Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 November 1883 — No Lead Pencils. [ARTICLE]

No Lead Pencils.

There is no lead pencil; and there has been none for fifty years. There was a time when a spiracle of lead, cut from the bar or sheet, sufficed to make marks on white paper or some rougher abrading material. The name of lead pencil came from the old notion that the products of the Cumberland mines, England, were lead, instead of being plumbago or graphite; a carbonate of iron, capable of leaving a lead-colored mark. With the original lead pencil or slip, and with the earlier styles of the “lead” pencil made direct from the Cumberland mine, the wetting of the pencil was a preliminary of writing. But, since it has become a manufacture, the lend pencil is adapted', by numbers of letters, to each particular design. There are grades of hardness, from the pencil that may be sharpened to a needle point, to one that makes a broad mark. Between the two extremes there are a number of graduations that cover all the conveniences of the lead pencil. These graduations are made by taking the original carbonate, and grinding it, and mixing it with a fine quality of clay in differing proportions, regard being had to the use of the pencil. The mixture is thorough, the mass is squeezed through dies to form and size it, is dried and incased in its wood envelope.