Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1870-02-11
SL.rTR PE.VCELS.

Twenty years ago, all the slate pencils
used were manufactured in Germany. She
then supplied America with this commod-
ity. In 1850 there was u young man living
in West Rutland, VT, eighteen years of
age, who fortunately discovered q supply
of stone for making iirst-class article of
slate pencils. lie began by whiting out
the pencils and selling them to school chill
drcn. Being n better article than that for
sale in the stores, he found ready sale for
all he could whittlo out.
He argued that If they would sell thus
readily at home, they would sell readily
everywhere. lie became possessed Of the
idea that there was a fortune in the bust
ness, and his dream has been realized. This
quarry of slate pencil stone was situated in
large ravine, four miles north of Castle
ton, VT, near Bomoseen Lake. The land
on which it was situated was for sale at ono
hundred dollars. lie purchased it, and
began operations by saving out the pencils
and whiting them round. The business
of making them grew immensely on his
hands, so that it was impossible to keep n
clean order book.
Machinery was invented to facilitate the
process, which has reached something like
perfection, and enormously increases the
production of pencils. At present the quar-
nv and mills are owned by n joint stock
company. They are valued at three hun
dred thousand dollars. From fifty to one
hundred thousand pencils are turned out
daily, and upward of hundred hands are
employed in the quarry and in the mill.
After the stone is quarried, it passes
through four processes before il is made
into pencils. 1t is sawn into rectangular
blocks blocks five inches by seven, and
split by hand into slabs of the same length
and breadth, which are carefully assorted.
These slabs pass through machine which
shaves them all to tho uniform thickness of
a quarter Of an inch when they are ready
for the final process.
The machinery for reducing these slabs
to pencils consists Of iron plates fitted TO re-
ceive them, fastened to an endless chain
which passess over rollers at either end.
These plates, of which there are about
twenty on chain, each receive a slab, and
as it passes from one roller to the other the
pencils are cut and rounded out half way
to completion by semi-circular knives a
| dozen different sets Of knives being firmly
fastened above them. The slabs are then
turned over and passed back through an
other machine exactly similar, and per
feet pencil is the product.
They are counted out by children and
packed one hundred in box. The pencil,
are sold by the manufacturers at half cent
apiece or fifty cents a box, or ten times the
cost of slate pencils in Germany, where
one thousand can be bought for less thar
fifty cents. Being made from a superior
article OF stone, they are used Throughout
the United States in preference to tbozS
imported from Germany. .
The slate pencil business, like the pii
business, is small one in itself, but be
comes large where it is necessary to supply
all the school children of America with
pencils. Twenty years ago, the whole idea
of it was in the brain Of a young Yankee
boy. Today il is n business involving ovel
a quarter million OF money. 1t has beer
and will continue to be a profitable bust
ness, AS this is the only quarry and Stat,
pencil mill in the United STATES.
Besides manufacturing the pencils tho
firm have a mill for grinding the stone I,
flour, to be used in the process of manuiac
turing paper, especially wall paper. Thi'
flour sells for twenty dollars tun. Tn,
stone from which the pencils are mad,
contains upwards of thirty per cent Of al
umina, from five to eight per cent mon
than the stone from which slate pencils ar,
manufactured in Scotland. The company
are putting up buildings and will soon b,
manufacturing alum on large scale.
Scientific american.