Forty Centuries of Inkor, a chronological narrative concerning ink and its backgrounds   By: David Nunes Carvalho (1848-1925)

Forty Centuries of Ink by David N. Carvalho.

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 N. CARVALHO

PREFACE.

The unfortunate conditions surrounding the almost universal use of the oddly named commercial and with few exceptions record inks, and the so called modern paper, is the motive for the writing of this book. The numerous color products of coal tar, now so largely employed in the preparation of ink, and the worse material utilized in the manufacture of the hard finished writing papers, menace the future preservation of public and other records. Those who occupy official position and who can help to ameliorate this increasing evil, should begin to do so without delay. Abroad England, Germany and France and at home Massachusetts and Connecticut have sought to modify these conditions by legislation and our National Treasury Department only last year, in establishing a standard for its ink, gives official recognition of these truths.

There is no "History of Ink;" but of ink history there is a wealth of material, although historians have neglected to record information about the very substance by which they sought to keep and transmit the chronicles they most desired to preserve. From the beginning of the Christian era to the present day, "Ink" literature, exclusive of its etymology, chemical formulas, and methods of manufacture, has been confined to brief statements in the encyclopedias, which but repeat each other. A half dozen original articles, covering only some particular branch together with a few treatises more general in their ramifications of the subject, can also be found. Seventy lines about "writing ink" covering its history for nearly four thousand years is all that is said in "The Origin and Progress of Handwriting," a revised book of hundreds of pages of Sir Thomas Astle, London, 1876, and once deemed the very highest authority.

The mass of ancient and comparatively modern documents which we have inherited, chronicle nothing about the material with which they were written. The more valuable of them are disfigured by the superscription of newer writings over the partially erased earlier ones, thus rendering the work of ascertaining their real character most difficult. Nevertheless, patient research and advanced science have enabled us to intelligently study and investigate, and from the evidence thus gained, to state facts and formulate opinions that may perhaps outlast criticism.

The bibliographical story of "Ink" is replete with many interesting episodes, anecdotes and poetical effusions. Its chemical history is a varied and phenomenal one. Before the nineteenth century the ink industry was confined to the few. Since then, it has developed into one of magnificent proportions. The new departure, due to the discovery and development of the "Aniline" family of fugitive colors, is noteworthy as being a step backward which may take years to retrace.

The criminal abuse of ink is not infrequent by evil disposed persons who try by secret processes to reproduce ink phenomena on ancient and modern documents. While it is possible to make a new ink look old, the methods that must be employed, will of themselves reveal to the examiner the attempted fraud, if he but knows how to investigate.