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XXI.—On the Composition of a New Writing-Ink, which, in resisting Chemical Deletion, promises to diminish the chance of the Falsification of Bills, Deeds, and other Documents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2013

Thomas Stewart Traill
Thomas Stewart Traill
Affiliation:
Professor of Medical Jurisprudence in the University of Edinburgh.
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Extract

The preparation of my Lectures on Medical Jurisprudence involved a consideration of the means of diminishing the chances of successful forgery, and again engaged me on a subject to which, many years ago, my attention had been very painfully turned by the frequency of executions for that crime. This will scarcely appear exaggeration, when it is stated, that, in the year 1809, there were no less than thirteen executions for forgery in the county of Lancaster, where I then resided: and when it is recollected that, in the fourteen years preceding 1819, two hundred and four individuals perished on the scaffold for that offence in England and Wales, every means of discouraging so fertile a source of misery and crime must be allowed to be a subject of no trifling importance.

Type
Research Article
Information
Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , 1840 , pp. 419 - 429
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1840

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References

page 423 note * The atramentum described by Vitruvius, Pliny, and Dioscorides, was employed both as writing-ink and as a pigment. The account of Vitruvius is as follows:

“Ingrediar nunc ad ea, quæ ex aliis generibus tractationum temperaturis commutata respiciunt colorum proprietates: et primum exponam de atramento, cujus usus in operibus magnas habet necessitates, ut sint notæ, quemadmodum præparentur certis nationibus artificiorum ad id temperaturæ. Namque ædificatur locus uti Laconicum, et expolitur marmore subtiliter, et lævigatur. Ante id fit Fornacula, habens in Laconicum nares, et ejus præfurnium magna diligentia comprimitur, ne flamma extra dissipetur: in fornace resina collocatur. Hanc autem ignis potestas urendo cogit emittere per nares intra Laconicum fuliginem, quæ circa parietem, et cameri curvaturam adhærescit, inde collecta passim componitur ex gummi subacto ad usum atramenti Librarii: reliqua tectores glutinum admiscentes in parietibus utuntur. Sin autem eæ copiæ non fuerint paratæ, ita necessitatibus erint administrandum, ne expectatione moræ res retineantur. Sarmenta aut tedæ schidiæ comburantur; cum erunt carbones, extinguantur. Deinde in mortario cum glutino tereantur, ita erit atramentum tectoribus non invenustum. Non minus si fæx vini arefacta, et cocta in fornace fuerit, et ea contrita cum glutino in opere inducetur, per quam atramenti suavem efficiet colorem; et quo magis ex meliore vino parabitur, non modo atramenti, sed etiam Indici colorem dabit imitari.” Lib. vii. chap. x. Ex ed. Venet. folio, 1567, cum commentario Danielis Barbati, p. 246.

The Laconicum means a species of condensing chamber, of an hemispherical shape, placed near the furnace, for receiving and condensing the smoke. Atramentum Librarii et Scriptorum is writing-ink. Gluten, or glue, was prepared from the ears or genitals of bulls in ancient times. Indicum, perhaps indigo.

page 423 note † Pliny is very explicit on this subject:

“Fit enim et fuligine pluribus modis, resina vel pice exustis. Propter quod officinas etiam ædificare, fumum non emittentes.”… “Adulteratur Fornacum Balnearumque fuligine quo ad volumina scribenda utuntur.”

page 423 note ‡ Dioscorides, in the last chapter of Lib. v. πεζι ‘Υλης ’Ιατζιχης, describes the composition of ink, and gives the proportions of the ingredients:

πεζι Μελανος.

“The ink with which we write is compounded of the soot of torches. For every three ounces of soot, one of gum is to be added. It is also made from the soot of resin, and also from the material called painters' black (χαι τῆς πζοειζημενῆς ζωγζαΦιχῆς Ασβολης). Of this black it is proper to take one mina, half a litra of gum, of ox glue and of flos ferri (χαλχανθου) each half an ounce.”

The painter's black is described in a former chapter as a soot collected in the chimneys of workers in glass (ὑελδζγειων). The flos ferri is, from his description of its colour and other qualities, evidently a sulphate of iron. We here, then, may trace the probable step which led to the use of inks composed of iron; and may observe also, that the mixture of carbon with salts of iron is not a recent proposition for the composition of ink.

page 424 note * In Annales de Chimie for 1833, vol. liii.Google Scholar, is a curious account of the Chinese method of making ink, extracted from a Japanese Encyclopædia in 80 octavo volumes, and from a Chinese Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, in the Royal Library at Paris. The finest would seem to be prepared from a lamp-black, obtained by the combustion of vegetable oils, particularly that of Bignonia Tomentosa, mixed with animal glue; the greatest quantity is prepared by collecting the soot of pine wood, received in a chamber 100 feet long, formed of paper pasted over bamboo, and divided into various compartments. The lamp-black collected in the first compartment is coarse; the finest is in the last compartment. The precautions used will shew how careful the Chinese are to obtain a lamp-black of a fine quality.