Youngs Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets | Page 8

grease, stains, and paints from cloth, wood, &c. This receipt has frequently sold for $10.
37. BLACK INK WITHOUT SEDIMENT
This ink is not injured by frost--is a beautiful article, and only costs 5 cents. per gallon, and is sold for from $1 to $3. Take 1 lb. logwood, 1 gallon soft water, simmer in an iron vessel for one hour, then dissolve in a little hot water 24 grains bychromate of potash, and 12 grains prussiate of potash, and stir into the liquid while over the fire, then take it off and strain it through fine cloth. This ink is a jet black flows freely from the pen and will stand the test of oexylic acid.
38. INDELIBLE INK
1 inch of the stick of the nitrate of silver dissolved in a little water, and stirred into each gallon of the above, makes first rate indelible ink for cloth. Judge what indelible ink costs.
39. INDELIBLE INK
Nitrate of silver 1-1/2 oz., dissolved in liquor ammonia fortisine 5-1/2 oz., orchil for colouring 3/4 oz., gum mucilage 12 oz., mix the two latter, then mix them with the two former, and it is ready to use.
40. WRITING FLUID OR BLACK COPYING INK
Take two gallons of rain water and put into it gum arabic 1/4 lb., brown sugar 1/4 lb., clean copperas 1/4 lb., powdered nut galls 3/4 lb., mix and shake occasionally for ten days and strain. If needed sooner, let it stand in an iron kettle until the strength is obtained. This ink can be depended on for deeds or records, which you may want someone to read hundreds of years to come. Oexylic acid 1/4 oz., was formerly put in, but as it destroys the steel pens, and does just as well without it--it is now never used.
41. BEST INK POWDER
This is formed of the dry ingredients for ink, powdered and mixed. Take powdered galls one pound, powdered green vitriol half a pound, powdered gum 4 ounces, mix all together, put it up into 2 ounce packages, each of which will make a pint if ink.
42. BEST RED INK
Take of best carmine (nakarot) 2 grains, rain water 1/2 ounce, water of ammonia 20 drops, add a little gum arabic, and it is in a few minutes ready for use.
43. YELLOW INK
Dissolve alum in saffron water to whatever shade of yellow you please. It makes a beautiful ink.
44. BLUE INK
Take Prussian blue, and oexylic acid, in equal parts, powder finely, and add soft water to bring it to a soft paste, and let it stand for a few days, then add soft water to the desired shade of colour; add a little gum arabic to prevent spreading.
45. GOLDEN INK
Take some white gum arabic, reduce it to an impalpable powder in a brass mortar, dissolve it in strong brandy, and add a little common water to render it more liquid, provide some gold in a shell, which must be detached in order to reduce it to a powder, when this is done moisten it with the gum solution, and stir the whole with a small hair brush, or your finger, then leave it for a night that the gold may be better dissolved. If the composition becomes dry during the night, dilute it with more gum water in which a little saffron has been infused, but take care that the gold solution be sufficiently liquid to flow freely in a pen; when the writing is dry polish it with a dry tooth.
46. WHITE INK FOR WRITING ON BLACK PAPER
Having carefully washed some egg shells remove the internal skin and grind them on a piece of porphyry, then put the powder in a small vessel of pure water, and when it has settled at the bottom, draw off the water and dry the powder in the sun. This powder must be preserved in a bottle; when you want to use it put a small quantity of gum ammoniac into distilled vinegar, and leave it to dissolve during the night, next morning the solution will appear exceedingly white, and if you then strain it through a piece of linen cloth, and add to it the powder of egg shells in sufficient quantity, you will obtain a very white ink.
47. SECRET INK FOR YOUNG LADIES AND GENTS
Take a drachm of clean rain water, put into it, in a clean vial, 10 or 12 drops of pure, clean sulphuric acid, and it is ready for use; write with this using a clean quill pen on letter paper, and when dry you can see no mark at all, then hold it to a strong heat and the writing becomes as black as jet. If you want to write to a young lady or gentleman, as the case may be, and fearing that the letter might be opened before she or he