18.5.19

A Peculiar Ink-Plant.

The Living age 1422, 2.9.1871

The "Pall Mall Gazette" states that there is in New Granada a plant, Coryaria thymifolia, which might be dangerous to our ink manufacturers if it could be acclimatised in Europe. It is known under the name of the ink plant. Its juice, called chanchi, can be used in writing without any previous preparation. The letters traced with it are a reddish colour at first, but turn to a deep black in a few hours. This juice also spoils steel pens less than common ink. The qualities of the plant seem to have been discovered under the Spanish administration. Some writings, intended for the mother country, were wet through with sea-water on the voyage; while the papers written with common ink were almost illegible, those with the juice of that plant were quite unscathed. Orders were given in consequence that this vegetable ink was to be used for all public documents.

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