This brushing over with linseed mucilage prevents the dye from
sinking too far into the leather; gelatine, Irish moss, starch and
gums are also used for the same purpose. These materials are also
added to the staining solution to thicken it and further prevent its
sinking in.
When dry, the goods are stained by applying a 12% (usually) solution of a suitable basic dye, thickened with linseed, with a brush. Two men are usually employed on this work; one starts at the right-hand flank and the other at the left-hand shank, and they work towards each other, staining in sections; much skill is needed to obviate markings where the sections overlap. The goods may advantageously be bottomed with an acid dye or a dye-wood extract, and then finished with basic dyes. Whichever method is used, two to three coats are given, drying between each. After the last coat of stain, and while the goods are still in a sammied condition, a mixture of linseed mucilage and French chalk is applied to the flesh and glassed off wet, to give it a white appearance, and then the goods are printed with any of the usual bag grains by machine or hand, and dried out. For a bright finish the season may consist of a solution of 15 parts carnauba wax, 10 parts curd soap and 100 parts water boiled together; this is sponged into the grain, dried and the hides are finished by either glassing or brushing. For a duller finish the grain is simply rubbed over with buck tallow and brushed. Hide bellies for small work are treated in much the same manner.
Glove Leathers.—As these goods were tanned in alum, salt, flour and egg, any undue immersion in water removes the tannage; for this reason they are generally stained like bag hides, one man only being employed on the same skin. The skins are first thoroughly soaked in warm water and then drummed for some minutes in a fresh supply, when they are re-egged to replace that which has been lost. This is best done by drumming them for about 112 hours in 40 to 50 egg yolks and 5 ℔ of salt for every hundred skins; they are then allowed to be in pile for 24 hours, and are set out on the table ready for mordanting. The mordants universally used are ammonia or alkaline soft soap; 1 in 1000 of the former or a 1% solution of the latter. When the goods have partially dried in, bottoming follows, and usually the natural wood dyestuffs are used for this operation, such as fustic, Brazil wood, peachwood, logwood and turmeric. After application of these colours the goods are sammied and topped with a 1% solution of an acid dye, to which has been added 20% of methylated spirit to prevent frothing with the egg yolk; they are then dried out slowly, staked, pulled in shape, fluffed and brushed by machine. The season, which is sponged on, may consist of 1 part dye, 1 part albumen, 2 parts dextrine and 14 part glycerine, made up to 100 parts with water; when it has been applied, the goods are sammied, brushed and ironed with a warm flat iron such as is used in laundry work.
Bookbinding Leathers.—A committee of the Society of Arts (London) has investigated the question of leather for bookbinding, attention having been drawn to this subject by the rotten and decayed condition often observed in bindings less than fifty years old. This committee engaged in research work extending over several years, and the report in which its results were given was edited for the Society of Arts and the Leathersellers’ Company (which also did much important work in connexion with it) by Lord Cobham, chairman of the committee, and Sir Henry Trueman Wood, secretary of the society. The essence of the report, so far as leather manufacture is concerned, is as follows: The goods should be soaked and limed in fresh liquors, and bating and puering should be avoided, weak organic acids or erodine being used; they should also be tanned with pyrogallol tanning materials, and preferably with sumach. In shaving, they should only be necked and backed, i.e. only irregularities should be removed, as further shaving has a considerable weakening effect on the fibre. The striking out should not be heavy enough to lay the fibre. In dyeing, acid dyes and a few direct colours only are permissible, and in connexion with the former the use of sulphuric acid is strongly condemned, as it absolutely disintegrates the fibre; the use of formic, acetic and lactic acids is permitted. The use of salts of mineral acids is to be avoided, and in finishing, tight setting out and damp glazing is not to be recommended; oil may be advantageously used.
