etymological researches as those in which we have been here indulging.
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.
