Thaddeus Davids

“ For the benefit of the few who could read, it was customary to write on the margin, or at the foot, of the page on which the woodcut was printed, a few words descriptive of the subject or object delineated. This was always done with a pen, by a regular scribe, until, one day, it occurred to the wood-engraver employed on the Biblia Pauperum, that these words might be as easily engraved as the figures to which they referred, and of which they were the explanation. He put that idea in practice: and in an instant the sublime ART OF PRINTING was an "accomplished fact." ”

“ IMPORTANCE OF GOOD INK.
Astle speaks very impressively and justly on this point; and we contribute to this part of our subject calling attention to facts almost daily occurring or brought to notice in this country, especially in the older cities and states, where town-records, parish-registers, and other documents of ancient date, and of high importance in history, chronology, and genealogy, (as well as in regard to the title and inheritance of estates,) are found obscured and obliterated, causing losses, public and private, that need but to be mentioned to be properly estimated. ”

“ In short, the atramentum sutorium was added, in moderate quantity, to the atramentum scriptorium, thus constituting it a chemical as well as a mechanical ink. So, modern ink may be improved in blackness, durability and beauty, and rendered unchangeable in color under the action of the chlorides, acids, &c., by the intermixture of a small quantity of the very finest carbon, in the form of an impalpable powder. But, the great difficulty is—that the carbon clogs the pen, and renders the ink too thick to flow easily, so that it can never be used for rapid or ordinary writing. ”

“ If a new ink were compounded of the two, possessing the best properties of each, any writing executed with it could be effaced by the joint or successive action of mechanical and chemical applications.
It must be borne in mind that the ancient inks had one use for which writing ink is now never required; and that was in making books, or multiplying copies of manuscripts indefinitely for general reading, or publication. The invention and universal employment of the art of printing has wholly done away with that. ”

“ That modern inks do not resist the decomposing and destructive power of chemical agents (whether acids, alkalies, saline bodies or elements,) as well as the ancient inks, is the result of a necessity existing in their very composition and invention, and even in the use for which they were designed, and to which they are applied. A dye (like modern ink) is the result of chemical action, and is therefore subject to chemical re-agents; yet, when well made, it is proof against mechanical action, such as washing, rubbing, and scraping ”

“ Common black writing-ink is the tannate of the sesquoxyd of iron mixed with a smaller quantity of the gallate of the sesquoxyd of iron. When in the liquid form, it is generally the tannate and gallate of the protoxyd; but after being long kept, (or put on the paper and drying there,) it absorbs more oxygen from the atmosphere; and thus the saline compounds become the per-tannate and per-gallate, which are blacker than the tannate and gallate of the protoxyd. It is thus and therefore that good modern ink is known by the simple test-quality of darkening by age. ”

“ Blue ink, within ten or more years past, has been, with many, a preferred fluid for common writing.
Blue ink, when properly made, flows with great ease and rapidity from the pen, dries almost instantly on the paper, and has been supposed or expected to be quite durable, and unchangeable in color, under ordinary vicissitudes. Yet, experience has demonstrated the contrary,—though various and well-contrived chemical combinations have been attempted for the purpose. Blue inks that change to black some time after writing are very popular. ”

“ The "copperas-water" is to be found in every shoemaker's shop, where it is used to color the cut edges of the heels and the rest of the soles.
As soon as the difficulty of writing with convenience and rapidity on paper, with the ancient carbonaceous ink, became manifest, the resort to the atramentum sutorium as a substitute for the atramentum scriptorium, was a matter of course, and was but a simple adaptation of a familiar substance to a new purpose, requiring no great ingenuity, and no invention whatever. ”

“ The fact that the vegetable astringents form a deep or bluish black color, when combined with a salt of iron, had been known from time immemorial. Among the Romans, the atramentum sutorium,—"shoemaker's ink,"—was applied to a solution of sulphate of iron employed by them, as it is even to this day, by workers in leather, to blacken the surface of that material. This it does by uniting chemically with the tannin and gallic acid, by which the hide was converted into leather, whose blackened particles are therefore essentially identical with modern ink. ”

