Forty Centuries of Ink / Or, A chronological narrative concerning ink and its backgrounds, introducing incidental observations and deductions, parallels of time and color phenomena, bibliography, chemistry, poetical effusions, citations, anecdotes and curiosa together with some evidence respecting the evanescent character of most inks of to-day and an epitome of chemico-legal ink.

by David Nunes Carvalho

"When you shall have re-read this often, and have committed it to your tenacious memory, you shall thus recompense me for this care of instruction, that, as often as you shall successfully have made use of my work, you pray for me for the pity of omnipotent God, who knows that I have written these things which are here arranged, neither through love of human approbation, nor through desire of temporal reward, nor have I stolen anything precious or rare through envious jealousy, nor have I kept back anything reserved for myself alone; but, in augmentation of the honour and glory of His name, I have consulted the progress and hastened to aid the necessities of many men."

The "thorn" trees which Theophilus mentions are asserted by some writers (with whom I do not agree) to be those commonly known as the "Norway spruce," a species of pine of lofty proportions sometimes rising to the height of 150 feet with a trunk from four to five feet in diameter. It lives to a great age believed to exceed in many instances 450 years. The leaves (needles, thorns) are short but stand thickly upon the branches and are of a dusky green color shining on the upper surface; the fruit is nearly cylindrical in form and of a purple color covered with scales ragged at the edges. It is a native of Europe and Northern Asia. It furnishes the material known as Burgundy pitch which is obtained by removing the juice which is secreted in the bark of the tree; it is purified by a melting process and straining either through a cloth or a layer of straw. It gives forth a peculiar odor not unpleasant, resembling turpentine. The Burgundy pitch or rosin is soluble in hot alcohol (spirits of wine).

An ink prepared after the method laid down by this monk, assuming that he referred to the spruce-pine, while troublesome to write with, would be almost as lasting as "Indian" ink and would be most difficult to erase from parchment into which it would be absorbed due to its alcoholic qualities.

"The ink," remarks Montfaucon, "which we see in the most ancient Greek manuscripts, has evidently lost much of its pristine blackness; yet neither has it become altogether yellow or faint, but is rather tawny or deep red, and often not far from a vermillion." While there are some monuments of this kind of ink in fair condition of the fourth and succeeding centuries, they aggregate but a very small proportion of the vast number of principally Indian ink specimens which remain to us of those epochs. As exemplars, however, of a forgotten class of inks belonging to a still more remote antiquity, careful research adduces certain proof of their existence more than nine hundred years before the Christian era commenced.

Reference has earlier been made to the ancient Myrobolam ink, which was characteristically the same in color phenomena as those which Montfaucon mentions. These "tawny" colored inks I estimate were products obtained from the "thorn" trees spoken of by the monk Theophilus. The thorn trees were of two species. The pomegranate, anciently called the "Punic apple," because it was largely employed by the Carthagenians for the purposes of dyeing and tanning; and the acacia, known in Egyptian times as the lotus. The former was held in such high esteem that the Arabians and Egyptians made it an emblem to designate one of their dieties and termed it raman.

The products of these thorn, trees were collectively used together as ink, most of the tannin being obtained from the pomegranate, and the gum from the acacia.

CHAPTER VIII.

MEDIAEVAL INK.

INK SECRETAS OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY COMPARED WITH EARLIER ONES—APPEARANCE OF TANNO-GALLATE OF IRON INK IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY—ITS INTRODUCTION LOCATES THE EPOCH WHEN THE MODERN INK OF TO-DAY FIRST CAME INTO VOGUE—ITS APPROVAL AND ADOPTION BY THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH—THE INVENTION NOT ITALIAN BUT ASIATIC—ITS ARRIVAL FROM ASIA FROM THE WEST AND NOT THE EAST—APPEARANCE ABOUT THE SAME TIME OF LINEN OR MODERN PAPER—SETTLEMENT OF OLD CONTROVERSIES ABOUT ANCIENT SO-CALLED COTTON PAPER-DE VINNE'S COMMENT ABOUT PAPER AND PAPER-MAKING—CURIOUS CONTRACT OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

THE "Secretas" of the twelfth century, in so far as they relate to methods of making ink, indicate many departures from those contained in the more ancient ones. Frequent mention is made of sour galls, aleppo galls, green and blue vitriol, the lees of wine, black amber, sugar, fish-glue and a host of unimportant materials as being employed in the admixture of black inks. Combinations of some of these materials are expressed in formulas, the most important one of which details with great particularity the commingling together of an infusion of nut-galls, green vitriol (sulphate of iron) and fish-glue (isinglass); the two first (tanno-gallate of iron) when used alone, forms the sole base of all unadulterated "gall" inks.