The one great distinction between the ancient and the modern inks is this: The old inks were PAINTS; the writing inks now in use by all nations (excepting those of Southern Asia) are DYES. That is the whole difference.
It would be well to give a definition or limitation of the words “Ancient” and “Modern.” No one has done it hitherto. We will not attempt to fix the point precisely, but may reasonably say that the period intervening between September, A.D. 410, (when Rome was taken by ALARIC and his Visigoths) and December 25, A.D. 800, (when Karl the Great, otherwise called Charlemagne, was crowned in Rome by Pope Leo with the title of Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire) contains the interval between antiquity and modern times.
The introduction of Paper as the common material upon which significant characters were to be marked must have had a great agency in producing a change in the composition of the liquid employed in making the marks.
Parchment was the substance in use, among all the European nations, as the substratum of manuscript, from the time when the Egyptian papyrus went out of fashion. Both the parchment and the papyrus were written upon, by Romans, Greeks and Hebrews, with pens made of small reeds, dipped in a fluid composed of carbon, (not dissolved, but) held in a state of suspension by an oil or a solution of gum.
The letters were originally painted on the surface of the papyrus, parchment, board, or other material so employed—the ink not being imbibed or absorbed by the substance on which it was shed, but remaining on the surface, capable of being removed by washing, scraping, rubbing, or any similar process. The surface thus cleansed was then in a state to receive a new inscription; so that erasions and inscriptions might be indefinitely repeated upon it, as upon a modern sign-board.
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.
Printing Ink (which is composed of carbon suspended in a drying oil) is, in essential characteristics, identical with the writing-inks of the ancient Romans and Greeks. It is impressed upon the surface of paper, (that which is unsized or bibulous being commonly preferred,) and is retained unchanged by the action of moisture, on account of the insolubility of the carbon and the repulsion between oil and water. These two forms of ink are therefore the exact opposites of each other, in the qualities on which their use and permanence depend. The most important peculiarity of the modern writing-ink, as contrasted with the ancient, naturally suggested the two names which it bore in the Latin and Greek of the middle ages, or (to speak more definitely,) the time of its invention and first employment. It was a Tincta, a DYE, or STAIN, which tinged and tinctured the material on which it was placed, entering among its fibres as coloring fluids do into cloth in the ordinary processes of manufacture. It penetrated the substance of the paper (as caustics or powerful chemical solvents and corrosives act on the organic fibre): it bit in, or burned in,—and was therefore well named ENCAUSTON and Incaustum.
CHEMISTRY or COMPOSITION of INK.
We do not propose to furnish recipes, prescriptions, directions or instructions for the manufacture of this article. No mere statement in words can enable any one to arrive at perfection, or excellence, or practical success in the production of this article, or any articles whatsoever. A skill and carefulness, which can be acquired only by long and laborious experience, are indispensable to the management of the various processes. Time is an essential element of success in this peculiar art; and that makes absolutely requisite also, two other conditions,—patience and capital. We shall therefore be brief on this point,—referring those who wish for minute details, to the cyclopaedias, dictionaries of the arts and sciences, and the larger works on practical chemistry. The following we venture to present as the most correct account of this subject, derived from the latest scientific and practical authorities.
The composition of ink varies according to its colors, and the purposes to which it is to be applied.