BUFF LEATHER is usually made out of salted and dried South American light ox and cow hides. After being limed in the usual way, they are unhaired and rounded, so that only the best part of the hide is made into buff leather. The grain and flesh being then scraped or cut off, the true cuticle, which is of a flexible fibrous nature, alone remains. The hide is next sprinkled over with cod-oil, and placed in the stocks, where it is worked for about 15 minutes. Having been taken out and partially dried, it is again submitted to a similar process of oiling and stocking; and during the first day, these operations may be repeated six times, decreasing daily for about a week, when one oiling and stocking in a day is sufficient. The hides are then placed in a stove, and subjected to a process called " heating off " after which they are scoured and rendered free from oiliness by being soaked in a strong lye of carbonate of potash. They are next worked well in the stocks, hot water being poured copiously upon them until the water runs off pure. Having been dried, they are subjected to a process called ground ing—i.e., they are rubbed with a round knife, and also with pumice-stone and sand, until a smooth surface is produced. The leather, which is very pliant, and not liable
to crack or rot, is now ready for the market, and is generally used for soldiers' belts and other army purposes.
During the early part of this century, the principal scat of the B. L. manufacture was in the neighborhood of Edinburgh, one manufacturer turning out, previous to the battle of Waterloo, about 1300 hides per week. In peaceable times, the demand for B. L. is comparatively small, and the manufacture is now almost confined to London and the neighbqrhood, where the raw material is' most readily procured, and the demand for the manufactured article is greatest. The natural color of the leather is light-yel low, but for some purposes it is bleached white. The precise chemical operation of the oil in the process of the manufacture is rather obscure, but as no glue can be got from hide that has been made into buff, the gelatine of the hide must have entered into combination with some of the constituents of the oil, and had its nature completely changed.