Note 299 — XXIII

Some writers say that the earliest printing inks were gum-water colors, which could be washed off the vellum with a wet sponge. But the ink of the Psalter was a true printing ink, a smoke-black mixed with oil. The modern pressman, who has ineffectually tried to make ordinary printing ink stick to parchment imperfectly cleansed of oily matter, will at once attribute this failure of the printer of the Psalter to the oiliness of the vellum and the weakness of his printing ink.