Word: ink
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...world of academia has been astir lately with revelations about historic books and documents. Subscribers receiving their copy of the quarterly Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America found it devoted largely to analyses of paper and ink used in the Gutenberg Bible; the research shed new light on the production techniques used in Johann Gutenberg's print- shop. In Ann Arbor, Mich., UMI Research Press was shipping copies of The Calov Bible of J.S. Bach, which reveals that markings on the pages of the Bible owned by Bach were made by the great composer. And in Washington, the journal...
...light. By focusing the penetrating but low-intensity beam on the documents and then analyzing the spray of the X rays emitted when the protons collide with atoms in the target, Historian Richard Schwab and Physicist Thomas Cahill can determine in remarkable detail the chemical composition of both ink and paper, without damaging either. That composition, they have shown, holds the key to many bibliographic mysteries...
...Sibyllenbuch fragment, the Davis team exposed them, one at a time, to the proton beam. The results of those tests, begun in 1982, are still being evaluated, but most of the doubts about Gutenberg's role have vanished. The Davis tests established that instead of carbon-based ink, the German printer employed a slurry of copper and lead for his famous Bible. Printed characters in both of the 36-line works, the X-ray patterns showed, consisted of an almost identical mixture. The conclusion: Gutenberg printed all the works, and the 36-liners were his earlier attempts to perfect...
...supposedly dating to around 1440, created a sensation when it was revealed in 1965 because it showed part of North America, labeled VINLANDA INSULA. It seemed to be the first cartographic evidence that Europeans had visited the continent before the time of Columbus. In 1974, however, some particles of ink from the map were found to be titanium-based. This meant, experts said, that the ink was of 20th century vintage and the map a fraud. But the Davis team, using their cyclotron technique, proved the ink was carbon based, with titanium present only in trace amounts. Says Cahill...
...cause of the F.C.S.'s red ink is no mystery: the farm belt continues to suffer from its worst depression since the 1930s. Squeezed between low crop prices and falling land values, many farmers are sinking deeper and deeper into debt. By the end of 1985 borrowers were unable to make either interest or principal payments on $5.3 billion in F.C.S. loans, or 8% of its $66.6 billion portfolio...