Mysteries of History-1662

A shot lesson in history

Mysteries of History

 “Got a pencil?”

 

Lieutenant Frank Colombo, from the 1970’s television series, was always in search of two items that seemed to be forever lost in his Burberry Trench coat. One of those items was; a book of matches to light the stubby cigar, that he was never lacking. The other item was a small yellow number two pencil, in which Mrs. Colombo had just replenished that morning. Without this marvel of writing technology, Colombo would have never solved a single crime in the city of Angels.

When pencils were first used by the ancient Aztec nation, they was nothing more than a graphite rod. The user of this instrument had a major problem; it seemed that the graphite would cover the user’s hand, making it almost impossible to hold. The Europeans noticed the problem, and quickly made a solution, they encased the rod in cordage; however, that only worked until the graphite oozed its way through the coiled fibers, and then a new problem began. This new problem was soon remedied, once again the Europeans. They decided encased the rod in wood, with that solution it had become every lasting one. The first pencil factory, founded in 1662 in Nurnberg, Germany, British and Germans manufactured pencils as early as the first part of the seventeenth century.

During this time, graphite was plentiful, and the Kenwick mine produced the purest. By 1833, the spoils of graphite, harvested completely at Kenwick. That, however, did not stop the pencil industry; all that did was spark ideas for French chemist, Nicolas Jacques Conte. Mr. Conte mixed powdered graphite and clay together that, when dried, produced a smooth hard pencil lead. He experimented with the amounts mixed together and discovered that lead is produced hard or soft.

Pencils are still manufactured today society; they come in a verity of shapes, sizes, and colors. The real question this: how much longer will the writing instrument be in production when the people of the world put down their pencils and use their computers, full-time?

 

 

 

Author's Note

Please be honest