PEMMICAN 



4556 



PEN 



south shore of Allumette Lake, which is an 

 expansion of the Ottawa River, and is 105 

 miles by rail northwest of Ottawa. It is served 

 by the Grand Trunk and Canadian Pacific rail- 

 ways. Pembroke has ample water power for 

 many industries, including the manufacture of 

 many lumber and iron products. Chief among 

 these are box shocks, building and lumbering 

 tools, leather, gloves, moccasins, stoves, incu- 

 bators, carriages and steel in various forms. 

 The town has a large outside trade in lumber 

 in addition to the large amounts used in, local 

 industries. Woolen goods, bricks and building 

 materials are also important manufactures. 

 The fine municipal building, the two hospitals, 

 the public library and the convent boarding 

 school are worthy of special mention. Popula- 

 tion in 1911, 5,626; in 1916, about 6,000. 



PEMMICAN, pem'ikan, a North American 

 Indian name for a food which contains the 

 greatest quantity of nourishment in the most 

 compact form. Originally it was prepared by 

 drying and powdering the lean meat of the 

 buffalo or deer. This was then seasoned with 

 berries and stirred into boiling fat, after which 

 it was dried in cakes. Beef is now used in- 

 stead of buffalo or venison. Since pemmican 

 will keep indefinitely unless reached by mois- 

 ture, it is serviceable to explorers and those 

 making long expeditions into uninhabited re- 

 gions. Peary and Cook relied upon it on their 

 arctic voyages. It is similar to the tassago of 

 South America and the biltong of Southern 

 Africa. 



PEN. Before the invention of the steel pen 

 various instruments were used for writing. The 

 Romans used a stylus, made of bone or metal 

 and pointed at one end, for engraving charac- 

 ters on tablets of wax. Some people painted 

 letters with a fine brush, as do the Chinese to- 

 day. Pens made from reeds were used for writ- 

 ing with ink on papyrus (which see) ; later it 

 was discovered that better pens could be made 

 from the quills of certain birds, those from the 

 goose, the swan and the crow being the best 

 for the purpose." Soon after this discovery quill 

 pens came into general use in Europe, and they 

 were universally employed in America until 

 the advent of the steel pen. The schoolmaster 

 of that day had to know how to mend his 

 pupils' pens as well as how to teach penman- 

 ship. A small pocketknife with a thin, narrow 

 blade designed especially for this purpose and 

 called a penknife formed a necessary part of 

 his equipment. The Latin word for quill was 

 penna, or penne, and from this we derive the 



name ;>, ;/. Quill pens were considered satisfac- 

 tory, hut thry wore out quickly, and pens of a 

 more durable material were needed. 



Steel Pens. We do not know who invented 

 the steel pen, but the manufacture by ma- 

 chinery was begun in England some time be- 

 tween 1820 and 1830. The leaders in the enter- 

 prise were John Mitchell, Joseph Gillott and 

 Josiah Mason. From this beginning the manu- 

 facture of Gillott pens, now known all over 

 the world, was developed. England takes the 

 lead in the manufacture of steel pens, but their 

 production in America is increasing. 



The making of a steel pen is explained below, 

 and nearly all the work is done by machinery. 

 Cast steel of the best quality is used. This is 

 obtained from England and Sweden and comes 

 to the manufacturer in the form of thin sheets 

 about six feet long and seventeen inches wide. 

 The plates are cut into strips which are placed 

 in air-tight boxes and heated to a dull red, then 

 allowed to cool slowly. These strips are then 

 rolled to the required thickness, a process re- 

 quiring great skill, since a variation in thick- 

 ness of even one-thousandth of an inch renders 

 the strip worthless. 



Pens called blanks are cut from these strips 

 with dies. The hole at the base of the nib and 

 the lateral slits are then cut with another die, 

 and the name of the factory and other lettering 

 are stamped on the blank. The pens are still 

 flat, and work on them has made the steel so 

 hard that another heating becomes necessary. 

 After this second heating the pens are stamped 

 into shape in a press. Tempering is done by 

 heating the pens to a bright red and immersing 

 them in oil, then rolling them in cylinders over 

 a charcoal fire. The pens are polished by roll- 

 ing them for several hours in a barrel of ground 

 iron and then in another of sawdust. When 

 this operation is completed the pens are of a 

 bright color, resembling polished steel. The 

 points are then ground to make them write 

 smoothly, and then the slit is cut in the point. 

 This is the last and most delicate operation. 

 The edges of the slit are polished by rolling the 

 pens for several hours with powdered iron. 

 Pens having a brown color are bronzed to 

 protect them from the ink, which corrodes steel. 

 The world's annual output of steel pens is esti- 

 mated to be from ten to twelve million gross, 

 of which two and a half million gross are pro- 

 duced in the United States. 



Other Varieties of Pens. Gold pens, which 

 are made in much the same way as steel pens, 

 are valued especially because of their durability 



