' SHAMMY, or CnAmots, a soft and highly prized kind of leather, prepared from the skin of the Cha mois, or 4nlelope Rupicapra, already fully described in our article MAzoLoGy.
An imitation of the shammy leather, by using sheep, goat, and kid skins, has been long successfully carried on about Orleans, Marseilles, and Thoulouse, and it there constitutes a particular profession under the name of Chanwisure. The following is the method employed : Having washed and drained the skins, and strewed quick lime over the fleshy side, they are then folded in two lengthwise, the wool being outwards, and left to ferment 8 days, or 15 days, if they have been dried after flaying. When again washed out and drained, they are half dried, laid on a wooden horse, and the wool stripped off; they are then laid for 24 hours in a pit, in which the lime, from having been used before, had lost a great part of its strength. When taken out and allowed to drain 24 hours more, they are put into a pit with stronger lime, they are then taken out, drained, and put in again by turns, a process which i3 continued for six weeks in summer, or three months in winter, in order to dispose them to take oil. At the end of this period they are laid on the wooden horse, and are made softer by peeling off the surface of the skin on the wool side. Being now made into parcels, they are steeped a night in the river in sum mer, but longer in winter, and are then stretched six or seven above one another on the wooden horse, and the knife passed strongly over the flesh side, in order to remove any superfluous matter, and give smooth ness to the skin. Then they are steeped, as before, in the river, and the same operation is repeated on the wool side; they are then thrown into a tub of with bran in it, which is brewed among the skins till the greatest part stick to them. and then separated into distinct tubs till they swell and rise of themselves above the water. By this means the remains of the lime are cleared out; they are then wrung out, hung up to dry on ropes, and sent to the mill with the quan tity of oil necessary to scour them: the best oil is that of stock fish. Here they are first thrown in bundles
into the river for twelve hours, then laid in the mill trough, and fulled without oil till they be well soften ed; then oiled with the hand one by one, and thus form ed into parcels each, which are milled and dried on cords a second time; then a third, and then oiled again and dried. This process is repeated as often as ne cessity requires; when done, if there be any moisture remaining, they are dried in a stove and macle up into parcels wrapt up in wool; after some time they are opened to the air, but wrapped up again as before, till such time as the oil seems to have lost nil its force, which it ordinarily does in 2-1 hours. The skins arc then returned from the mill to the chamoiseer to be scoured; which is done by putting them in a lixivium of wood ashes, working and heating them in it with poles, and leaving them to steep till the ley has had its effect, then they are wrung out, steeped in another lixivinm, wrung again; and this is repeated till all the grease and oil he expelled. 'When this is clone, they are half dried and passed over a sharp edged iron in strument placed perpendicular in a block which opens, softens, and makes them delicate. Lastly they are thoroughly dried and passed over the same again; which finishes the preparations, and leaves them in the of shammy.
In the same manner kid and goat skins are sham :noised, excepting that the hair is taken off without the use of any lime; and that when brought from the mill they undergo a particular preparation called ramalling, which is the most delicate and difficult of all. It consists in this that as soon as the skins are brought from the mill, they are steeped in a pit lix ivium, taken out, stretched on a wooden leg, and the hair is scraped off with the knife. This makes them smooth and causes them in working to cast a kind of fine knap. 'Pc great difficulty of this process is to scrape the skin with sufficient evenness.
SllANNON, see IRELAND.
SIIANSCRI'l', or SANSCRIT LANGUAGE, see our article LANGUAGE.