour, and yolks of eggs mixed in hot 

 water, he makes a sort of pap, with which 

 the skins are smeared in a trough. The 

 shamoy leather-dresser soaks in oil, not 

 only the skins of the true shamoy, which 

 is a wild goat, but likewise those of all 

 other goats. The tanner uses the bark 

 of young oaks ground in a tanning mill, 

 in which he soaks the skins more or less, 

 according to the different services ex- 

 pected from them, their chief use being 

 to remain firm and keep out water, la 

 certain cases, instead of tan, he uses 

 redon, which is chiefly used for tanning- 

 ram sheep-skins, and dressing Russia 

 leather. Uut for the different methods 

 in which the tanner, currier, Russia, and 

 Morocco leather-dressers, proceed in 

 finishing their skins, see CURRYING, 

 TAN N TNG, &c. 



LEAVEN. See BREAD. 



LECHEA, in botany, .so named from 

 John Leche, professor at Aboa, in Sweden, 



