LEA 
transfers the use into possession. He 
therefore being thus in possession, is capa- 
ble of receiving a release of the freehold 
and reversion ; and accordingly, the next 
day a release is granted to him. 
This conveyance was invented by Sier- 
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 cor- 
poration conveys, either a feoffment or ac- 
tual entry is still necessary. But this mode of 
conveyance 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 con- 
sideration, 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 business 
it is to make them up. The butcher and 
others, who flay off their hides or skin, dis- 
pose of them raw or salted to the tanner 
and tawyer, and they to the shamoy, mo- 
rocco, and other kind of leather-dressers, 
who prepare them according to their re- 
spective arts, in order to dispose of them 
among the curriers, glovers, harness-makers, 
coach-makers, saddlers, breeches-makers, 
gilt leather-makers, chair-makers, shoe mar 
kers, book-binders, and all in any way con- 
cerned 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 lea- 
ther 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 shamoy-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 running 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 
loosen the hair, that it may be easily rubbed 
off without injuring the skin ; drawn out, 
and set to drain on the edge of the pitj 
LEG 
stretched on the leg or horse, in order t® 
have the hair scraped off with a blunt iron 
knife, or wooden cylinder : the membranes 
on the fleshy side, and the scabs or rough- 
ness on the grain side, pared off with a 
sharp knife, and the skins rubbed with a 
whetstone, to take off any particles of tha 
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 making 
them pliant without rendering them tliin- 
ner. 
The alum-leather dresser dresses all sorts 
of white leather, from the ox-hide to the 
lamb-skin ; for dressing the saddler’s leather, 
he uses bran, sea-salt, and alum; and for 
that which the glover uses, after the com- 
mon 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 trtie shamoy, which is a wild goat, but 
likewise those of all other goats. The tan- 
ner uses the bark of young oaks ground in 
a tanning mill, in which he soaks the skins 
more or less, according to the different ser- 
vices expected from them, their chief use 
being to remain firm and keep out water. 
In certain cases, instead of tan, he uses 
redon, which is chiefly used for tanning 
ram, slieep-skins, and dressing Russia leather. 
But for the different methods in which the 
tanner, currier, Russia, and Morocco lea- 
ther-dressers proceed in finishing their skins, 
see Currying, Tanning, &c. 
LEAVEN. See Bread. 
LECHEA, in botany, so named from 
John Leche, professor atAboa, in Sweden, 
a genus of the Triandria Trigynia class and 
order. Natural order of Caryophyllei. Essen- 
tial character: calyx three-leaved; petals 
three, linear ; capsule three-celled, three- 
valved, with as many internal ones ; seed* 
solitary. There are three species, natives 
