A Dictionary of Arts (supplement): China Ink.

(A Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines; containing A Clear Exposition of Their Principles and Practice)
Recent improvements in
Arts, Manufactures, and Mines:
Being A supplement to his Dictionary
by Andrew Ure, M. D.,
F.R.S. N.G.S. M.A.S. LOND.; M. ACAD. N.S. PHILAD.; S. PH. SOC.N. GERM. HANOV.; MUHL. ETC., ETC.

Illustrated with one hundred and ninety engravings.

New York: D. Appleton & Company, 200 Broadway.  Philadelphia: George S. Appleton, 148 Chestnut St.
MDCCCXLVII
1847
CHINA INK. (Encre de Chine, Fr.; Chinesischer Tusch,Germ.) The finest kind of this useful pigment is seldom met with in our markets. According to a description in a Japanese book, it is made from the condensed smoke or soot of burned camphor; and hence, when of the best quality, it has this odor. Most of the China ink is made from oil-lampblack occasionally disguised, as to smell, with musk, or with a little camphor black. The binding substance is gelatine, commonly made from parchment or ass's skin; but isinglass answers equally well. A good imitation may be made by dissolving isinglass in warm water, with the addition of a very little alkali (soda), to destroy its gelatinizing power; and incorporating with that solution, by levigation of a porphyry slab, as much of the finest lampblack as to produce a mass of the proper consistence. The minute quantity of alkali serves also to saponify the oil, which usually adheres to lampblack; and thereby to make a pigment readily miscible with water.