Excerpt from A History of Paper: Its Genesis and Its Revelations It may be added to these suggestive approaches to the invention of printing, that the ancients had, besides the flowing ink used with a reed or quill pen, another which was applied with a stiff brush, and must have been a near approach to printing ink, even if it could not have been actually used as such. Pliny rudely describes it as made, in various ways, from soot, by mixing it with burnt pitch and resins; for which purpose, he says, furnaces have been built which do not permit the escape Of the smoke. The best made in this way is from pine wood. Soot, Obtained in this manner, and resinous Oils, are certainly suggestive Of lamp and ivory black, resin and vegetable Oils; the chief ingredients Of modern printing ink. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.