a penknife or by a chemical preparation. The
former is the one most commonly resorted to, and is effected in the
following manner. With a well sharpened knife blade the surface of the
paper is carefully scraped until all objectionable lettering and
wording appear to the naked eye to have been effaced; but under a
microscopical examination the impression made by the strokes of the
pen may easily be detected, while the different colors of the inks are
still plainly visible under the microscope.

The second method is by the application of a chemical preparation by
which the ink is made soluble and is then easily removed from the
paper by means of a blotter or absorbent cotton. Of course this method
is also an imperfect one and the letters can easily be traced by close
observation. When a chemical preparation has been used for erasing
purposes, I find that in most cases it leaves a stain and also that
the fibres of the paper are more or less destroyed by the chemical
used; thus always leaving evidence that the document has been tampered
with.

George E. Fell in his excellent paper says: "The eye of the individual
making the erasures is certainly not sufficient, and even with the aid
of a hand magnifier, the object might not be effectually accomplished.
We will find that the detection of an erasure made by the knife is a
very simple matter and may be detected by the novice. An investigation
may be made by simply holding the document before a strong light and
this is usually all that is necessary to demonstrate the existence of
an erasure of any consequence.

"This is, however, a very different matter from making out the
outlines of a word or detecting the general arrangement of the fibres
of the paper, so as to be able to state whether writing has been
executed on certain parts of the document; and again, when we enter
into the minutiae of the subject, we will find that the compound
microscope will give us results not to be obtained by the simple hand
magnifier."

On several occasions I have had the opportunity for demonstrating with
the microscope additions made to certain documents, two of which were
wills (testaments); these additions were made in the following
manner:--First an erasure was made and then the additional matter
written over the erasure. With the microscope I could at once detect
the erasure beneath the addition; also the different colors of the
inks. Then, and this is the most important result of the