Whale Leather

Squeezing oil out of stone ooal wus a thing to be thought of as ix rniracle that might eome day convert the heathen ; but to get shoo ieatber from the skin of a whale is so reasonable a prubability tbut one is amazed it 6bould noi have been long ago attempted. A Frenchman has obtaiued a patent for wbale leather, and remnrkably pliai.t stuff it is. The skin is so thick that, ofter removing the inner portion, which is spongy, the remainder ie .plit to make it of the usual shoe tbiokness. It is remarknbly totigh, but as soft in bnckskin, and it repela water vvcll. The Yankee boot is most miserable; (he leather is spoiled by bad tanning and worse working up. Tbie makps an unfair relation between supply and consumptiou which it will need all the wh-iles of ouean to equalize. The diaoovery comes at a time when land lealher is growirlg alanningly scarce ; and we bohold in it a bo.u;tit';l provisión of Providence, only excelled by tbe discovery of coal oil at a junoture still more critical in the history of human progrese.