S H A 



(hot ; becaufe, when it fees tlie fla(h of a gun, it pops under 

 water, and does not rife but at a confiderable diitance. 



SHAGR, in Geography, a town of Syria, in the pa- 

 chalic of Aleppo ; 40 miles W. of Aleppo. N. lat. 35° 45'. 

 E. long. 36° 25'. 



SHAGREEN, or Chagreen, derived from the Tartar 

 fighre, a kind of grained leather, prepared in Aftraclian, 

 chiefly by Tartars and Armenians, and moftly ufed in the 

 covers of cafes, books, &c. It is very clofe and fohd, and 

 covered over with little roundifli grains, or papilla. It 

 is brought from Conllantinople, Tunis, Tripoli, Algiers, 

 and fome parts of Poland. 



There has been a difpute among authors, what the animal 

 is from which the fliagreen is prepared? Rauwolf afTures 

 us it is the onager, which, according to him and Bellonius, 

 is a kind of wild afs. Vide Ray, Sj-nopf. An. Quad. 

 p. 63. 



It is added, that it is only the hard part of the (Icin which 

 is ufed for this purpofe. Or, it is that part of the flcin 

 that grows about the rump : that of horfes is faid to be 

 equally good. There are large manufaSures of it at Aftra- 

 chan, and in all Ptrfia. Borel fays, it is the fl<in of a fea- 

 calf ; others, of a kind of fifh, called by the Tmks fiagrain, 

 whofe flcin is covered with grains ; and thofe fo hard, that 

 they will rafp and polilb wood. 



There is alfo a fort of fliagreen, which was formerly made 

 of the fkin of the fquatina : in Englifh, the monk or angel- 

 filli, but now of that of the greater dog-ii(h. Vide WiU 

 lughby Ichth. p. So. 



Shagree.v, Manner of preparing. The procefs for 

 making fhagreen is as follows : of horfe-hides and afs-hides 

 the hinder back-piece, cut off immediately above the tail in 

 nearly a femi-circular form about an arlhine and a half upon 

 the crupper, and rather lefs than an arfhine along the back, 

 is felefted as the only part that is ufeful, and the rell is 

 thrown away. The back pieces thus cut out are laid in a 

 vat filled with clean water, and left in it feveral days fuc- 

 ceflively, till they are thoroughly foaked, and the hair comes 

 freely off. Then the hides are taken one by one out of the 

 vat, fpread againft a board fet (lanting againft the wall, one 

 corner of it reaching over the edge of the board where it is 

 faftened ; and in this pofition the hair is fcraped off with a 

 blunt fcraper, urak, and with the hair the upper pellicle ; and 

 the cleanfed fltin is laid again in clean water to foften. This 

 done, they take it a fecond time out, fpread one piece after 

 mother in the manner before defcribed, fcrape now the flefti- 

 fide with the fame fcraping-iron, and the whole ikin cleaned 

 again on the hair-fide with great care, fo that nothing now 

 remains of the foftened fl(in but the clean finewy web which 

 ferves for parchment, confifting of thick fafciculi of mellow 

 fibres, refembhng a hog's bladder foftened in water. After 

 this preparation they immediately take in hand certain 

 frames, pjeltzi, eompofed of a ftraight piece and a femi- 

 circular bow, forming therefore nearly the fliape of the 

 fkin, which is ilretched in it with itrings a' even and uniform 

 as poflible ; and during this operation is fprinkled between 

 whiles with fair water, that no part of it can dry and occa- 

 fion an unequal extenfion. In like manner they finally wet 

 them when the whole (lock of (kins is Ilretched, and carry all 

 the thoroughly wetted (kins into the work-room. There 

 the frames are one by one laid flat on the floor, fo that the 

 flefl'.-fide of the Ilretched fl<ins is turned undermoft. The 

 other fide is now thick ftrewed over with the black, very 

 fmoeth, and hard feeds of a fpecies of the herb goofe-foot, 

 or the greater orach (chtnopodium album), which the 

 Tartars call alabuta, and which grows in great abundance, 

 and almoft to man's height, about the fouthern Volga in farm- 



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yards and gardens ; and that thefe may make a ftrong im- 

