Forty Centuries of Ink Part 27

The original flexible iron pen of modern times was an experimental affair probably, being mentioned by Chamberlayne as far back as 1685.

The first steel pens in regular use were made by Wise, in London, in 1803, and for many years thereafter.

His pen was made with a barrel, by which it was slipped upon a straight handle. In its portable form it was mounted in a bone case for the pocket.

Prejudice, however, was strong against them, and up to 1835 or thereabouts quills maintained their full sway, and much later among the old-fas.h.i.+oned folks.

To him, however, is due the credit of being the inventor of the modern steel pen.

It has been the thought of some people that Gillott was the progenitor of the steel pen, but he was not.

Arnoux, a French mechanic, made metallic pens with side slits in 1750. Samuel Harrison, an Englishman, made a steel pen for Dr. Priestly in 1780. Peregrine Williamson, a native of New York, while engaged as a jeweler in the city of Baltimore, made steel pens in 1800.

Perry's first pens were of steel, rolled from wire, the material costing seven s.h.i.+llings a pound. Five s.h.i.+llings each was paid the workman for making them; this was afterward reduced to thirty-six s.h.i.+llings per gross, which price was continued for several years.

It was Joseph Gillott, however, originally a Sheffield cutler, and afterwards a workman in light steel articles, as buckles, chains, and other articles of that cla.s.s, who in 1822 gave impulse to the steel-pen manufacture.

Previous to his entering the business the pens were cut out with shears and finished with the file. Gillott adapted the stamping press to the requirements of the manufacture, as cutting out the blanks, forming the slits, bending the metal, and impressing the maker's name on the pens. He also devised improved modes of preparing the metal for the action of the press, tempering, cleansing, and polis.h.i.+ng, and, in short, many little details of manufacture necessary to give them the required flexibility to enable them to compete with the quill pen. One great difficulty to be overcome was their extreme hardness and stiffness; this was effected by making slits at the side in addition to the central one, which had previously been solely used. A further improvement, that of cross grinding the points, was subsequently adopted. The first gross of pens with three slits was sold for seven pounds. In 1830 the price was $2.00; in 1832, $1.50; in 1861, 12 cents, and a common variety for 4 cents a gross. About 9,300 tons of steel are annually consumed, the number of pens produced in England alone being about 8,000,000,000.

Bramah patented quill nibs made by splitting quills and cutting the semicylinders into sections which were shaped into pens and adapted to be placed in a holder. These were, perhaps, the first nibs, the progenitors of a host of steel, gold, and other pens.

Hawkins and Mordan, in 1823, made nibs of horn and tortoise sh.e.l.l, instead of quill. The tortoise sh.e.l.l being softened, points of ruby and diamond were imbedded.

Metallic points were also cemented to the sh.e.l.l nibs.

Doughty, about 1825, made gold pens with ruby points.

Gold pens with rhodium or iridium points were introduced soon afterwards.

Mordan's oblique pen, English patent, 1831, was designed to present the nibs in the right direction while preserving the customary positions of the pen and hand.

The fountain pen carries a supply of ink, fed gradually to the point of the instrument. The first made by Scheffer was introduced about 1835 by Mordan.

The pressure of the thumb on a stud in a holder caused a continuous supply of ink to flow from the reservoir to the pen.

The "stylographic" is a reservoir pen shaped like a pencil, in which the flow of ink is regulated by pressure of a style or fine needle with blunt point upon the paper. It must be held in a vertical position.

All marks made with one, both up and down strokes, are equal in width.

Gold pens are now usually tipped with iridium, making what are commonly known as diamond points.

"The iridium for this purpose is found in small grains of platinum, slightly alloyed with this latter metal. The gold for pens is alloyed with silver to about sixteen carats fineness, rolled into thin strips, from which the blanks are struck. The under side of the point is notched by a small circular saw to receive the iridium point, which is selected with the aid of a microscope. A flux of borax and a blowpipe secure it to its place. The point is then ground on a copper wheel of emery. The pen-blank is next rolled to the requisite thinness by the means of rollers especially adapted for the purpose, and tempered by blows from a hammer. It is then trimmed around the edges, stamped, and formed in a press.

The slit is next cut through the solid iridium point by means of a thin copper wheel fed with fine emery, and a saw extends the aperture along the pen itself.