Bibliography.—H. G. Bennett, The Manufacture of Leather (1909); S. R. Trotman, Leather Trades Chemistry (1908); M. C. Lamb, Leather Dressing (1907); A. Watt, Leather Manufacture (1906); H. R. Procter, Principles of Leather Manufacture (1903), and Leather Industries Laboratory Book (1908); L. A. Flemming, Practical Tanning (1910); A. M. Villon, Practical Treatise on the Leather Industry (1901); C. T. Davis, Manufacture of Leather (1897). German works include J. Borgman, Die Rotlederfabrikation (Berlin, 1904–1905), and Feinlederfabrikation (1901); J. Jettmar, Handbuch der Chromgerbung (Leipzig, 1900); J. von Schroeder, Gerbereichemie (Berlin, 1898). (J. G. P.*)
LEATHER, ARTIFICIAL. Under the name of artificial leather, or of American leather cloth, large quantities of a material having, more or less, a leather-like surface are used, principally for upholstery purposes, such as the covering of chairs, lining the tops of writing desks and tables, &c. There is considerable diversity in the preparation of such materials. A common variety consists of a web of calico coated with boiled linseed oil mixed with dryers and lampblack or other pigment. Several coats of this mixture are uniformly spread, smoothed and compressed on the cotton surface by passing it between metal rollers, and when the surface is required to possess a glossy enamel-like appearance, it receives a finishing coat of copal varnish. A grained morocco surface is given to the material by passing it between suitably embossed rollers. Preparations of this kind have a close affinity to cloth waterproofed with indiarubber, and to such manufactures as ordinary waxcloth. An artificial leather which has been patented and proposed for use as soles for boots, &c., is composed of powdered scraps and cuttings of leather mixed with solution of guttapercha dried and compressed. In place of the guttapercha solution, oxidized linseed oil or dissolved resin may be used as the binding medium for the leather powder.
LEATHERHEAD, an urban district in the Epsom parliamentary division of Surrey, England, 18 m. S.S.W. of London, on the London, Brighton & South Coast and the London & South-Western railways. Pop. (1901) 4694. It lies at the foot of the North Downs in the pleasant valley of the river Mole. The church of St Mary and St Nicholas dates from the 14th century. St John’s Foundation School, opened in London in 1852, is devoted to the education of sons of poor clergymen. Leatherhead has brick-making and brewing industries, and the district is largely residential.
LEATHES, STANLEY (1830–1900), English divine and Orientalist, was born at Ellesborough, Bucks, on the 21st of March 1830, and was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1852, M.A. 1853. In 1853 he was the first Tyrwhitt’s Hebrew scholar. He was ordained priest in 1857, and after serving several curacies was appointed professor of Hebrew at King’s College, London, in 1863. In 1868–1870 he was Boyle lecturer (The Witness of the Old Testament to Christ), in 1873 Hulsean lecturer (The Gospel its Own Witness), in 1874 Bampton Lecturer (The Religion of the Christ) and from 1876 to 1880 Warburtonian lecturer. He was a member of the Old Testament revision committee from 1870 to 1885. In 1876 he was elected prebendary of St Paul’s Cathedral, and he was rector of Cliffe-at-Hoo near Gravesend (1880–1889) and of Much Hadham, Hertfordshire (1889–1900). The university of Edinburgh gave him the honorary degree of D.D. in 1878, and his own college made him an honorary fellow in 1885. Besides the lectures noted he published Studies in Genesis (1880), The Foundations of Morality (1882) and some volumes of sermons. He died in May 1900.
His son, Stanley Mordaunt Leathes (b. 1861), became a fellow of Trinity, Cambridge, and lecturer on history, and was one of the editors of the Cambridge Modern History; he was secretary to the Civil Service Commission from 1903 to 1907, when he was appointed a Civil Service Commissioner.
LEAVEN (in Mid. Eng. levain, adapted from Fr. levain, in same sense, from Lat. levamen, which is only found in the sense of alleviation, comfort, levare, to lift up), a substance which produces fermentation, particularly in the making of bread, properly a portion of already fermented dough added to other dough for this purpose (see Bread). The word is used figuratively of any element, influence or agency which effects a subtle or secret change. These figurative usages are mainly due to the comparison of the kingdom of Heaven to leaven in Matt. xiii. 33, and to the warning against the leaven of the Pharisees in Matt. xvi. 6. In the first example the word is used of a good influence, but the more usual significance is that of an evil agency. There was among the Hebrews an association of the idea of fermentation and corruption, which may have been one source of the prohibition of the use of leavened bread in sacrificial offerings. For the usage of unleavened bread at the feasts of the Passover and of Massôth, and the connexion of the two, see Passover.
LEAVENWORTH, a city and the county-seat of Leavenworth county, Kansas, U.S.A., on the W. bank of the Missouri river.
