第62章

"INDIAN" INK--SPANISH LICORICE--BITUMEN--CARBONFROM PETROLEUM--PROCESS TO OBTAIN GALLIC ACID--EFFECT OF SUGAR IN INK--DARK COLORED GALLS BEST FOR INK MAKING--SUBSTITUTES FOR GALLS--RELATIVE PROPORTIONS OF IRON AND GALLS--ANECDOTE OF PROFESSOR TRIALL-ESTIMATION OF SULPHATE OF COPPER--QUAINT INK RECIPE--RIBAUCOURT'S INK--HORSELEY'S INK-ELSNER'S INDELIBLE MARKING INK--BLACK INK FORCOMMON AND COPYING USES--COMMON BLACK INK--SHINING BLACK INK--PROCESS FOR "BEST" INK--INDELIBLE BLACK INK WITHOUT GALLS OR IRON--INK POWDER--STEEL PEN INK--SOME EARLY LITERATURE OF THE COAL TAR PRODUCTS--INK PLANTOF NEW GRANADA--"IMPERISHABLE" INK--FIREPROOF INK--"INERADICABLE" INK--EXCHEQUER INK--"PERMANENT" RED INK--SUBSTITUTE FOR "INDIAN"INK--TO PREVENT INK FREEZING--BACTERIA IN INK--GOLD AND OTHER INKS USED FOR ILLUMlNATING.

INNUMERABLE receipts and directions for making inks of every kind, color and quality are to be found distributed in books more or less devoted to such subjects, in the encyclopaedias, chemistries, and other scientific publications. If assembled together they would occupy hundreds of pages. Those cited are exemplars indicating the trend of ideas belonging to different nations, epochs, and the diversity of materials. They can also be considered as object lessons which conclusively demonstrate the dissatisfaction always existing in respect to the constitution and modes of ink admixture.

Many of them are curious and are reproduced without any amendments.

"Indian ink is a black pigment brought hither from China, which on being rubbed with water, dissolves; and forms a substance resembling ink;but of a consistence extremely well adapted to the working with a pencil-brush, on which account it is not only much used as a black colour in miniature painting; but is the black now generally made use of for all smaller drawings in chiaro obscuro (or where the effect is to be produced from light and shade only).

"The preparation of Indian ink, as well as of the other compositions used by the Chinese as paints, is not hitherto revealed on any good authority;but it appears clearly from experiments to be the coal of fish bones, or some other vegetable substance, mixed with isinglass size, or other size; and most probably, honey or sugar candy to prevent its cracking. A substance, therefore, much of the same nature, and applicable to the same purposes, may be formed in the following manner.

"Take of isinglass six ounces, reduce it to a size, by dissolving it over the fire in double its weight of water. Take then of Spanish liquorice one ounce; and dissolve it also in double its weight of water; and grind up with it an ounce of ivory black. Add this mixture to the size while hot;and stir the whole together till all the ingredients be thoroughly incorporated. Then evaporate away the water in baleno mariae, and cast the remaining composition into leaden molds greased; or make it up in any other form.""The colour of this composition will be equally good with that of the Indian ink: the isinglass size, mixt with the colours, works with the pencil equally well with the Indian ink; and the Spanish liquorice will both render it easily dissolvable on the rubbing with water, to which the isinglass alone is somewhat reluctant; and also prevent its cracking and peeling off from the ground on which it is laid."* * * * * * *

There is found in small currents near the Baltick Sea, in the Dutchy of Prussia a certain coagulated bitumen, which, because it seems to be a juice of the earth is called succinum; and carabe, because it will attract straws; it is likewise called electrum, glessum, anthra citrina, vulgarly yellow amber.

"This bitumen being soft and viscous, several little animals, such as flies, and ants, do stick to it, and are buried in it.

"Amber is of different colours, such as white, yellow and black.

"The white is held in greatest esteem in physick, tho' it be opacous; when it is rubbed against anything, it is odoriferous, and it yields more volatile salt than the rest. The yellow, is transparent and pleasant to the eye, wherefore beads, necklaces, and other little conceits are made of it. It is also esteemed medicinal, and it yieldeth much oil.

"The black is of least use of all. (Sometimes used by the ancients in making ink.)"Some do think that petroleum, or Oil of Peter, is a liquor drawn from amber, by the means of subterrenean fires, which make a distillation of it, and that jet, and coals are the remainders of this distillation.

"This opinion would have probability enough in it, if the places, from whence this sort of drogues does come, were not so far asunder the one from the other; f or petroleum is not commonly found but in Italy, in Sicily, and Provence. This oil distils through the clefts of rocks, and it is very likely to be the oil of some bitumen, which the subterranean fires have raised."* * * * * * *