ARTIFICIAL LEATHER
SIR,—In his admirable article on "The Chemist's Age," Professor I. M. Heilbron makes reference - to the use of synthetic .resins for " the pro- duction of artificial leather." Whilst I am aware that during the last two decades numerous so-called substitutes for leather have been pro- duced both in the laboratory and on the commercial scale, I have yet to hear of the synthesis of artificial leather.
Leather being a product of natural skin in combination with either vegetable tanning materials or mineral salts has a complex fibrous structure which imparts to it its great natural asset of being semi- waterproof yet extremely pliable and allowing of the passage of vapours or gases. The importance of these characteristics in leather is apparent to the majority of people who have worn shoes soled with so-called leather substitutes. To have an artificial leather one would surely have to produce from materials other than those used in the manufacture of leather, a material which has its main characteristics and advantages.—
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