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in lliat family till the year 1536. In this year, the troops 

 of Berne, when they had reduced the reft of the Vaudois, 

 laid fiege to this town, and after a few days, became mar- 

 ters, iince which Yverdun has been fubjed to Berne. 1 he 

 police is adminiftered by a great and little council, compoled 

 of thirty -fix members, the prefident of whom has the title 

 of banner,!. It has a large and ftrong caftle, flanked with 

 four towers, built in the 1 2th century, by Conrad, duke ot 

 Zahringen : other public buildings are, a college for the 

 inllruftion of youth, an hofpital, divers magazines, &c. and 

 in the town-houfe is a library, formed not long fince by 

 contribution. The environs were formerly a morafs, which 

 has been drained, and is now become good and fertile land. 

 Near the town is a fulphureous medicinal fpring, and in the 

 year 1730, a building, for the purpofe of bathing, was 

 erefted by the magiftrates. In the middle of the lail cen- 

 tur>-, a company was formed, for tlie purpofe of making a 

 navigable canal from the lake of Yverdun to the lake of 

 Geneva, but it was never finifhed. The baihwick is one of 

 the moil confiderable in the canton of Berne, containing 

 about 25 parifhes and 20 lord(hips, and is about 15 miles 

 in length. The fertility is moderate : the wine is not of the 

 heft quality ; 34 miles S.W. of Berne. N. lat. 46° 48'. E. 

 long. 6° 14'. 



YVES, or Ivo,in Biography, bifhop of Chartres, was born 

 ■in the 1 ith century, of a noble family, in the territory of Beau- 

 vais, and fludied theology under Lanfranc, prior of Bee. Be- 

 ing made abbot of St. Quentiii, he opened a theological fchool, 

 which became famous ; and having fuperintended this infti- 

 tution for fourteen or fifteen years, and maintained a regu- 

 larity among thofe who attended it conformable to the an- 

 cient canons, he was juftly regarded as one of the chief 

 founders of the order of canons-regular. Upon the death 

 of Geoffrey, bifhop of Chartres, he was chofen as his 

 luccefTor, and the eleftion was confirmed by Urban II. 

 in 1091. The difcipline he maintained in his fee was ex- 

 emplary, and in the duties of it he was employed for 25 

 years, his epifcopate and his life terminating in 1116. 

 Belides fermons, a brief chronicle of the kings of France, 

 and twocolleftions of ecclefiaftical decrees, he has left 287 

 epiftles, from which may be learned the manners of the 

 times in which he lived. Of thefe we have a fummary by 

 Dupin. A colleftion of his works was printed at Paris in 

 1647. His name is highly refpeftedin the church of Rome, 

 and pope Pius V. ifTued a bnll in 1570, empowering the 

 canons-regular of Latran to celebrate an anniverfary for 

 " the blefTed Yves." Dupin. Moreri. 



YVETOT, in Geography, a town of France, in the de- 

 partment of the Lower Seine. This was once a place of 

 confequence, and the capital of a kingdom ; 18 miles N.W. 

 of Rouen. 



YUFTS, or Rujffia Leather, as it is called in Eng- 

 land, are the chief produfts of the tanneries in RufTia ; 

 and the principal places in which they are prepared, 

 next to Mofcow and Peterfburg, are, Arfamas, Kof- 

 troma, Yaroflaf, Pf9ove, Kazan, Vologda, Nifhney- 

 Novgorod, Vhdimir, Ekatarinenburg, &c. Mr. Tooke 

 has defcribed the procefs by which they are prepared : — The 

 raw ox-hides are tirft laid in running water, or in large tan- 

 pits full of water dug in the earth for that purpofe, to foak 

 for a whole week ; but in fummer not fo long. During 

 this time they are daily taken out of the water, and fcraped 

 at a fcraping-bench, or wooden horfe. Having now been 

 duly lleeped, they are put into a ley, thus prepared : In 

 other vats, likewife dug in the ground, and under cover, 

 they rnix two parts of good afhes with one part of unflacktd 

 lime, in boiling water, and fink the wet hides in this ley on 



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a grating, which being fufpended by cords, can be raifed or 

