A NEW PROCESS OF PRODUCING CHEMICAL WRITING, AND OF MARKING AND INSCRIBING CHEMICALLY ANY CHARACTERS OR FIGURES UPON PAPER, OR OTHER SUBSTANCE OF SIMILAR CHARACTER
Year: 1856

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Alexandre Tolhausen, of No. 7, Duke Street, Adelphi,
London, County of Middlesex, Sworn Interpreter at the Imperial Court
of Paris, for the Invention of "A NEW PROCESS OF PRODUCING CHEMICAL
WRITING, AND OF MARKING AND INSCRIBING CHEMICALLY ANY CHARACTERS
OR FIGURES UPON PAPER, OR OTHER SUBSTANCE OF SIMILAR CHARACTER."—A
communication from Halvor Halvorson, United States.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Alexandre Tolhausen at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents,, with his Petition, on the
26th March 1856.
I, ALEXANDRE TOLIAUSEN, of No. 7, Duke St., Adelphi, London, County of
Middlesex, Sworn Interpreter at the Imperial Court of Paris, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention for "A NEW PROCESS OF PRODUCING
CHEMICAL WRITING, & OF MARKING & INSCRIBING CHEMICALLY ANY CHARACTERS OR
FIGURES UPON PAPER, OR OTHER SUBSTANCE OF SIMILAR CHARACTER," being a com-
munication from Halvor Halvorson, United States, to be as follows:-
My Invention consists in a process for producing chemical marks or writing
on paper without using a liquid like common inks, by employing chemically
prepared paper, & a chemically prepared pencil, style, or other like instrument,
to trace, write, or mark on the paper, whereby the salts or substances in
the pencil & paper when they come in contact will chemically unite under
hygroscopic conditions at the natural temperature of the atmosphere, & will

page_text: form visible chemical colored marks or writing on the paper. Hygroscopic con-
ditions are necessary to my process to effect chemical writing; moisture is the
ageut which enables the salts or substances used to effect chemical union,
but no liquid is employed.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Alexandre Tolhausen in the Great Seal Patent Office on
the 8th September 1856.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ALEXANDRE
TOLIAUSEN, of No. 7, Duke Street, Adelphi, London, County of Middlesex,
Sworn Interpreter at the Imperial Court of Paris, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Twenty-sixth day of March; in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-six, in the nineteenth year of Her
reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the
said Alexandre Tolhausen, Her special licence that I, the said Alexandre
Tolhausen, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I,
the said Alexandre Tolhausen, my executors, administrators, and assigns,
should at any time agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all
times thereafter during the term therein expressed, should and lawfully
might make, use, exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention
for A NEW PROCESS OF PRODUCING CHEMICAL WRITING, AND OF MARKING AND
INSCRIBING CHEMICALLY ANY CHARACTERS OR FIGURES UPON PAPER, OR OTHER SUB-
STANCE OF SIMILAR CHARACTER, a communication from Halvor Halvorson,
United States, upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the said Alexandre
Tolhausen, my executors or administrators, by an instrument in writing under
my, or their, or one of their hands and seals, should particularly describe and
ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same was.
to be performed, and cause the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office.
within six calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said.
Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Alexander Tulhausen, do hereby declare
tlie nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be
performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following.
statement:
My Invention consists in a. process for producing chemical marks or writing

page_text: on paper without using a liquid like common inks, by employing chemically
prepared paper, and a chemically prepared pencil, style, or other like instru-
ment to trace, write, or mark on the paper, whereby the salts or substances
in the pencil and paper when they come in contact will chemically unite under
hygroscopic conditions at the natural temperature of the atmosphere, and will
form visible chemical colored marks or writing on the paper. Hygroscopic
conditions are necessary to my process to effect chemical writing; moisture is
the agent which enables the salts or substances used to effect chemical union,
but no liquid is employed.
To prepare the paper, I saturate the common sizing that is used for writing
paper with a salt or salts, or substances of considerable solubility, and which
when dried with the paper will maintain its dryness and freedom from moisture
under ordinary atmospheric changes. The salts or substances which I use for
this purpose I prefer to have colorless, or of such a light tint as not to be
different from the color of writing paper. This salt or salts or substance is
to form the ground for the colored marks or writing to be produced on the
paper. Various salts may be used for this purpose, according to the color of
the marks or writing to be produced.
To produce blue marks or writing I prepare the paper with ferrocyanide of
ammonium, which is very soluble in water, or with salicylic salts. To make
black marks or writing I use indigolic salts, cuxanthic salts, and morphine
salts. To make red marks I use meconic salts, kemenic salts, pyromeconic
salts, and angelic salts. To produce green writing or marks I prepare the
paper with caffeic or themic salts. These salts, either singly or a mixture
of those specified for cach color, are mixed with the sizing of the paper,
which is applied in the usual manner, and the paper is afterwards dried
and pressed in the common way. No certain quantity of these salts requires
to be described, but about one ounce of any of these salts is sufficient
to impregnate the sizing for about half a ream of common foolscap paper;
a lesser quantity being used to produce feebler colors, and more to
produce darker shades. Other well-known salts than those specified may
also be used, but those named will effect the results herein described; the
principal feature of my Invention is to produce chemical writing without an ink.
I now take a deliquescent salt, and for cheapness prefer a ferric oxide, the
nitrate, chloride, or sulphate of iron, obtained in any of the usual methods,
This salt I triturate and mix intimately with plastic clay, in about the quan-
tities of an ounce of salt to a like quantity by weight of clay or similar
substance; I then mould the ferric clay into any desire: form to constitute a
pencil or tracing instrument, and I then bake it in an oven or other suitable;

