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Many young people do not know that in old times blotting-paper of the kind
now in use had not been introduced. Black sand was used altogether for
drying the ink on freshly written letters or ordinary writing, except in
books, when the writers either waited for the ink to dry, or made China
paper, taken from the inside of tea-chests, a blotter. Black sand was in
general use until within thirty years or thereabouts. We have seen the
sand adhering to writing which had been done more than a century. No
writing-desk was complete without a sand-box.