Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1896-12-03
DEVELOPMENT OF THE PENCIL
Efforts of tho Last Fifty Years to Inn.
prove This Ever Necessary Article.

There is evidently something wrong
with the common lead pencil, or else
inventors imagine that there is, for
great variety of new designs for MAX
ing an ever-pointed pencil have been
developed and put on the market with
In a short time.
For many years lead pencil meant
one of two things, either q stick of
baked black lead and clay inclosed in
cover of wood, or a little cylinder of
similar substance inserted in handle
which had screw arrangement back Of
the lead to work the lead forward as 1t
was used up. OF the wood-covered PEN
ellis there were few grades for or
binary house and office use, artists pen
ellis, and big-leaded fiat pencils for
carpenters. All of these were made in
the same general way by laying strip
of lead in groove in one side of
piece of wood, preferably cedar, gluing
another piece of wood over it, and then
finishing the outside~in an octagonal or
oval form.
Everybody was supposed to carry
pocketknife, and knife was needed
Nvery time a pencil had to have new
point. Women and others who did not
like to soil their fingers by sharpening
pencils carried the ever-pointed me-
ehanical pencils, and for half century
or more no jewelers. stock was re-
guarded as complete unless it had an as
Sortment of these pencils in gold, pearl
and many other precious and beautiful
materials. Staff officers in the English
and European armies wear such pencils
to receipt orders; women use them in
the ballroom, boudoir and drawing
room, and many gentleman of the old
school has his pencil always dangling on
his watch chain, ready for use. For oc-
casional use they are well enough, and
probably will always hold place.
The effort to make the use of the or
binary pencil easier began a genera
ton ago, and one of the first inventions
for that purpose was of the well-remem-
bered cone-shaped pencil sharpener,
holding steel blade at one side, where
hole at one side to let out the shavings
had been cut. While the blades were
this sharpness seldom lasted much be-
yond the time when the vender showed
how nicely the sharpener worked. After
that the sharpener would wiring off the
end of the lead every time just as the
pencil seemed ready for use. Some
years ago noteworthy advance was
made in mechanical pencils and the new
pencil came into very general use. This
was a pencil case not materilly differ
emf in size from the wooden pencil, only
not so long, which received a round
lead about four inches long and as big as
the lead in the wooden pencils. The lead
was held by split tube, which was
closed by being drawn into an inclined
casing by spring. The fault with this
is that the lead is apt to be forced back
if one presses hard upon it in writing,
and again that if the tube be opened
'carelessly the lead falls out and is lost.
~ very ingenious improvement was
made upon this, in which the lead was
fed forward about one-fourth of an
inch each time the spring was pressed
and held from falling out at all times.
This still had the fault that the lead
would press back. Then another case
was invented in which the lead is held
from pressing back, but the feeding for
ward is not certain. Another pencil
made to compete with the wooden ones
in price carries long movable lead,
which is carried forward by a holder
operated by n coarse screw thread cut
in the outside of the wooden casing
These pencils have been selling on the
street recently for three cents each.
While the pencil case makers were
busy the pencil makers were scheminS
also, and the result was that little
while ago one maker got out a pencil
inclosed in paper. The paper is wound
on in spiral, and all that is needed
to sharpen the pencil is to loosen the
end of the paper and unroll a spiral or
two of it disclosing the lead. The
wooden pencil makers were beaten for
q time, but now one of them has gone
the paper pencil makers one better; he
makes his casing of wood, cut into
spiral like the paper one. The wood can
be torn off with the fingers. On the
other end of the pencil from the point
is o metal ferule in which a rubber is
set. You take this ferule off when you
have exposed a new bit of lead, and in
side you find spiral sharpener to bring
the lead to point.-N. Y. Sun.
Sewers of Ancient Catacomhs