"chalkanthum" and possessed not only the appearance
of, but the virtues of what we know as blue
copperas or sulphate of copper. It continued in use
as long as men were unacquainted with the art of
lixiviating salt, or, in other words, as long as they had
no vitriol manufactories. Commingled with lampblack,
bitumen or like black substances in gummy
water, it was acceptable to the priests for ritualistic
writings and was in general vogue for several centuries
thereafter under the name of (blue) "vitriolic"
ink, notwithstanding the fact that there could not be
any lasting chemical union between such materials.

It was the so-called "vitriolic" ink, which is said
to have "corroded the delicate leaves of the papyrus
and to have eaten through both parchment and
vellum."

These deductions, however, do not agree with some
of the historians and scholars like Noel Humphreys,
author of the "Origin and Progress of the Art of
Writing," London, 1855, a recognized authority on the
subject of ancient MSS., who but repeats in part the
text of earlier writers, when he says, p. 101:

"Examples of early Greek MSS. of the last century
previous to the Christian era are not confined
to Egyptian sources; the buried city of Herculaneum,
in Italy, partially destroyed about seventy-
nine years before the Christian era, and injured by