 let down at pleafure. In this vat the hides are laid again for 

 about a week, though in warm weather lefs, in cold perhaps 

 even longer. The fign that they have lain long enough in the 

 ley is, that the hair can without difficulty be rubbed off with 

 the hand, fo that none remains. If the hides, after the 

 expiration of a week, are not in that condition, frefh afhes 

 are put into the ley, and the fliin funk in it. But if at 

 length the hair be fufficiently loofe, the hides are entirely 

 taken out of the ley, and all the hair fcraped off on a 

 ftretching-block, by means of blunt iron fcrapers with two 

 handles. The hair is wafhed clean, and fold for domeftic 

 ufes. The hide?, thoroughly cleanfed from hair, are fuf- 

 pended in vats of clean water on a running ftream, where 

 they remain three days, diligently turning them to and fro, in 

 order to purge them from the afhes and ley ; afterwards they 

 are hung up, and left to drain. The hides muft now be 

 fcraped on the flefh fide. To this end they employ either 

 the aforefaid fcraping-iron, or others fharper in various de- 

 grees. After this treatment, the hides are trampled. But 

 calves-hides have another fort of preparation, which the 

 yuft -tanners, in the interior towns of the empire, who moftly 

 practife it, call rakfcha. This preparation is performed 

 with the white excrement of dogs dried, which is diffolved 

 in boiling water, and to a hundred hides about four vedros 

 full of excrement is the rule. If here the right proportion 

 with the water be not found, the hides corrupt in this flime, 

 the objeiEt whereof feems to be the complete freeing of the 

 fliin from the falts that adhere to it from the ley. The hides 

 are left to lie twice twenty-four hours. With this is 

 ftirred a four gruel of oatmeal with warm water, and to 

 three ofmics, or eighths of a chetverik, three or four 

 vedros of dregs of the common quas, which the people 

 make of meal and a fmall portion of malt, put in the 

 thin gruel, that it may quickly four with the hides. To 

 ten hides, the tanners ufually reckon forty pounds of 

 meal. 



After the hides have foured, which is done in large 

 vats, they are laid in other vats, and well fteeped for 

 two or three days in a flrong tan-juice, fok, thoroughly 

 boiled from good bark. V^hen this is done they are 

 brought ftraight to the tan. In the tan-pits, in which 

 often fome hundreds of hides are lying, is poured half water 

 and half tan, or water boiled with tan, and a grating is 

 hung in with cords, having one hide after the other fpread 

 upon it, thick ftrewed with good fine-pounded tan, and the 

 grating conftantly let deeper into the pit, till it be nearly 

 full ; yet fo that the tan-liquor is always above the hides, 

 which are then again fprinkled over with tan. In this tan 

 the hides continue to lie a week ; thofe of full-grown ani- 

 mals longer. On being taken out, they are wafhed and 

 trampled on, which two workmen in a fummer's day can 

 perform with three hundred hides. The next day they are 

 laid, in the manner above-defcrjbed, in frefh tan. Thus they 

 generally get four times fucceffively frefh tan, and are every 

 time rinfed clean. In the lafl tan they lie three weeks, or 

 longer, are then finally wafhed, hung up, and, when they 

 have tolerably drained, delivered to thofe workmen whofe 

 bufinefs it is, in particular workfhops, to dye, drefs, and 

 wax the yufts, and to dehver the goods finifhed. It is to be 

 obferved, that the Ruflian yuft-tanners feldom ufe oak-tan, 

 and never willingly. The choiceil and befl tan is that of the 

 tfchernotal, as they call it, or the black willow ; and alfo 

 the young bark peeled off from other fhrubby willows, 

 which are coUefted by the boors, dried in bundles, and 

 brought in cart-loads to market. To ten hides, the tanners 

 compute one and a half fathom of thefe bur.dles of willow- 

 bark. 



