Club-Soda Time Capsule

Great events produce newspapers and magazines that people instinctively preserve for their historic import. But most Americans today who have set aside issues of the recent momentous weeks to relive the tumult with their children and grandchildren will, 50 years hence, confront what today's grandparent usually finds on a trip to the attic -- crumbling, yellowed newspapers inexorably turning to dust. A few years ago an assistant professor of librarianship at the University of Washington named Richard Smith devised a simple formula for ensuring the survival of history-making newsprint. His innovation is ripe for use now. The recipe, which is meant solely for printed matter, not handwritten letters, reads like a home remedy for a Watergate-induced headache: dissolve a milk of magnesia tablet in a quart of club soda and chill the solution overnight. Then pour it into a pan or tray large enough to accommodate a flattened newspaper, soak the newspaper for an hour and pat dry.

By that elementary process the acidic decomposition that slowly destroys the cellulose fibers in paper is arrested. Thus most of today's paper, which normally lasts from 50 to 100 years, can, with repeated soakings in the milk of magnesia solution at 50-year intervals, be made to last up to 200 years longer. Shake well before using.

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