es to moderately-sized
alligators, etc.

Very large saurians may be mounted by either of the methods referred
to in the closing sentences of the last two chapters.

CHAPTER X.

DRESSING AND SOFTENING SKINS OR FURS AS LEATHER.

THE art of tanning is, as I before observed (vide Chapter I.), of the
highest antiquity, as systems which are now in vogue must have been
known--if even in a modified form--to the ancients. We may roughly
divide the operation of tanning into two distinct classes: One which
deals with skins without the preservation of the fur, and which turns
the skin so operated upon into the material known as leather; and the
other in which we seek to preserve the fur or hair in its normal
position, at the same time dressing or rendering soft the actual skin
itself. [Footnote: Some time during 1874, Mr. Joseph Tussaud read a
paper before the Society of Arts, in which he described an ingenious
method of removing the fur of any animal to an artificial "backing" of
india-rubber or flannel, whilst the original skin was utilised as
leather.]

The first process--the making of leather--does not lie within the
scope of this work; suffice it to say, that the hair or fur is first
removed by lime, etc, and that after the skin is scraped it is treated
variously with oak bark, valonia, sumach, divi-divi, etc.; it is a long
and tedious process, and certainly does not lie within the province of
a taxidermist to attempt; and though it is possible for a tanner to
preserve the fur with the skin, yet the attempt is undesirable, by
reason of the false or unnatural colour it permanently gives the
fur--totally destroying the character of a light one, and heightening
or lowering, as the case may be, the tint of a dark fur. [Footnote:
Technical works on Tanning are "Tanning, Currying, and Leather-dressing,"
by F. Dussance: "The Arts of Tanning, Currying, and Leather-dressing,"
from the French of J. de Fontenelle and F. Malepeyre.]

To obviate all these difficulties and disagreeable effects, a totally
distinct method of dressing skins has been devised, which is called
"white leather dressing." Before I describe this, however, it may be
as well to say that no liquid, powder, or combination of liquids or
powders, is known into which a skin can be plunged, and--without the
aid of manual labour--come out as leather. I mention this to correct a
popular error, many people supposing that labour has no part in the
preparation of "white l