page_text: place to drive off the moisture by heat. The heat is continued to drive off all
the moisture at about 212° Fah., and to harden the clay. When this is
accomplished, the ferric pencil or tracer is removed from the oven or other
place and plunged into molten bees-wax, spermaceti, or any substance of
similar character, which will form an air-tight coating, and not decompose the
ferric salt. The chemical pencil or tracer thus produced may be placed
between strips of wood like a common lead pencil, or it may be placed in
a metal pencil case, and the point of it scraped to expose it to the air.
The chemically prepared paper previously described is now traced, pressed,
or written upon with the pencil or instrument described. The ferric salt in the
said pencil during the act of writing when exposed to the atmosphere absorbs
moisture, and when it (the ferric salt) comes in contact with the salt or
substance in the prepared paper the salts or substances in the pencil and
paper unite chemically (forming double decomposition), producing a new ferric
compound in the prepared paper, and thereby producing chemical colored
characters, marks, or writing. Any of the ferric salts named for the pencil
will produce the different colors mentioned on paper prepared with the
substances heretofore specified for producing these colors. The pencil or tracer
may be made in a different manner to that described to produce like results.
It may be made of a very porous substance, which may be steeped in a
solution of ferric salt, then dried to expel the moisture, leaving the salts in fine
crystals in its pores; it is then plunged into bees-wax, as described for the other
pencil, and for the same purpose. Type may be formed in the same manner
as the ferric clay pencil described, and chemical printing may be executed
without the use of common topical ink, which in some cases may be advanta-
geous. A very porous fountain pencil may also be made, one whose pores will
permit fine ferric salt to percolate as it were through them, and be transmitted
to the paper in the act of tracing or writing, and impressed on the paper by a
hard point on the pencil to bring the salt or salts in the pencil and prepared
paper into contact, when the two will unite under hygroscopic conditions
of the ferric salt, and produce the chemical marks and writing heretofore
described.
Another method of obtaining the hygroscopic condition necessary to form a
chemical union between the salt or substance in chemically prepared paper
and a pencil without employing a deliquescent salt to produce chemical writing
on paper, is to use glycerine as a component part of the chemical pencil or
marker. Without the employment of a solution it will afford the same re-
quisite amount of moisture as a deliquescent salt. Paper prepared with starch
as a sizing will produce blue marks or writing if it be traced upon with a

page_text: perous pencil or fountain pencil containing iodine and glycerine, the latter not
being present as a liquid, but simply as a hygroscopic agent.
Another method of producing the same chemical marks or writing on paper
as those described is, to prepare the paper in the same manner as that first
described, and employ a dry salt in the pencil, and supply the hygroscopic
conditions necessary to form the chemical union of the chemically prepared
paper and pencil during the act of writing or tracing by placing a moist
sheet of paper under the paper to be written upon; or they may be supplied
after tracing or writing by pressing a sheet of moistened paper on the written
or traced surface, by either of which acts the salts will receive the necessary
supply of moisture to enable them to form double decomposition, and produce
chemical marks or writing on the paper. The salt or salts which I prefer to
use for making the dry salt chemical pencil for producing chemical writing or
marking of the character described are the tartrate of iron, the terpersulphate
of iron, or any of the permanent iron salts.
Heretofore it has been a desideratum to obtain a superior substitute for the
common lead or plumbago pencil and the crayon, and also for the method of
writing with a fluid like ink. The lead pencil and crayon only make me-
chanical marks, which are easily erased; and writing with ink is troublesome,
because the pen has to be so often replenished.
My improved method or process will produce chemical marks or writing
equal to those made by inks, and the method of writing or producing them is
as easy as the act of writing with a common pencil. It will be a superior
method of writing on books and bills, and making permanent records on paper.
It will afford security against alteration of the writing or records, as it will
require the specific salts in the pencil and paper to produce a writing similar
in colour and shade to that which is attempted to be supplanted, changed,
or altered, and to that on the part of the document written upon. My
process obviates the evils and objections to the use of writing with a
common pencil and with pen and ink. My process has some similarity to
calico printing, especially in the preparing of the paper; it is to some extent
like the preparation of cloth with a mordant for the reception of colors, but
here all similarity to the two processes ends. My process bears some
similarity to the method of producing marks on chemically prepared paper
by Dr. Davy and A. Bain, by the use of a galvanic current for recording
telegraphic messages, etc. But galvanism is the great agent employed in
their processes, and this is not required in my process. The paper or substance
on which the record or marks are made by their processes also requires to be
so wet as to form a conducting medium to the electric current.

page_text: Having thus described the nature and particulars of the said Invention
as communicated to me, I would have it understood that I do not confine
myself to the exact modes of preparation or proportions herein described; but I
claim, producing chemical marks, records, or writing on chemically prepare:
paper as described, by tracing, pressing, or writing with a chemically prepared
pencil, style, tracer, type, or other suitable instrument on such paper under
the hygroscopic conditions herein described, or in any manner substantially the
same..
In witness whereof, I, the said Alexandre Tolhausen, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, this First day of September, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-six.
A. TOLHAUSEN. (L.S.)