Ink
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Ink. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
Important: Safety Warning
This page describes trade processes that use dangerously toxic materials such as cyanide solutions, mercury amalgams, or strong acids. These processes require training, equipment, and precautions far beyond what the text describes.
In addition, this page directs the use of hazardous substances — such as benzine, gasoline, lye, or strong acids — for household tasks. These materials are highly flammable, corrosive, or poisonous, and the practices described have caused fires, burns, and poisonings.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
a writing fluid. Good ink should be free from sediment. When applied to paper it should penetrate so as to be difficult of erasure, but it should not have a tendency to spread. It should not fade with age. It is desirable also that ink should not have a tendency to mold, and that it should not corrode a steel pen. Black inks are, at base, usually iron or logwood. The former are the best. A famous recipe for black ink is the following. One part by weight of bruised nut galls; six parts of soft water; boil three hours in a copper kettle, replacing from time to time the water lost by evaporation. After settling, draw off, leaving the dregs behind, and add one-half part of common gum senegal and a half part of green vitriol. Thin with water to the required consistency. Allow the mixture to stand until it is nearly black; then bottle tight and put away for use as wanted. Logwood ink is made easily. Logwood may be boiled in soft water, or else extract of logwood may be used. When ink of a proper consistency has been obtained add one part in ten of ammonia or alum dissolved in boiling water. This gives a violet ink. Red ink may be prepared by dissolving carmine in a solution of caustic ammonia. It evaporates very rapidly, however, and must be kept in closely stoppered bottles. A better red ink for ordinary purposes is made by steeping cochineal in hot soft water. A blue ink may be compounded without difficulty by mixing one part of oxalic acid with eight parts of Prussian blue, and adding the mixture to water until the desired intensity of color is obtained. India ink is prepared by the Japanese from pine soot and the lampblack of sesamum oil. This they mix with a liquid glue obtained from the hides of cattle. It is manufactured in sticks or cakes. It is used by artists, architects, engineers, and others who desire a superior ink for drafting purposes. A liquid obtained from the cuttlefish is used also for the same purpose. The indelible ink used by the housewife for marking linen may be made from silver nitrate, dissolved in water and ammonia. For sympathetic ink, see COBALT. Printer's ink is so thick and sticky that it is hardly an ink. It is a superior paint. It consists chiefly of linseed oil, soap, lamp black, and naphtha. Vermilion is used as coloring for red ink; ultramarine for blue, and red chromate for yellow. An outworn typewriter ribbon put to soak in soft water produces excellent ink.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a liquid quid or pigment used for writing or printing. Inks may be classed under four heads: Writing inks consist either of colored liquids, or of finely divided colored precipitates suspended in a liquid. Red ink is a solution of cochineal or pure carmine in ammonia, or of brazil wood in water. Blue ink is a solution of Prussian blue and oxalic acid in water. Chrome ink is a preparation of logwood and potassium bichromate. Marking ink must be able to withstand the action of soap, alkaline, and acid liquids. It usually consists of a solution of silver nitrate, colored with lampblack and thickened with gum. Copying ink must be thicker than ordinary ink, and must not dry too quickly. It is usually prepared by adding a little sugar or glycerine to ordinary black ink. Its sp. gr. should not exceed 1.071. Printing ink. All inks used for printing consist essentially of well boiled drying oils, mixed with lampblack or other pigments. Soaps and resinous matters are frequently added to give the oils the required consistency.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Both accounts assume ink is something you might mix yourself from nut galls, logwood, cochineal or Prussian blue, and Aiton's even recommends soaking a worn typewriter ribbon in water to make more. Almost none of that survives in daily use: László Bíró's ballpoint, patented in 1938 and mass-marketed after 1945, runs on a thick oil-based paste rather than a free-flowing liquid, while most writing ink sold today is a synthetic dye solution rather than the iron-gall recipe Aiton called "the best." The great bulk of ink now leaves no pen at all, being sprayed by inkjet printers (a consumer technology from the 1980s) or fused as dry toner powder. Archivists have also reversed the old verdict on iron-gall ink: because it is acidic and corrodes the very paper it penetrates, it is now a conservation problem in libraries rather than a mark of quality, and silver-nitrate marking ink has given way to laundry markers.
Written for this edition, 2026.