A NEW PROCESS FOR TANNING HIDES AND SKINS
Year: 1859

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to John Maria Joseph Baillie, of No. 15, St. Mary
Axe, in the City of London, for the Invention of "A NEW PROCESS FOR
TANNING HIDES AND SKINS." - A communication from Monsieur A. .
Sealed the 23rd December 1859, and dated the 28th June 1859.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said John Marie Joseph
Baillie at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition,
on the 28th June 1859.
I, JOHN MARIA JOSEPH BAILLIE, of No. 15, St. Mary Axe, in the City of
London, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "A NEW
PROCESS FOR TANNING HIDES AND SKINS," (a communication from Monsieur A.
Paulmier, resident at Paris, in the Empire of France,) to be as follows:-
The objects of this Invention are to materially shorten the period at present
occupied in the operation of tanning, to diminish the cost, to produce a com-
mercially fine leather, and to produce at the same time leather of the desired
weight and quality, these objects never having been attained at one time by
any former process of speedy tanning.
The materials I propose using in combination with the tanning material at _

page_text: present in use (such as oak bark or other vegetable matter) are essentially a
follows:-
Earthy chlorides such as chloride of aluminium, magnesium, strontium,
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said John Marie Joseph Baillie in the Great Seal Patent Office
on the 27th December 1859.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JOHN
MARIE JOSEPH BAILLIE, of No. 15, St. Mary Axe, in the City of London,
send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Twenty-eighth day of June, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine, in the twenty-third

page_text: year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and
grant unto me, the said John Marie Joseph Baillie, Her special licence
that I, the said John Marie Joseph Baillie, my executors, administrators, and
assigns, or such others as I, the said John Marie Joseph Baillie, my
executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any time agree with, and
no others, from time to time and at all times thereafter during the term
therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and
vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel
Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "A NEW PROCESS FOR TANNING
HIDES AND SKINS," upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the said John
Marie Joseph Baillie, my executors or administrators, by an instrument in
writing under my, or their, or one of their hands and seals, should parti-
cularly describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and in what
manner the same was to be performed, and cause the same to be filed in
the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next and imme-
diately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that 1, the said John Marie Joseph Baillie, do
hereby declare the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the
same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and
by the following statement thereof, that is to say:--
The objects of this Invention are to materially shorten the period at present
occupied in the operation of tanning, to diminish the cost, to produce a com-
mercially fine leather, and to produce at the same time leather of the desired
weight and quality, these objects never having been attained at one time by
any former process of speedy tanning. The materials I propose to use, in
combination with the tanning material at present in use, are certain metallic,
earthy, and alkaline chlorides to be presently named.
In order to explain my said Invention as completely as possible I now
proceed to describe the best means I am acquainted with for carrying the
same into practical effect, as follows:-
Since the end of last century the improvements required in the business of
tanning have fully occupied the attention of scientific and practical men, and
notwithstanding the efforts and sacrifices made the attempts have been very
unsuccessful to remedy the inconveniences of a manufacture which for stout
leathers, for example, requires about 18 months, and as a necessity leaves
capital unemployed, and the manufacturer exposed to the chances of an
operation of which he cannot foresee the results; in consequence many
attempts have been made to shorten the time of the tanning operation.

page_text: Tanning quickly is in every one's power, but no one has succeeded in doing
this without loss of weight and quality in the leather.
The improvements to be introduced resolve themselves under these four
points 1st., to shorten materially the period of the operation of tanning.
2nd., to lessen or not augment the cost. 3rd., to produce a fine leather,
commercially speaking. 4th., to produce at the same time a leather of the
desired weight and quality.
To solve only one or two or even three of these problems would not be
solving the question, it is necessary to solve all to have attained the proposed
object.
This object is attained by the use of metallic and earthy salts susceptible
either by their direct combination or by that of their elements to make with
the parts constituting the texture of the skin of animals metallic or earthy
fibrinates, gelatinates, albuminates, or other insoluble and imputrescible com-
binations; for this purpose the above-named substances are used.
Of the metallic chlorides I avoid the chlorides of iron on account of their
extremely astringent action on the organic materials, and because of the bad
appearance and of the little weight which the result gives to the leather; also,
because of the black color which they give when in contact with the vegetable
tanning materials which are to be employed, together with the materials
indicated to obtain the best result.
The substances I employ are the following:-Metallic chlorides, viz.,
chloride of tin, zinc, antimony, or lead; earthy chlorides, viz., chloride of
aluminium, magnesium, strontium, or barium; earthy metallic chlorides, viz.,
the double chloride of tin with alumina, magnesia, strontia, or baryta, or
antimony, zinc, or lead with one of the same bases; alkaline metallic chlo
rides, viz., chloride of antimony with potass, soda or ammonia, or of zinc or
tin with one of the same bases; earthy alkaline chlorides, viz., chlorides of
alumina with potass, soda, or ammonia, or of magnesia, strontia, or baryta
with one of the same bases.
In the manufacture of firm or stout leathers recourse will be had to the
metallic chlorides or alkaline metallic chlorides; if, on the contrary, it is
intended to fabricato supple leather, recourse will only be had to the earthy
chlorides or metallic earthy chlorides, and the preference will be given to the
chlorides of aluminium or of magnesium, or to the double chlorides of
aluminium, or of zinc or tin, or to the double chlorides of zinc, or of tin, and
magnesium.
The materials which I have enumerated bear to the albumen and of the

