India Ink.

Manufacturer and builder ?, 1891

I find that a color apparently identical to India ink can be produced by the action of sulphuric acid on camphor. An excess of camphor should remain some twenty-four hours in strong sulphuric acid; it then results in a gelatinous mass of a slightly reddish color. This when heated, effervesces, gives off fumes of sulphurous acid and turns intensely black. By evaporation the superfluous sulphuric acid and camphor — for there remains an excess of both, the weakened acid not acting on the camphor — can be driven off. The remainder when applied to paper as a paint, appears, to my inartistic eye, to be India ink. When dissolved in water, it remains an indefinite time without precipitating. It appears to be dissolved, not held in suspencion.

— Correspondent of the Chemical News.