196 



JOURNAL ? R.A.S. (CEYLON). 



[Vol. IX. 



Works as to the exact substances and processes used to give 

 adhesion, but there can be little doubt that there, as in all 

 other manufactories of plumbago into crucibles, nozzles, 

 pencils, &c, fine clay of some sort is used in varying quanti- 

 ties. Into coloured pencils, clays no doubt enter still more 

 largely. 



The earliest pencils used were, probably, pieces of chalk 

 and clay, true lead pencils succeeding, until perfection 

 for drawing, writing, and ruling purposes was attained by 

 the use of "black lead," properly graphite — a name which 

 indicates, as already noticed, the large use of the material 

 by artists and in literature. Into pencils, the marks of 

 which cannot be erased, aniline dyes are said to be introduced, 

 but the test of a good black lead pencil is now what 

 it always has been, the ease with which a black mark by its 

 means can be made on paper and again erased. Molybdenite, 

 on the other hand, which abounds in Ceylon and closely 

 resembles plumbago in appearance, leaves a green streak. 

 For inferior pencils Mexican and Spanish lead dust mixed 

 with antimony has been used, but the marks made by such 

 pencils cannot, like those of black lead, be easily removed 

 by India-rubber, 



Of course the importance of black lead pencils for ruling 

 purposes has been greatly lessened by the invention and 

 application of machines which rule with pens and coloured 

 inks, but for drawing, taking memoranda, &c, pencils are 

 still used to an enormous extent, of which some idea may be 

 formed from the fact that one manufactory in the United 

 States turned out sixteen millions in the one year 1882. 

 This, however, is as nothing to the estimated annual outturn 

 of Nuremberg, where twenty-six factories employing 5,500 

 persons, produce two hundred and fifty millions, valued 

 at £400,000. Counting those made in America and Europe 

 together, the total for the world cannot, probably, be less 

 than one thousand millions of pencils per annum, worth at 

 least 1J million sterling. 



It is curious that the quaint old city of Nuremberg, 

 besides being the principal toy depot of the world, should 

 also be the principal source of supply of pencils. It 

 seems that when the English mines showed signs of 

 giving out, the firm of the old Faber family in the 