page_text: fibrin of the skin the same relation which tannin does to the gelatine. They
are employed previously, but better simultaneously with the bark of the oak,
or other vegetable matter containing tannin.
Before beginning the details of the operation, properly so called, I will
indicate the quantities of mineral, metallic, or minero-metallic substance neces
sary for obtaining the result desired. The numerous experiments which I
have made have taught me, that 100 lbs. of fresh skins of ox, cow, calf, horse,
India kips, &c., &c., absorb and combine with about 4 or 5% of the stated
materials; therefore a fresh skin from the butcher, of the weight of 100 lbs.,
will combine with two quarts of the one or the other of the muriates named.
These muriates will be liquid, and of the standard of about 30 or 40 degrees
of Baumé. Twelve calf skins, fresh from the butcher, of 160 lbs. the dozen,
will combine with 4 quarts muriate, earthy muriate, earthy metallo, or
destined, the manufactured product of it is stout or supple leather, no neces-
sity for a change will be made in the ordinary manipulations, nor in the tools
or machinery, nor in the methods or processes employed in the factory where
my Invention may be used; only it will be essential to remember, that the
use of what I call mineral or metallic tannin, made in a given time, prevents
the skin from becoming crisped or emptied by the vegetable tannin or its
concentrated juices, an important advantage, which at times permits us to
have recourse to large quantities of vegetable tannin without any of the
serious inconveniences ordinarily experienced in such circumstances. If it is
question of stout leathers, like the class of leather which is manufactured
in England, that is to say, if the leathers destined for that purpose have been
deprived of hair in lime, and which must only be tanned by the juice of the
tannin of successive graduations, recourse will be had to the use of metallic
muriates, or to the alkaline metallo-muriate, not basic. On the first contact
of the tannin with the skin there should be poured into the liquor the eighth
of the metallic or other salt required for a complete tanning operation, and
which quantities I have before given. The mass should be well stirred, to
produce a complete mixture, and the skins be immediately afterwards placed
in that liquor. The same quantity should be added successively week after
week, till the indicated quantity of mineral tannin or metallic shall be con-
sumed in this operation. The vegetable tannin is applied as usual; never-

page_text: theless, as in its action on the fibrinous and albuminous elements of the skin,
the mineral or metallic tannin favours the enlargement of the grain of the
fibres of the skin, it will be necessary to have exhausted the use of the
mineral tannin before the vegetable tannin has half penetrated the tissues of
the skin, namely, before the half of the tanning operation, properly speaking,
is ended.
If it is question of the manufacture of stout leather, called "cuir jusé,” as
it is done in France, Belgium, and Germany, that is to say, if the skins are
destined to that use, and have been deprived of air by stoving or by steam,
the skins, after the hair removed, should be passed through a series com-
posed of 8 to 12 tubs bark liquor, progressively increasing in strength from
1 to 12 degrees, and in which each quantity of skins will-remain 24 hours.
This is for the purpose of bringing them successively to the swelling and
firmness desired before placing them in the tanning pits.
It is advantageous in Nos. 3, 4, and 5 of the stated series of tubs to employ
a portion of the metallic and metallo-alkaline tannin. Half of the quantity
required for the whole operation is divided into 8 equal parts, one of such
parts to be used in each of the said three tubs or pits; the other half will
be divided into 2 parts, to be mixed to the juice of the vegetable tannin, with
which the skins will subsequently be soaked.
When skins are to be tanned for making supple leather, the skins should
remain 3 or 4 days in the first tub with solutions of vegetable tannin, very
feeble, before baving recourse to any of the indicated sorts. That period
passed, the skins having been taken out of the tub, there should be poured
into the tub the quarter or third of the mineral tannin required for the number
of skins or hides therein contained. The mixing of the mass is well stirred,
and the skin then replaced and left for a week, adding bark in the usual way.
The second part is to be employed in the second week, and the last third in
the third week in the same manner. The skins are then to be soaked in tan
pits in the usual manner, and the operation will be found to be completed in
a much shorter period.
It will be observed, that the day after the employment of the mineral tannin
the skins and hides are much more eager for the vegetable tannin, and that
they absorb it much more rapidly, consequently on that day a double dose of
bark may be employed.
By the above process the period of the tanning operation is notably
shortened, the cost of the tanning materials is less, and the leather produced
combines the weight, the quantities, and conditions required by the trade.

page_text: Having now fully described and set forth the nature and object of my
Invention, and the manner in which the same is to be performed, I would
remark, in conclusion, that I do not claim the exact quantities or details, as
they may be somewhat varied; but what I claim as my Invention is, the
employment, in tanning of all sorts of hides and skins, of the agents herein
described, and used substantially as herein described.
In witness whereof, I, the said John Marie Joseph Baillie, have here-
unto set my hand and seal, this Twenty-seventh day of December, in
the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine.
Witness,
ALEX. PRINCE, Patent Agent,
4, Trafalgar Square, Charing Cross.
J. M. J. BAILLIE. (L.S.)