PART III.--CHROME LEATHER

SECTION I.--THE NATURE OF CHROME LEATHERS

In these days the manufacture of chrome leather has attained a position hardly less in importance than that occupied by the ancient method of tanning by means of the vegetable tanning materials, and large quantities of hides and skins are now "chrome tanned" after preparatory processes analogous to those described in connection with vegetable tannages (Part II., Section II.; and Part II., Section I.).

Chrome leathers are made by tanning pelts with the salts of chromium, and are typical of what are known as "mineral tannages," in which inorganic salts are the tanning agents. Tannage with alum and salt (see