The lamp, however, that throws all others into the shade is that odourless, heatless, magic, mellow, tempered light of electricity, that springs out from the little filament, in its hermetically sealed glass cage, and shines with unsurpassed loveliness on all those fortunate enough to possess it.
[CHAPTER XXIII.]
LEATHER.
It is interesting to speculate how prehistoric man came to use the skin of the beasts of the field for warmth and shelter. Originally no doubt, and for untold centuries, the use was confined to the hairy, undressed, fresh, or dried skins, known as pelts. Then came the use of better tools. The garments have perished, but the tools of stone and of bronze survived, which, when compared with those employed among the earliest historic tribes of men, were found to be adapted to cut and strip the hairy covering from the bodies of animals, and clean, pound, scrape and otherwise adapt them to use.
And ever since the story of man began to be preserved in lasting records from farthest Oriental to the northernmost limits of Europe and America, memorials of the early implements of labour in the preparation of hides for human wear have been found. The aborigines knew how to sharpen bones of the animals they killed to scrape, clean, soften or roughen their skins. They knew how to sweat, dry, and smoke the skins, and this crude seasoning process was the forerunner of modern tanning. But leather as we know it now, that soft, flexible, insoluble combination of the gelatine and fibrine of the skin with tannic acid, producing a durable and imputrescible article, that will withstand decay from the joint attack of moisture, warmth and air, was unknown to the earlier races of men, for its production was due to thorough tanning, and thorough tanning was a later art.
When men were skin-dressed animals they knew little or nothing of tanning. Tannic acid is found in nearly every plant that grows, and its combination with the fresh skins spread or thrown thereon, may have given rise to the observation of the beneficial result and subsequent practice. But whether discovered by chance, accident or experience, or invented from necessity, the art of tanning should have rendered the name of the discoverer immortal. The earliest records, however, describe the art, but not the inventor.
From the time the Hebrews covered the altars of their tabernacles with rams’ skins dyed red, as recorded in Exodus; when they and the Egyptians worked their leather, currying and stretching it with their knives, awls, stones, and other implements, making leather water buckets, resembling very much those now made by machinery, covering their harps and shields with leather, ornamental and embossed; from the days of the early Africans, famous for their yellow, red and black morocco; from the days of the old national dress of the Persians with their leather trousers, aprons, helmets, belts and shirts; from the time that the ancient Scythians utilised the skins of their enemies, and Herodotus described the beauty and other good qualities of the human hide; from the early days of that peculiar fine and agreeable leather of the Russians, fragrant with the oil of the birch; from the days of the white leather of the Hungarians, the olive-tanned leather of the Saracens; from the time of the celebrated Cordovan leather of the Spaniards; from the ancient cold periods of the Esquimaux and the Scandinavians, who, clad in the warm skins of the Arctic bears, stretched tough-tanned sealskin over the frame work of their boats; from the time of the introduction of the art of the leather worker to the naked Briton, down to almost the nineteenth century, substantially the same hand tools, hard hand labour, and the old elbow lubricant were known and practised.
Hand tools have improved, of course, as other arts in wood and iron making have developed, but the operations are about the same. There were and must be fleshing knives to scrape from off the hide the adherent flesh and lime,—for this the hide is placed over the convex edge of an inclined beam and the work is called beaming; the curriers’ knife for removing the hair; skiving, or the cutting off the rough edges and fleshy parts on the border of the hide; shaving and flattening; the cutting away of the inequalities left after skiving; stoning, the rubbing of the leather by a scouring stone to render it smooth; slicking, to remove the water and grease; or to smooth and polish, by a rectangular sharpened stone, steel or glass tool; whitening, to shave off thin strips of the flesh, leaving the leather thinner, whiter and more pliable; stuffing, to soften the scraped and pounded hides and make them porous; graining, the giving to the hair or grain side a granular appearance by rubbing with a grooved or roughened piece of wood; bruising or boarding to make the leather supple and pliable by bringing the two flesh sides together and rubbing with a graining board; scouring, by aid of a stream of water to whiten the leather by rubbing with a slicking stone or steel.
The inventions of the century consist in labour-saving machinery for these purposes, new tanning and dressing processes, and innumerable machines for making special articles of leather.