the method of preparing leather with oil, tallow, &c.

The chief business is to soften and supple cow and calve-skins, which make the upper leather and quarters of shoes, covering of saddles, coaches, and other things which must keep out water. 1. These skins, after coming from the tanner's yard, having many fleshy fibres on them, the currier soaks them some time in common water. 2. He takes them out, and stretches them on a very even wooden horse; then with a paring knife he scrapes off all the superfluous flesh, and puts them in to soak again. 3. He puts them wet on a hurdle, and tramples them with his heels till they begin to grow soft and pliant. 4. He soaks thereon train-oil, which by its unctuous quality is the best liquor for this purpose. 5. He spreads them on large tables, and fastens them at the ends. There, with the help of an instrument called a pummel, which is a thick piece of wood, the under side of which is full of furrows crossing each other, he folds, squares, and moves them forwards and backwards several times, under the teeth of this instrument, which breaks their too great stiffness. This is what is properly called currying. The order and number of these operations is varied by different curriers, but the material part is always the same. 6. After the skins are curried, there may be occasion to colour them. The colours are black, white, red, yellow, green, &c.; the other colours are given by the skinners, who differ from curriers in this, that they apply their colours on the flesh side; the curriers on the hair side. In order to whiten skins, they are rubbed with lumps of chalk or white lead, and afterwards with pumice-stone. 7. When a skin is to be made black, after having oiled and dried it, he passes over it a puff dipt in water impregnated with iron; and after his first wetting, he gives it another in water prepared with foot, vinegar, and gum-arabic. These different dyes gradually turn the skin black, and the operations are repeated till it be of a shining black. The grain and wrinkles, which contribute to the suppleness of calves and cows leather, are made by the reiterated folds given to the skin in every direction, and by the care taken to scrape off all hard parts on the colour side.