748 
AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 
tages over other methods wherever quality is of prime 
importance, and in most regions where drying cannot 
be resorted to. Salt leaves the skin in all its original 
pliability and strength, and is quickly removed by water. 
It performs the work of preservation with the minimum of 
danger either to the quality of the skin or to the coloration. 
The method which has been found most successful in equa¬ 
torial Africa in the preservation of the skins of large mam¬ 
mals concerns itself with the use of salt exclusively. All skins 
contain a large per cent of water, which combines with the 
other elements in the tissues after death to assist decay. 
In order to preserve the skin it is necessary speedily to ex¬ 
tract the moisture which the skin contains. Salt when ap¬ 
plied in a pulverized condition to the dermal side of skins 
acts at once upon the moisture in the skin, with which it 
unites. Its extreme solubility when in the presence of 
moisture allows it to penetrate into the skin through the 
pores and unite with the moisture in every part of the tissues. 
Salt has no other preservative effect, however, than drying; 
that is, it is not an insecticide or a poison to bacteria or 
other organisms which destroy skins. It must also be borne 
in mind that it is far from stable in its preservative qualities. 
As long as salt is in the skin moisture other than salt brine 
must be kept away, for there is constant danger of the salt 
being extracted by outside moisture, which may thus find 
entrance into the skin and cause its decay just as would 
have taken place originally had not the salt been present 
to extract the moisture and preserve the skin. The suc¬ 
cessful use of salt in preservation depends first upon apply¬ 
ing it to every part of the skin, and second in making its 
action universal throughout. In the case of large skins 
