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THE HISTORY OF INK.
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manner as now, 1120 years before the Christian Era; but, only used it, at that time, to blacken incised characters.[1] Ink was termed by the ancient Latin authors atramentum scriborium,[2] or librarium, to distinquish it from atramentum sutorium or calchantum. It was made of the soot of resin, or pounded charcoal, and other substances, mixed with gum, and not, like ours, of vitriol, gall-nuts, alum, &c. The earliest positive mention of ink is perhaps the passage in Jeremiah, in the Vulgate, "Ego scribebam in volumine, atramento."[3]
- ↑ Here we might add, without fear of contradiction, that Ink is still extensively used to "blacken characters," without regard to the depth of the incision.
- ↑ The specimen of the English language which we quote, is not faultless; and the Latin is execrable. There is no such word as scriborium in any language, ancient or modern. The Romans called writing-ink atramentum scriptorum.
- ↑ This is a very paltry piece of pedantry. Why could not this author (who shows that he does not understand Latin,) give us the text in English? The passage is in Jeremiah, chap. xxxvi, verse 18: "I wrote them with Ink in a book." The only other references in the Bible to Ink, are the following: 2 Corinthians, iii, 3: "written not with Ink, but the spirit." 2
