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36 libraries of Rome, Milan, Padua, Naples, Florence, and other cities, have resulted in the restoration of inestimably precious writings, thus partially obliterated or obscured.

Brande’s Dictionary of Literature, Science, and Art, gives a brief summary of the same general facts in the article "Palimpsest."

The fullest and most elaborate exposition of the composition and manufacture of Ink which we have been able to find, however, is in the great French "Dictionnaire des Arts et Manufactures," by an association of distinguished savans, in two volumes, imperial octavo, Paris, 1853, article, ENCRE.

But, of all articles and treatises on the subject, which we have examined, that in the English Penny Cyclopaedia has the merit of containing, if not the best and longest account, a very good and satisfactory one,—because it expresses all the essential facts in the fewest and best-chosen because perfectly intelligible words. As we do not attempt to furnish a text-book for ink-manufacturers, we do not transcribe in full, or translate, from these and other works of great value on this subject.

That modern inks do not resist the decomposing and destructive power of