230 
WRITING INK. 
Inks have been 
usually black. 
The ancients 
knew the 
black from 
sails and iron, 
but not as an 
ink. 
III. 
On common Ink for writing. By Dr. Bancroft, F. R. S. 
&c. From his Researches into Permanent Colours. fVith 
additional Remarks. 
C ICERO (Tuscul. 5,) has given a copious statement of the 
important benefits resulting to mankind from the use of 
ink ; but probably they might, with more propriety, be ascribed 
to the art of writing, than to the means of exercising this art, 
of which ink is but one, though certainly it is not the least 
interesting among them. 
The Latin name of ink, a^ramentum, and the Greek name 
of writing ink , ^avypoctpizov, strictly denote a black substance, 
and authorize us to conclude, that this was originally and ex- 
clusively the colour of the liquids employed for writing ; 
though afterwards other coloured fluids were applied to the 
same purpose ; and then to the names signifying black ink, or 
black: matter, other words signifying red , yellow , &c. were 
incongruously united*. 
It appears that the ancients bad not, even in Pliny’s time, 
become acquainted with our writing ink, or at least with the 
use of it as such, even though the black, produced by a com- 
bination of iron with the colouring matter of galls, oak, bark, 
&c was frequently brought under their observation by shoe- 
makers, who gave this colour to their leather, as they do at 
present, and by the very same means j it seems probable, also, 
that galls were used to dye black with sulphate of iron, at the 
time when Pliny wrote his comp ehensive work ; for in his 
xvith book, chap. 6, after mentioning that ail trees which pro- 
duce acorns afford galls , Pliny adds, that those of the oak 
hemeris, (which he had previously mentioned as bearing the 
largest acorns) were the best and most suitable for tanning lea - 
* “ Verum tamquam peculiare nigro colori esse censeo hoc atm- ] 
menti nomen ; quanquani pro pigmentis scriptoriis singulis, et diversi 
coloribus usurpatum sit.” Caneparius. 191. 
ther 5 ; 
