Colours for staining leather -- Colours for dyeing vegetable-tanned leather -- Dyeing and finishing chrome-leather -- List of colours suitable for chrome-leather PAGE 485 INDEX PAGE 499 PRINCIPLES OF LEATHER MANUFACTURE. [Illustration] CHAPTER I. _INTRODUCTORY AND HISTORICAL._ The origin of leather manufacture dates far back in the prehistoric ages, and was probably one of the earliest arts practised by mankind. The relics which have come down to us from palæolithic times, and the experience of the modern explorer, alike tell us that agriculture is a later and a higher stage of development than the life of the hunter; and since, in the colder regions, clothing of some kind must always have been a necessity, we may conclude that it was first furnished by the skins of animals.[1] [1] See also Gen. iii. 21. While wet skins putrefy and decay, dry ones are hard and horny; and nothing could be more natural to the hunter than to try to remedy this by rubbing the drying skin with the fat of the animal, of which he must have noticed the softening effect on his own skin. By this means a soft and durable leather may be produced, and this process of rubbing and kneading with greasy and albuminous matters, such as fat, brains, milk, butter and egg-yolks, is in use to this day, alike by the Tartars on Asiatic steppes and the Indians on American prairies; and not only so, but we ourselves still use the same principle in the dressing of our finest furs, and in the manufacture of chamois, and many sorts of lace- and belt-leathers. Such a process is described in the _Iliad_ (xvii. 389-393) in the account of the struggle over the body of Patroclus: “As when a man A huge ox-hide drunken with slippery lard Gives to be stretched, his servants all around Disposed, just intervals between, the task Ply strenuous, and while many straining hard Extend it equal on all sides, it sweats The moisture out and drinks the unction in.” It must also have been early noticed that wood smoke, which in those days was inseparable from the use of fire, had an antiseptic and preservative effect on skins which were dried in it, and smoked leathers are still made in America, both by the Indians and by more civilised leather manufacturers. To this method the Psalmist refers[2] when he says, “I am become like a bottle in the smoke;” and such bottles, made of the entire skin of the goat, are still familiar to travellers in the East. [2] Ps. cxix. 83.