It took control of the Borrowdale black lead deposit and set up mines around town with notoriously strict oversight workers were searched at the end of each day to prevent illicit sales. The English government wanted in on the profits. Not long after its discovery, black lead shot up in value-it was used as an ingredient in making cannonballs as well. ![]() The oldest known pencil in the world, from the early 17th century, on display at the Faber-Castell castle near Nuremberg, Germany. Thus the phrase "sharpen your pencil" was born. The new casing, probably cedar, could be carved and sharpened with a knife as the black lead shortened. Wood was sturdier than paper or string, which needed to be unraveled as the black lead wore down. The result was a rectangular writing implement and the world's first wooden pencils. The three pieces-the black lead and the two halves of wood-were glued together with the black lead inside. ![]() A groove was then cut into one of the halves to make room for a slim stick of black lead. A rectangular wooden stick was chopped in half lengthwise. History gets a bit uncertain when when you go back five centuries, but it is believed that in the 1600s, a woodworker in Keswick, England, first came up with the idea of enclosing black lead in wood. And it was erasable! Although the pink rubber erasers we know today wouldn't be attached to pencils until 1858, people figured out long before that you could rub out pencil marks with bread crumbs. It made that dark, discernible mark on paper. You didn't have to worry about spilling ink like you did with a quill pen. ![]() The locals noticed that it looked just like lead. Under that tree was an igneous rock layer with protruding veins of a dark gray metallic-looking substance. Sometime in the 16th century, a tree fell over in Borrowdale, England. It began in the countryside of northern England, but a one-eyed balloonist from Napoleon Bonaparte's army, one of America's most famous philosophers, and some of the world's most successful scientists and industrialists all have had a hand in the creation and refinement of this humble writing implement. The pencil's journey into your hand has been a 500-year process of discovery and invention. We used pencils when we learned math in elementary school, and a graphite-filled piece of wood remains the implement of choice for anyone who needs to make a mark that is not permanent. It is the go-to drawing tool of the carpenter and the architect, the cartoonist and the painter.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |