Ink From Elder.

Scientific American 6, 6.8.1859

We learn from Wittstein's Vierteljahresschrift that an excellent permanent black ink may be made from the common elder. The bruised berries are placed in an earthern vessel and kept in a warm place for three days and then pressed out and filtered. The filtered juice is of such an intense color that it takes 200 parts of water to reduce it to the shade of dark red wine. Add to 12½ parts of this filtered juice, one ounce of sulphate of iron and the same quantity of pyroligneous acid, and an ink is prepared which, when first used, has the color of violet, but when dry, the indigo blue black. This ink is superior in some respects to that prepared with galls. It does not become thick so soon; it flows easier from the pen without gumming; and in writing, the letters do not run into one another.