  CHEMISTRY or COMPOSITION of INK. FORM OF THE WORD INK IN DIFFERENT LANGUAGES Title: The History of Ink Including Its Etymology, Chemistry, and Bibliography Author: Thaddeus Davids Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 E-text prepared by Sonya Schermann |
| Note: | Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/historyofinkincl00davi |
Transcriber's Note:
Words in fonts different from the main text, used to denote emphasis, have been represented by italics.
An attempt has been made to transcribe the handwritten text in plates used to show the different kinds of ink. Where the original text was unclear, dots have been used to mark illegible letters, [] surround illegible but obvious letters, and <> surround letters deleted by the original scribe.
Hyphens have been added at the end of lines where appropriate.
Macrons and tildes on consonants within the plates have not been reproduced.
Longer illegible sections were replaced by [illegible].
In some cases, a descriptive word or phrase has been added and surrounded by square brackets, for example [Hieratic text].
Some corrections have been made to the original. These are described in a second transcriber's note at the end of the text.
The
History
OF INK
VOX DICTA PERIT, LITERA SCRIPTA MANET.
THADDEUS DAVIDS & CO.
NEW YORK.
SNYDER, BLACK & STURM,
LITHOGRAPHERS, 92 WILLIAM ST. N.Y.
THE
HISTORY
OF
INK
INCLUDING ITS
ETYMOLOGY, CHEMISTRY,
AND
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Francis Hart & Co.
Printers,
63 Cortlandt St. N.Y.
Ink IS history, in the common acceptation of the word; for, what is generally denominated history—is ink diffused on paper in certain definite lines. Yet ink has no history written or composed hitherto. In view of this deficiency—which betrays a singular negligence (on the part of historians and all literary men) and a thoughtless ingratitude to this indispensable means of accomplishing and preserving their work—we propose to supply the desideratum, by furnishing, on these little pages, what is indicated by the above title, in the fullest sense and widest scope of the term, including its etymology, its chemistry, and all that can be suggested and justified by the title, or fairly demanded under it, or claimed from it.
The great common error of general historians, ancient and modern, (with a very few exceptions among the moderns,) has been, that they have given to the world little else than narrations and descriptions of wars and treaties, of governmental changes and political events, omitting to record the often far more important facts in the history of literature, science, and the arts of utility, by which the progress of civilization and the development of the human race in its higher capacities have been effected or aided. The great “Instaurator of the Sciences” was the first to call attention to these omissions and deficiencies in all previous histories, and to indicate the duty of historians to avoid these errors,—setting a good example in that respect, in the specimen, or model work, which he produced as a pattern,—his history of the reign of Henry the Seventh. Since his time, many special histories of inventions and of the arts of utility have been written; and the numerous cyclopaedists have largely contributed to this object; still, however, leaving many vacancies to be filled in this department of human knowledge, of which the one before us can not be considered the least worthy of the labor needful for its investigation.