The principal ingredients are Jampblack, taurocolla, lis Burr Photo Just inside the main e ance to Jessfield Park. Not many years ago this was all paddy field Chinese ink is a much more sensible preparation than the more modern "get there quick" liquid ink in bottles that persist in spilling their contents on table linen ud in leaky pens that smirch fingers, soil pockets, and, in a moment of absent-minded malmanipulation, cnipty themselves in the lap of one's last "fresh laundried suit; sane, solid ink that may be carried about in the pocket if desived and with a few drops of water rubbed off on an ink block—the weight of the block is nothing considering the invaluable time gained for meditation during the rubbing process—in just the desired amount and of the prober consistency to satisfy the most frugal and fastidious; an indelible unfading printers' ink that is per fectly suited to the Chinese pen for both writing and painting. pilon (% Hy): (a kind of scent obtained from the plum), rouge, alkanet, and ching p'i (#f BE), (from a medicinal plant). The lampblack is obtained in the main in two ways. The best grade comes from burning lard mixed with lacquer in a dip lamp under an inverted bowl, Other oils such hemp oil and painter's oil i} 34) are used in the same way. An inferior grade of lampblack is made by burning pitch and forcing the smoke through a 30-foot tunnel (why 20 feet' the writer docs not know). In the first method the fineness of the lampblack is said to depend upon the quality of the wick used—of the two colours of wick red and white, red is the The First Printer.
China beat the world in the use of printing with ink on movable type, a ving about 50 B.C., 1500 Years ahead of Gutenberg. Though she left the establishing of typography to Gutenberg and Coster, the Chinese Classics for the Im: perial College, Peking, were printed 500 years before these men were born.
The manufacture of this ink for which Hueichow is famous is an interesting process. Though only the cruelest instruments such dip lamps, crockery bowls, wooden moulds, and ordinary cooking greohs are used, more or less skill is required, and the collecting and putting together of the proper materials indicates that a degree of intellect. is necessary.
Many years ago a native of Chikihsien named Hu, then living Siuninghsien, discovered a method of manufacturing an extra Bure Photo Another view of Jessfield Park best. This wicking which is that ordinarily used in the dip lamp, from the pith of a plant grown for that purpose—is carefully boiled and sun-dried in preparation for use.
The best taurocolla, used for the sizing, is made from deer horn while the more common is made from bull's hide. A medium quality is produced locally and an inferior quality is imported from Kuangtung.
Hsiang pien, a flavouring extract for which Hueichow is famous, gives the ink the desired odour. In the more expensive grades Yuinnan musk and Borneo camphor is used. Rough and alkanet give lustre. The writer was unable to determine the chemical effect of the ching p'i, but suspicions that it satisfies the supernatural clement thought necessary for most successful enterprises.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.