MAKING AND MILLING OF RAW HIDES AND SKINS, TO ANSWER THE PURPOSES OF LEATHER
Year: 1768

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM HESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, 1, GEORGE
MARCHANT, of Isleworth, in the County of Middlesex, send greeting.
WHEREAS His present Majesty King George the Third, by His Letters
Patent, bearing date at Westminster, the Twenty-ninth day of February,
in the eighth year of His reign, did give and grant unto me, the said
George Marchant, my executors, adñiors, and assigns, His especial licence
and authority, for fourteen years, to make, use, exercise, and vend, within that
part of Great Britain called England, Dominion of Wales, and Town of
Berwick-upon-Tweed, and in the Colonies and Plantations, my Invention for
the "MAKING AND MILLING OF RAW HIDES AND SKINS, TO ANSWER THE PURPOSES OF
LEATHER," under a proviso that I, the said George Marchant, should, by an
instrument in writing under my hand and seal, cause a particular description
of the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be
performed, to be enrolled in His Majesty's Iligh Court of Chancery within
four calendar months next after the date of the same Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, J, the said
George Marchant, do hereby declare my said Invention is as follows, that is
to say:
Let any given quantity of oak bark, or any other bark, or wood or vegetable,
be boiled in common river or other fresh water, or let hot water or weak ouze
be poured hot upon bark, wood, or other vegetable, it will produce an ouze

page_text: which you may make more or less strong by adding or diminishing the ingre-
dients, which, when strong enough and cold, put your hydes or skins in. Let
this ouze, thus obtained, be put into a vatt or vatts, and then let the hydes or
skins, having the hair first taken of, be put into such ouze as soon as it is cold,
and be constantly kept turning and repeatedly taken out and put in again, and
hereby these hydes or skins will be made to answer all the purposes of leather,
in much less time than the ordinary method of tanning. But if you were to
put these very hydes and skins, with the ouze thus made very strong, into a
large cask like a hogshead, and keep them constantly turning with water, or
any other method, they will by thus milling them be prepared in an almost
incredible short space of time. Also by putting them into stocks the same
as used in milling of oyled buck, sheep, or other white leather, by such
and every other kind of force, the tan or ouze is beat into the hydes and skins,
the same as the oyl is impelled into the skins. Also when the hydes and
skins are thus milled and soaked in fresh strong ouze they are to be laid
under a pressure, to squeeze out the water out of the same, leaving thereby
only the salts or essence of the bark and oak, and every other bark, wood, and
vegetable which will also make leather, by being repeatedly soaked in said ouze,
sp boiled, brewed, and also pressed and milled. The bark of oak is strongest
and best for this purpose; but the wood itself, being sawed or shaved, will have
nearly the same effect. Mahogany wood and logwood are both more so full of
salts and other matter fit for making hydes and skins into leather as aforesaid
that they or either of them, by boiling or by hot infusions, will answer the
purposes aforesaid by themselves, or by being used and mixed in greater or
less quantitys with the oak bark, at the option and discretion of the person
using and mixing it.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto sett my hand and seal, this
Eighteenth day of June, in the eighth year of the reign of our
Sovereign Lord George the Third, by the grace of God of Great
Britain, France, and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, and so
forth, and in the year of our Lord One thousand seven hundred and
sixty-eight.
Signed, sealed, and delivered, by the
within-named George Marchant, in
the prosond
nce of
GEORGE (L.S.) MARCHANT.

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBRED, that on the Twenty-third day of June. in
the year above mentioned, the aforesaid George Marchant came before our
said Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification
aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained and specified, in form
above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stampt according to
the tenor of the Statute made in the sixth year of the reign of the late King
and Queen William and Mary of England, and so forth.
Inrolled the aforesaid Twenty-third day of June, in the year aforesaid.