Good Red Ink
Ground Brazil wood, 8 ounces; vinegar, 10 pints; macerate for 4 or 5 days; boil in a tinned-copper vessel to one half, then add roche alum, 8 ounces; and gum, 3 ounces; dissolve.
How to silver a mirror, brew ginger beer, kill moths, make fireworks, tan a hide, bronze iron, cure a ham and clean a straw hat: William B. Dick's numbered encyclopedia answered the questions a nineteenth-century household actually had.
Ground Brazil wood, 8 ounces; vinegar, 10 pints; macerate for 4 or 5 days; boil in a tinned-copper vessel to one half, then add roche alum, 8 ounces; and gum, 3 ounces; dissolve.