Golden Ink
Take some white gum arabic, reduce it to an impalpable powder, in a
brass mortar; dissolve it in strong brandy, and add a little common
water to render it more liquid. Provide some gold in a shell, which
must be detached, in order to reduce it to a powder. When this is
done, moisten it with the gummy solution, and stir the whole with a
small hair-brush, or your finger; then leave it for a night, that the
gold may be better dissolved. If the composition become dry during the
night, dilute it with more gum water, in which a little saffron has
been infused; but take care that the gold solution be sufficiently
liquid to flow freely in a pen. When the writing is dry, polish it
with a dry tooth.