PENRITH PENS. 



plied to a red-hot iron, and yielding a blueish flame 

 with a strong smell like that of burning sulphur, 

 will at once detect the nature of their composition. 

 Pencils so made are of a very bad kind ; they are 

 hard, brittle, and do not cut or make a mark 

 freely, either on paper or on wood, rather cut- 

 ting or scratching them than leaving a coloured 

 stroke. 



Drawing pencils are distinguished by the hard- 

 ness or softness of the selected specimens of plum- 

 bago from which they are manufactured, and, ac- 

 cordingly, those made from the hard mineral, have 

 H or H H stamped upon the cedar, and those of a 

 soft or very soft nature are distinguished by B or 

 B B, technically, however, B and double B, as in 

 the former case H and double H. 



Black-lead pencils appear to have been known 

 for nearly two centuries, for a writer of about 200 

 years ago, says, " Of late black lead is curiously 

 formed into cases of deal or cedar, and so sold as 

 dry pencils, something more useful than pen and 

 ink." 



PENRITH; an ancient market-town in the 

 county of Cumberland, situated near the river 

 Pellerel on the north, and the confluence of the 

 Emont and the Lowther on the south, 284 miles 

 from London, and 17 from Carlisle. During the 

 wars between England and Scotland, Penrith fre- 

 quently changed masters, and in the rebellion of 

 1743, the Highlanders quartered here. In the 

 church-yard are shown two stone pillars of unknown 

 antiquity, called the giant's grave, and a single 

 stone called the giant's thumb. There are some 

 manufactories here of woollen and cotton goods, 

 and markets are held on Tuesdays and Saturdays. 

 Population of town and parish in 1841, 6429. 



PENS, WRITING PENS, (a.) The principal 

 birds from which quills are obtained for making 

 pens are the goose, the swan, and the crow. Peli- 

 cans also furnish a portion of quills. In 1832, the 

 number of quills entered for home consumption 

 was 33,668,000, the greater part of which came 

 from the Netherlands and Germany. Immense 

 quantities are also imported from Russia and Poland, 

 where flocks of geese are kept for their quills 

 alone. A goose, properly managed, furnishes about 

 twenty quills in the year. The quills are the large 

 feathers taken from the ends of the wings. In 

 their natural state, they are covered with a mem- 

 branous skin, and have a toughness and softness 

 which prevents their being easily split. They are 

 also opaque, and the vascular membrane on the in- 

 terior of the barrel adheres to it so strongly, that 

 it is with difficulty detached. To remedy these 

 defects, and to fit the quills for their destined pur- 

 pose, is the business of the quill-dresser. He takes 

 a large bundle of the quills, just as they are taken 

 from the bird, and proceeds to separate them into 

 three parcels, differing from each other in the size 

 and quality of the quills. The value is estimated 

 both by the length and the thickness of the barrel ; 

 those having the largest and longest barrels being 

 called primes," which fetch the highest price in 

 the market ; the next best in quality are desig- 

 nated as " seconds," and the third, or smallest size, 

 are called " pinions." The process of sorting being 

 completed, the workmen proceed to "clarify" 

 the quills, the principal object of which is to re- 

 move the membranous skin. The quills are 

 plunged^or a short time into heated sand : the heat 

 of the sand makes the outer skin crack and peel 

 off, which is further aided by scraping them with 



a sharp instrument; while, at the same time, the 

 internal membrane becomes shrivelled up, and falls 

 down to the point of the quill. The barrel of the 

 quill is also hardened and rendered transparent by 

 this process, in consequence of the heat consuming 

 or drying up the oily matter resident in it. This 

 latter effect is increased by repeated heatings : and 

 when done for the purpose of hardening the quill, 

 is called dutching, probably from the circumstance 

 that the process was first adopted in Holland. 

 (The term Dutch pens, is frequently applied to 

 quills that have been passed through hot ashes, to 

 remove the grosser fat and moisture, and to render 

 them more transparent.) For the best pens, the 

 process of dutching is repeated several times; but 

 care is necessary, in order that the heating should 

 not be carried so far as to injure the barrel. The 

 quills, after this process, are either of the colour of 

 fine thin horn, or of an impure white ; but before 

 they are brought to market they undergo another 

 process, with the two-fold object of giving them 

 an uniform yellow colour, and to make them split 

 more easily. They are dipped into diluted aqua- 

 fortis or nitric acid, which has the effect desired. 

 It is however thought by some, that this process, 

 although it improves their beauty, injures their 

 quality by making them too brittle, so that the slit 

 is apt to run up on pressing with moderate firm- 

 ness ; for this reason, many persons who write 

 much, such as clerks in mercantile houses, &c., 

 frequently prefer a quill which has not undergone this 

 process, as being more durable. The quills having 

 been thus dressed and finished, a portion of the 

 barb is stripped off, to occupy less room in packing 

 and the quills are tied up into bundles of twenty- 

 five or fifty each, for the market. 



The process of preparing the quills is, however, 

 subject to some variation. Some dressers adopt 

 the following mode. The quills are first moisten- 

 ed, not by immersion, but by dipping their extremi- 

 ties into water, and allowing the remaining parts 

 to absorb moisture by capillary attraction. They 

 are then heated in the fire or in a charcoal chaffer, 

 and are passed quickly under an instrument with a 

 fine edge, which flattens them in such a manner as 

 to render them apparently useless. They are then 

 scraped and again exposed to heat, whereby they 

 assume their original form. This is a remarkable 

 fact, and may be illustrated by taking a feather and 

 crushing it with the hand so as to destroy it to all 

 appearance ; if we now expose it to the action of 

 steam or a similar temperature, it will speedily as- 

 sume its former condition. 



Many of the quills after this preparation are cut 

 into pens by means of the pen-cutters's knife, and 

 are also trimmed. A pen-cutter will cut in a day 

 two-thirds of along thousand, consisting of 1200 

 according to the stationer's computation. A house 

 in Shoe-Lane, London, cuts generally about 

 6,000,000 of pens yearly ; and during the year 

 1834, notwithstanding the introduction of steel 

 pens, it cut many more than it had done in any pre- 

 vious year. It is calculated by pen-makers, not 

 more than one pen in ten is ever mended. 



Swan quills, which are very large in the barrel, 

 are sometimes employed for pens, and though ex- 

 pensive at first, are perhaps, not dearer ultimately 

 than the smaller quills, their length and capacity 

 of barrel compensating for the larger charge. Crow- 

 quills are generally employed in drawing and de- 

 signing, on account of the fine point to which they 

 can be brought. They are particularly useful in that 



