previous next

Sha-green′.

Shagreen is a parchment and not a leather, though it is usually classed with the latter. Its conception and production are Oriental, Astracan and Asiatic Russia being still the main sources of supply. The hides of horses, asses, and camels are concerned in its production, and it is said that only a strip from the crupper to the neck is thus employed.

The strips are steeped in water till the hair softens and gives readily, when it is removed by scraping; they are again steeped and worked by the flesher till all matter extraneous to the skin is separated, and the skin itself is reduced to the proper thickness. They are now moistened, mounted on frames, and stretched.

Being spread upon the floor, they are covered on the grain side with the seeds of the alabuta or goose-foot (Chenopodium album). A covering of felt is laid on, and the seeds are pressed into the skin by trampling or mechanical means. The skins, still bound in the frames, are dried till the seeds are readily detached. They are now dry, horny, and deeply indented.

Being placed on a padded horse, the skins are shaved until the indentations are shallow and uniform, after which they are steeped in hot water, then in a hot alkaline lye, and piled upon one another while in a hot, moist state. This causes the compressed parts to swell out and become protuberances, which form embossed balls, giving the peculiar appearance to the leather by which it is distinguished.

Shagreen is dyed of various colors by substantially the same means as morocco.

Red by cochineal.

Blue by the cold indigo vat.

Black by solution of tannin, followed by sulphate of iron.

Green by sal-ammonia and copper filings.

Imitation shagreen is made by passing the leather between rollers, in contact with a copper plate suitably indented.

1877.

Tufts University provided support for entering this text.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Sort places alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a place to search for it in this document.
Russia (Russia) (1)
Oriental (Paraguay) (1)

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide People (automatically extracted)
Sort people alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a person to search for him/her in this document.
Charles Green (1)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: