CURRYING is the art of dressing cow-hides, calf-skins, seal-skins, &e., principally for shoes : and this is done either upon the flesh or the grain. In dressing leather for shoes upon the flesh, the first operation is to soak the leather in water until it is quite wetted, then the flesh side is shaved on a beam about seven or eight inches broad, with a knife of peculiar construction, to a proper sub stance, according to the custom of the country and the uses to which it is des tined. This is one of the most curious end laborious steps of the whole process. The knife used is of a rectangular form, with two handles, one at each end, and a double edge. It is thrown into water again, and scoured on a board or stone commonly set apart for that use. Scour ing is done by rubbing the grain or hair side with pumice-stone, or with some other stone of agood grit. These stones force out of the leather a white substance called the bloom, produced by the oak bark in tanning. The hide or skin is then conveyed to the shade or drying place, where the oily substances are ap plied termed siailing, or dubbing; when ft is thoroughly dry, an instrument, with teeth on the under side, called a graining board, is first applied to the fresh side, which is called graining,—then to the grain side, called bruising. The whole of this operation is to soften the leather to which it is applied. Whitening or paring succeeds, which is performed with a fine edge to the knife already described, and used ha taking off the grease from the flesh. It is then boarded up or
grained again, by applying the graining board first to the grain, and then to the flesh. It is then fit for waxing, which is now performed by coloring, which is done by rubbing with a brush, dipped in a composition of oil and lamp-black, on the flesh, until it be thoroughly black. It is then sized, called black-sizing, with a brush or sponge, dried and tallowed and when dry, this sort of leather called waxed, or black on the flesh, is curried. The currying leather on the hair or grain side, called black on the grain, is the same as currying on the flesh until we come to the operation of scouring it. Then the first black is applied to it while wet, which black is a solution of sul phate of iron or copperas, in plain wa ter, or in the water in which the skins as they'come from the tanner have been soaked. This is first put upon the grain after it has been rubbed with a stone ; then rubbed over with a brush dipped in stale urine : the skin is then stuffed, and when dry, it is seasoned--that is, rubbed over with a brush, dipped in cop peras water, on the grain till it is per fectly black. After this, the grain is raised with a fine graining-board: when it is thoroughly dry it is whitened, bruised again, and grained in two or three different ways, and when oiled upon the grain with a mixture of oil and tallow it is finished.