460* . [AsSKMBliY " 



Tanning now began to grow into a system, with fulling mills to 

 soften the hide^s, and conductors to draw off the liquor from the 

 vats, and a press, or ball pump, with leches and heattrs. 



To illustrate more comj'letely what I mean, I may be excufed 

 for referring to my system, as practiced at the Prattsville tannery ; 

 for this will show the degree of scientific skill, mechanical inge- 

 nuity, and moral and comri^ercial influence that may be connect- 

 or] with the manufacture of the single article of sole leather. 



In 1824 I visited the district (then a wilderness) where Pratts- 

 ville now stands. Nobody had auppo^^ed that there was a wat^x 

 power there, but a practic-al experiment on the spot, with a miU- 

 wright, proved satisfactory. My experience in that valley hag 

 shown a lesson that I would gladly inculcate upon all my fellow- 

 countrymen, particularly on young men, that to will and to do are 

 very nearly the same thing. I do not wish to trouble m.y audience 

 with a minute relation of my experience in the art of tanning, nor 

 of the system that I adopted, and I shall therefore leave out of 

 this address what now might prove tedious for you to hear, but I 

 may publisli it hereafter. 



1 now ask your attention fov a little while, as I present some 

 further views ou the general subject o;' tanning, that have been 

 incidentally brought to my notice. 



The first hemlock leather that was taken to England from the 

 United States, excited the astonishment of a chemist, and he said 

 that it was not tanned, but only colored. He declared that he 

 would take out the color, and bring it back to hide. Sp he went 

 to work, but after trying to his full satistaction, he found out that 

 Brother Jonathan had already got ahead of him, and tanned what 

 the English chemist could not untan. 



A cord of hemlock bark weighs about 2,200 pounds. When 

 lechcd or boiled down, it will make three or four hundred pounds 

 of dry, hard tan, that can be reduced to the immediate practical 

 use of the ait of tanning. Why this number of pounds docs not 

 all enter into the hide, I am unable to explain; but it i-s well 

 known that a cord of l)ark does not make more than sixty or 

 eighty pounds. The cause of this great loss has not been deter- 