“ Modern Ink, on the contrary, leaves its marks upon paper, parchment, &c., by penetrating the material to such a depth that it cannot be erased (mechanically) without the removal or destruction of the surface which it has tinged. Chemical agency, as of various acids, chlorine and its compounds, is generally employed, therefore, to discharge the color from modern writing-ink-marks. Carbon, in all its common forms, (charcoal, bituminous coal, anthracite, jet, plumbago, lignite, ivory-black, lamp-black and soot,) is wholly unalterable in color by any of these chemical means. ”

“ The word "sutorium" (being unintelligible to the ignorant monk who superintended the printing) was changed to "scriptorium,"—that is, "writing-ink," instead of "shoemakers'-ink." It is well-known that a solution of copperas properly made, will remedy or prevent premature baldness; but we assert that no quantity of lamp-black and gum, or grease, will be found effectual for that purpose.
In the time of Celsus, the sulphate of iron (copperas) had not yet become an essential ingredient of writing-ink ”

“ The longest and most valuable passage which we find in the writings of any English author, who has alluded to our subject, is the following, from "The Origin and Progress of Writing," by Thomas Astle, F. R. S., F. A. S. &c., pp. 209 to 212, 2d edition, London, 1803.
"Of Inks. Ink has not only been useful in all ages, but still continues absolutely necessary to the preservation and improvement of every art and science, and for conducting the ordinary transactions of life.
"Daily experience shows that the most common objects generally prove most useful and beneficial to mankind. ”

“ As, for instance, a landscape drawn in ordinary colors with a wintry aspect, cloudy or sombre sky, snow on the ground, and leafless trees, if properly touched with sympathetic inks, will, at any time, when brought near a fire, or otherwise subjected to a certain degree of warmth, change to the hues of summer, the sky becoming of a clear blue, the trees in full foliage, and the turf rich with grass, each with its appropriate shade of verdure, as also flowers of their various natural colors, &c., according to the fancy of the artist, the whole disappearing as the picture grows cold. ”

“ In both arts, writing and printing alike, the Chinese have remained stiff, solid and immovable at the first step, with the characteristic unchangeability of the yellow races of Eastern Asia, so opposite to the indefinitely progressive and self-improving energy of the nations whose progenitors proceeded west from the original source and centre of the earth's population. The same ink serves the Chinese both for writing and printing, as does the same kind of paper. This ink they invented about the end of the first century of the Christian era ”

“ It is not, however, equally secure against the effects of time; for vitriolic ink gradually, fades away, becomes paler by degrees, turns brown and yellow, and is scarcely legible; and sometimes, as the parchment grows yellow and brown with age, it disappears altogether. A compound kind of ink came next into use, which united the advantages and avoided the defects of the two simple sorts. Such a mixed ink was generally, used for several centuries; and with this, the manuscripts that are now most fresh and legible appear to have been written. ”

“ The Ink used by the ancients had nothing in common with ours, but the color and gum. Gall-nuts, copperas and gum make up the composition of our Ink; whereas soot, or ivory-black, was the chief ingredient in that of the ancients ”

“ The substance employed to receive and preserve the marks thus made is now almost universally Paper. Parchment is still used in many legal documents and writings of form and ceremony. Cotton, linen, and silk, when woven into fabrics for garments and like uses, are also subjected to marks of ink for the purpose of identifying property. So are wooden and leathern surfaces, in similar conditions. It is also employed in writing on stone, in the quite modern art of lithography. ”

“ For, it is sometimes developed in the form of a saline efflorescence,—or is a real mineral of sulphureous color—chosen for this purpose. There have been painters who dug up from graves colored coals (carbon) . But all these are useless and new-fangled notions. For it is made from soot in various forms, as (for instance) of burnt rosin or pitch. For this purpose, they have built manufactories not emitting that smoke. The ink of the very best quality is made from the smoke of torches. An inferior article is made from the soot of furnaces and bath-house chimneys. ”

