Paper and Printing Recipes / A Handy Volume of Practical Recipes, Concerning the Every-Day Business of Stationers, Printers, Binders, and the Kindred Trades

by John Sawtelle Ford

Marking Ink.

Put two pennyworths’ lunar caustic (nitrate of silver) into half a tablespoonful of gin, and in a day or two the ink is fit for use. The linen to be marked must first be wet with a strong solution of common soda, and be thoroughly dried before the ink is used upon it. The color will be faint at first, but by exposure to the sun or the fire it will become quite black and very durable.