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LEATHER CLOTH. 



The recent continuous increase in the price of leather has naturally- 

 directed the attention of practical chemists to the best methods of perfect- 

 ing the imitations which, under the name of leather cloth, are now so 

 largely used as substitutes for leather itself. The improvement in this 

 branch of manufacture has been so steadily progressive that the original 

 standard taken for imitation — The American leather cloth — has been 

 long since surpassed, and it is, perhaps not too much to 

 say that the art of making artificial leather has now attained a 

 perfection which promises to make the imitation a better, and, though 

 cheaper, a more valuable article than that which it imitates. Among 

 the many new processes and inventions shown in the late Exhibition 

 there was no lack of English representatives of this rising branch of 

 manufacture striving to displace the American fabrics. Nearly all these 

 however, were too much like the Transatlantic article to be perfectly 

 successful. With its merits they produced its grave defects — the liability 

 of the varnish to crack, the colours to fade, and the material 

 itself to wear out fast as compared with real leather. One 

 series of specimens, however in this class attracted a great deal of 

 attention, though they faded to attract a medal. These 

 specimens were shown by Mr. Szerelmey, a gentleman well known 

 for his most curious chemical discoveries in hardening stone, wood, and 

 paper, and up to the present time the most successful of all the many 

 competitors for preserving the Houses of Parliament from further decay 

 by indurating the surface of the stone with a fluid silica, which, it is 

 asserted renders the stone beneath perfectly indestructible. The leather 

 cloth of Mr. Szeremley has since then grown in reputation till it now 

 promises to become a most important manufacturing discovery, since 

 while tluf cloth thus prepared possesses all the best attributes of leather 

 in great strength and durability, it has other and special advantages of 

 its own which even the advocates of the famous virtues of leather have 

 never claimed for it — namely, complete impermeability to water, a 

 flexibility and scftness equal to a woollen fabric, and a cheapness which 

 makes its cost scarcely one-third that of real leather. Thus, a good 

 call-skin costs from 10s. to 14s., and yields leather for three or three and 

 a half pairs of boots, whereas six square feet of the calf-skin leather 

 cloth yields materials for five or six pair of boots, and costs only about 

 4s. 6d. Such an important difference and saving as this ought to satisfy 

 any inventor ; but even more than this is claimed for the "pannonia" 

 in its capability of being produced in any quantity at a few days' notice 

 and in sizes only limited by the size to which the fabric can be woven 

 on which the composition is laid. The nucleus of a factory has been 

 established at Clapham, where the leather is now made, and where a 

 company is about to construct large works and carry on the manufacture 

 on a most extensive scale. The fabric used in manufacture is entirely 