“ The great defect to be avoided and prevented is the want of durability. The writing ink of the ancients was characterized by great permanency, being composed of finely pulverized carbon mixed with a mucilaginous or adhesive liquid. India or China Ink is of this composition: it is formed of lamp-black and size or fine animal glue, with the incidental addition of perfumes. It is used in China with a brush, both for writing and painting on Chinese paper ”

“ Letters written with a solution of acetate of lead, are invisible until exposed to the action of sulphuretted hydrogen, which makes them distinct, with the lustrous greyish black of sulphuret of lead, the same substance which is called galena when it occurs as lead-ore. A weak infusion of galls or other vegetable astringent, will, if applied to paper in the form of letters, become legible when touched with any solution of iron. If written with a solution of ferro-cyanide of potash, letters will remain invisible until touched with a solution of sulphate of iron. ”

“ Indigo has been recently imported,—a substance whose composition I have not yet investigated. The dyers make theirs from the dark crust that gradually accumulates on brass-kettles. Ink is made also from torches (pine-knots) , and from charcoal pounded fine in mortars. "The cuttle-fish" has a remarkable quality in this respect; but the coloring-matter which it produces is not used in the manufacture of ink. All ink is improved by exposure to the sun's rays. Book-writers' ink has gum mixed with it,—weaver's ink is made up with glue. ”

“ Simple as the composition of Ink may be thought, and really is—it is a fact well known, that we have at present none equal in beauty and color to that used by the ancients; as will appear by an inspection of many of the manuscripts above quoted, especially those written in England in the times of the Saxons. ”

“ Whatever arts the Chinese or Japanese or Jesuits may have invented or preserved the art of telling the truth is evidently, to all of them, one of "the lost arts,"—lost irretrievably and forever! ↑ Here we might add, without fear of contradiction, that Ink is still extensively used to "blacken characters," without regard to the depth of the incision. ↑ The specimen of the English language which we quote, is not faultless; and the Latin is execrable. There is no such word as scriborium in any language, ancient or modern. The Romans called writing-ink atramentum scriptorum. ”

“ From neither, but from the negligence of the present race; as very little attention would soon demonstrate that we want neither skill nor ingredients to make Ink as good now as at any former period.
"It is an object of the utmost importance that the Records of Parliament, the Decisions and Adjudications of the Courts of Justice, Conveyances from man to man, Wills, Testaments, and other Instruments which affect property, should be written with Ink of such durable quality as may best resist the destructive powers of time and the elements. ”

“ The blackness of ink, as has been already indicated, is derived from the combination of these two acids with oxydized iron in saline compounds which are insoluble in water, and are therefore precipitated or deposited at the bottom of the fluid, unless held mechanically suspended in it, by gum, sugar or some similar substance which gives the quality of viscidity to its solutions. ”

“ The constant occasion we have for Ink evinces its convenience and utility. From the important benefits arising to society from its use, and the injuries individuals may suffer from the frauds of designing men in the abuse of this necessary article, it is to be wished that the legislature would frame some regulation to promote its improvement, and prevent knavery and avarice from making it instrumental to the accomplishment of any base purpose. ”

“ The strict and and precise sense of Palimpsest is therefore 'twice prepared for writing;' the repetition of such preparation being the prevailing idea in the etymology, and not erasure, as some have erroneously supposed. It is said to be easy to remove from modern parchment, especially if what is written be of some standing, all traces of writing, by rubbing it with pumice, or similar substances ”

“ We quote from page 366;—"The ink which the ancients generally used, was composed of lamp-black mixed with gum, as we are informed by Dioscorides and others, who give the receipt [recipe?] for making it. Ink of this kind may be called carbonic: it possess the advantages of extreme blackness and durability, the writing remaining fresh so long as the substance on which it is written exists; but as it does not sink into the paper, it is liable to the great inconvenience of being easily and entirely removed ”