Leavenworth
a city and countyseat of Leavenworth co., Kan., on the Missouri river and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé, the Burlington Route, the sometimes by "bating" in "pure" which Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific and is a warm decoction of pigeons' or other fowls' dung. The method of actual tanning varies endlessly, but in general it may be said to consist in suspending or depositing in layers the hides in a successive series of pits containing tan liquor or ooze which is weak at first, but which as the tanning proceeds is made increasingly rich in tannin. To finish the hides they are damped and softened in water, scoured to remove the bloom from their surface, then liberally oiled and the whole surface worked over by pressure with a three-sided steel implement called a striking pin. This operation removes all creases and smooths out and solidifies the leather-an operation carried further and finished after renewed oiling, by rolling the hide on a smooth floor under a heavy hand roller. Morocco leather is a term which now applies rather to the finish of a certain class of goods than to the source of the skin of which it is formed. It is a richly grained and dyed leather, originally and properly made from goat skins tanned in sumach.
Sheepskins roughly tanned and undressed are termed basils; dressed and dyed as for morocco, but finished smooth, they form roans; and split sheep skins (the flesh sides of which go to be shamoyed to form wash leather) tanned and dressed are known as skivers. Russia leather is now any smooth finished thin leather, impregnated with the empyreusubstance its peculiar odor and insect resisting qualities. Originally it was made in Russia of dressed calf skins. matic oil of birch bark, which gives the Tawing. Tawing consists in dressing skins with certain mineral salts, and is useful principally for glove leathers and the so-called kid leather employed for the uppers of ladies' boots. It is also by tawing that furriers' skins are prepared, and hides and skins in the hair generally preserved.
Shamoying. This consists simply in impregnating and saturating skins with oil. The name is derived from the fact that the process was originally applied for the preparation of the skins of the several other railroads; 26 miles N. W. of Kansas City. It is the trade center for a farming and coal mining region; manufactures flour, syrup, glucose, stoves, machinery, bricks, castings, carriages, wagons, boots and shoes, metallic wares, iron bridges, furniture, cigars, and brooms. It contains Mount St. Mary's Academy, Cushing and St. John's Hospitals, Kansas State Orphan Asylum, Whittier Library, Kansas State and United States penitentiaries; and has electric light and street railroad plants; excellent water supply; the pro-cathedral daik weekly, of the Immaculate Conception; many churches; National and savings banks; daily, we weekly, and monthly periodicals.
Adjoining the city on the N. is Fort Leavenworth, where are located an infantry and cavalry school, and a National cemetery. Pop. (1910) 19,363; (1920) 16,912.