We are not aware that any such process for tanning is described in any work on the subject, or has been practiced in our country. It is our opinion that it may make excellent uppers for boots and shoes, but not so good sole leather as oak bark. It is stated that the brains of animals is also used in the paste, and that the salt and nitre are only employed to preserve the animal and greasy matters from putrefaction. The process has some resemblance to that employed by many tribes of our Indians for tanning their skins for moccasins and other purposes. They use the brains of animals, mixed with ley made of the wood ashes of their fires, and knead the skins and rub them with the pasty mass, upon the same principle as that employed in the “Preller process.” When the tanning of the skins is completed according to their notions, they are finished by drying them, or rather smoking them, in a pit in the ground, which is covered with bark and some earth. We have seen very good brown leather made by this process. We are not able to give the exact proportions of the paste used by Preller, but this does not make much matter, for some of our tanners can surely make up a paste with flour, ox brains, and oil or grease, &c., and give it a fair trial, by kneading a skin or two in a tub, with a beetle, so as to test the principle of the process. There is nothing like giving everything (unless it is manifestly absurd) which is set forth as an improvement, a fair trial, and this is the reason why we have presented the foregoing information, in order that it may be tested by some of our tanners to see whether it has any merit or not. TANNING BUCKSKIN. We present the following simple process for preparing buckskin. The Indians have long been distinguished for making an exceedingly good and durable buckskin. One day a friend of ours (one of the best practical tanners and leather dressers in the United States) watched with great earnestness, the mode by which the squaws dressed their deer skins. He observed that they used the brains of the deer mixed along with ley made of wood ashes forming a kind of soap. This solution was rubbed on the skins, allowing them to dry at each operation—two or three times, until the skins were completely saturated with the solution. After this the skins were smoked, the same as hams, in a pit dug in the ground. The idea suggested itself to our friend, that there was no use of wanting shoes when there were plenty of deer killed; but from a distance in the woods they could not, and were not accustomed to bring the brains of the animal; but a remedy was at hand; he knew that soap was the same composition, as that used by the Indians in tanning, and he had plenty of that.