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Redwood's Red Ink

Guarancine and liquor of ammonia, of each 1 ounce; distilled water (cold), 1 pint; triturate together in a mortar, filter, and dissolve in the solution gum-arabic 1/2 ounce. (Cooley.) a wedgwood-ware mortar; add 8 scruples tartaric acid, and triturate the whole until effervescence has ceased; next add sufficient ammonia to dissolve the tartrate of silver; mix in 4 fluid drachms archil, 4 drachms white sugar, and 12 drachms finely-powdered 2504. To Restore Writing Effaced gum-arabic; then add sufficient distilled water with Chlorine. Expose it to the vapor of sulphuret of ammonia, or dip it into a solution of the sulphuret. Or: Ferrocyanide of potassa, 5 parts; water, 85 parts. Dissolve, and immerse the paper in the fluid, then slightly acidulate the solution with sulphuric or hydrochloric acid. The method found to answer best has been to spread the ferrocyanide thin with a feather or a bit of stick cut to a blunt point. Though the ferrocyanide should occasion no sensible change of color, yet the moment the acid comes upon it, every trace of a letter turns at once to a fine blue, which soon to make 6 ounces of the mixture. This ink fulfills all the conditions that a marking ink should possess: It flows freely from the pen without running or blotting; it does not require a very strong or long continued heat to develop it; when developed it is perfectly black; and it does not injure the texture of the finest fabric.