12. To write on paper with gold or silver.—Make a sizing as strong as will flow freely from the pen, by dissolving equal quantities of gum-arabic and loaf sugar in water; write with this on paper and let it dry; then moisten the paper by breathing on it, or by holding it over hot water, and immediately lay pieces of gold or silver leaf on the lines of the writing, pressing them down gently with a dry hair pencil. Otherwise, brush gold or silver bronze lightly over the writing; but this will not have so brilliant an appearance. Allow the sizing to dry again, and then brush off the redundant gold or silver with cotton. This writing, (if performed with leaf gold or silver) may be burnished with a flint burnisher or a cornelian or blood-stone. Gold letters may also be written or drawn with a hair pencil by means of gold bronze, mixed with weak gum-water, to which may be added a little solution of soap, which will make it run more freely. But no preparation of solution of gold has yet been discovered, which may be easily revived on paper.
13. To make good shining black ink.—Take two ounces of nut-galls in coarse powder; one ounce of logwood in thin chips; one ounce of sulphate of iron; three-fourths of an ounce of gum-arabic; one-fourth of an ounce of sulphate of copper; and one-fourth of an ounce of loaf sugar. Boil the galls and logwood together in three pints of water, till the quantity is reduced to one half. Then the liquor must be strained through a flannel into a proper vessel, and the remainder of the ingredients be added to it. The mixture is then to be frequently stirred till the whole is dissolved; after which it must be left at rest for twenty-four hours. The ink may then be decanted from the gross sediment, and must be preserved in a glass bottle well corked.
14. Blue ink.—Dissolve one ounce of gum-arabic in a pint of water. In a part of this gum-water, grind a small quantify of best prussian blue; you may thus bring it to any depth of colour you choose. Indigo will answer this purpose very well, but is not so fine a colour, nor will it remain suspended so uniformly in the water.
15. Red ink.—In the above mentioned gum-water, grind very fine, three parts of vermillion with one of lake or carmine. This is a very perfect colour, but may require to be shaken up occasionally. To make the common red ink, such as is used by book binders for ruling, &c. infuse half a pound of rasped brazil-wood, for two or three days in a pint of vinegar; then filter or strain it, and add one ounce of gum-arabic, and one ounce of alum. It may afterward be diluted occasionally with water.
16. Yellow ink.—Steep one ounce of turmeric, in powder, in half a gill of alcohol; let it rest twenty-four hours, and then add an equal quantity of water;—throw the whole on a cloth, and express the coloured liquor, which mix with gum-water. Rum or other spirits may be substituted in the place of alcohol. A solution of gamboge in water, writes a full yellow, but comes far short of turmeric in brightness.