 preffion on the flcin, a felt is fpread over them, and the feed* 

 trod in wjth the feet, by which means they are impreded 

 deeply into the very yielding flcins. Then, without (baking 

 off thefe feeds, the frames are carried again into the opeQ 

 air, and fet leaning againft a fence or a wall to Ary, in 

 fuch manner that the fides covered with the feeds face the 

 wall and cannot be (hone on by the fun. In this lituation 

 the Ilretched flcins muil dry for feveral days fucceffively ia 

 the fun, till no trace of moillure is perceptible in them, and 

 they may be taken out of the frames. Then, when the im- 

 preded feeds are beaten off from the hair-fide, it appears full 

 of httle pits and roughneffes, and has got that imprefllon 

 which the grain of the fhagreen ought to produce when the 

 true polidi has been given to the (kin by art, and the ley 

 now to be mentioned has been ufed previous to the uaining. 



The polilh is done on a ftretching-ber.ch, or a board on 

 tredels, furni{hed with a fmall iron hook, and covered with 

 fome thick felts or voiloks of (beep's wool, on which the 

 dried (hagreen-flcin may lie foft. This is hung in the 

 middle, by a hole which has been occafioned by the firing 

 in the llretching, to the hook, and fattened at the end by a 

 firing with a weight or a (lone, by means of which the fkin 

 is allowed to move to and fro, but cannot eafily be (hoved 

 out of its proper fituation. This done, the polifhing oc 

 rafping is performed by two feveral inflruments ; the firft it 

 called by the Tartars tokar, bein^ an iron, crooked at one 

 end like a hook and (harpened. With this the furface of the 

 fhagreen is fcraped pretty fharply, in order to remove the 

 mort prominent rugofities, which from the horny hardiiefs 

 of the dried flcin is no eafy matter, and in which great care 

 muft be taken not to (have away too deeply the impreffions 

 of the alabuta-feeds, of which there is imminent danger if 

 the iron be kept too fharp. As the blade of this iron is 

 very narrow, it will make the fhagreen rather uneven, and 

 therefore after it, muft be ufed the other fcraper, or urak, by 

 which the whole furface acquires 3 perfeft equality, and 

 only a flight impreflion remains of the feed?, exaftly as it 

 ought to be. After all thefe operations the fhagreen is laid 

 again in water, partly for rendering it fupple and partly to 

 make the elevated grain appear ; for the feeds having cauled 

 pits in the furface of the flcin, the interftices of thefe pits 

 have loft their prominent fubftance by the polifhing or 

 fhaving, and now the points that were preffed down, having 

 loft nothing of their fubftance, fpnng up above the (haved 

 places, and thus form the grain of the fhagreen. To this 

 end the pieces of fhagreen are left to foften twice 24 hours 

 in water, and are floated feveral times afterwards in a ftrong 

 and hot ley, which is obtained by boihng from an alkalefcent 

 faline earth, fchora, found about Aftrachan. From this ley 

 the flcins are bundled warm one on another, and thus fiifiered 

 to lie fome hours, by which they fwell up and are foftened 

 in an extraordinary manner. Again, they are left to lie 

 24 hours in a moderately ftrong brine of common fait, by 

 which they are rendered fine and white, and excellently 

 adapted to receive any agreeable colour, which the work- 

 man haltens to give them as foou as they are come out of 

 the pickle. The colour moft commonly communicated to 

 the fine (hagreen is the fea-green, as the moft beautiful. 

 But the expert (hagreen-makers have the art of making alfo 

 black, red, blue, and even white (hagreen. 



For the green dve, nothing more is neceffary than fine 

 copper-fihngs and fal-ammoniac. As much of the latter 

 is melted in hot water as the water will admit. With this 

 fal-ammoniac water the fliagreen fkins, ftill moift from the 

 brine, are bruflied over on the ungrained flefh-fide, and when 

 they are thoroughly wetted, a thick layer of copper-filings 



6 is 