The inside edges of the slit are smoothed and polished by the emery wheel; burnis.h.i.+ng and hammering produce the proper degree of elasticity."

It is a.s.serted that more steel is used in the manufacture of pens than in all the swords and guns in the world. This fact partly verifies the old saying, "The pen is mightier than the sword."

"Three things bear mighty sway with men, The Sword, the Sceptre, and the Pen; Who can the least of these command, In the first rank of Fame will stand."

CHAPTER XXVII.

SUBSt.i.tUTES FOR INK UTENSILS ("LEAD" AND OTHER PENCILS).

"BLACK-LEAD" PENCILS AN EXCELLENT PEN SUBSt.i.tUTE UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS--ITS COMPOSITION-- "BLACK-LEAD" CONTAINS NO LEAD, HENCE THE NAME IS MISAPPLIED--THE DISCOVERY OF ITS PRINc.i.p.aL SOURCE OF SUPPLY AN ACCIDENT--A DESCRIPTION OF HOW IT IS MINED--TREATMENT BEFORE BEING INTRODUCED INTO THE GROOVED WOOD--USE OF RED AND BLACK CHALK PENCILS IN GERMANY, 1450--THEIR USE IN MEXICO IN EARLY TIMES--WHO MANUFACTURES LEAD PENCILS--EMPLOYMENT OF THE COMPOSITION OF LEAD AND TIN IN MEDIAEVAL TIMES--BAVARIAN GOVERNMENT IN 1816 A MANUFACTURER OF LEAD PENCILS.

THE black-lead pencil, under many circ.u.mstances, is a very useful subst.i.tute for the pen, in that it requires no liquid ink for marking the characters on paper or other materials. The peculiar substance which fills the central channel of the stick of cedar has the property of marking when it touches paper; and, as the marks thus made are susceptible to easy removal, a pencil of this kind is available for purposes which would not be answered by the use of pen and ink.

The substance misnamed "black-lead" contains NO LEAD and is a carburet of iron, being composed of carbon and iron. It generally occurs in Mountain districts, in small kidney-shaped pieces, varying in size from that of a pea upwards, which are interspersed among various strata, and is met with in different parts of the world.

Its princ.i.p.al source of supply until about 1845, when it became exhausted, was the Borrowdale mine in c.u.mberland, England, which was discovered in 1564. About 1852 a number of mines were opened containing this substance in Siberia and from which place the best products are now obtained.

The accidental discovery of this mineral at Borrowdale was during the reign of Queen Elizabeth who made many inquiries about it. The name of this mineral was locally known as wad (graphite). So valuable was it regarded that it commanded a very high price, and this price acted as in inducement to the workmen and others to pilfer pieces from the mine. For a number of years scenes of great commotion took place, arising out of these depredations; and the result was that the proprietors adopted such stringent rules that hardly anything was known of the internal economy of the mine till about sixty years ago, when Mr. Parkes gave a description of it, from which I may condense a few particulars.

The mine is in the midst of a mountain about two thousand feet high, which rises at in angle of about 45 degrees; and, as that part of the mine which has been worked during the last century is near the middle of the mountain, the present entrance is about a thousand feet from the summit. The opening by which the workmen enter descends by a flight of steps; and in order to guard the treasure within, the proprietors have erected a strong brick building of four rooms, one of which is immediately over the entrance into the mine. This entrance is secured by a trap-door, and the room connected with it serves as a dressing-room for the men when they enter and leave the mine. The men work in gangs, which relieve each other every six hours, and when the hour of relief comes, a steward or foreman attends the dressing- room to see the men change their dresses as they come up one by one out of the mine. The clothes are examined by the steward to see that no black-lead is concealed in them; and when the men have dressed they leave the mine, making room for another gang, who change their clothes, enter the mine, and are fastened in for six hours. In one of the four rooms of which the house consists there is a table, at which men are employed in sorting and dressing the mineral. This is necessary, because it is usually divided into two qualities, the finest of which have generally pieces of iron- ore or other impurity attached to them, which must be dressed off. These men, who are strictly watched while at work, put the dressed black-lead into casks holding about one hundred-weight each, in which state it leaves the mine. The casks are conveyed down the side of the mountain in a curious manner. Each cask is fixed upon a light sledge with two wheels, and a man, who is well used to the precipitous path, walks down in front of the sledge, taking care that it does not acquire momentum enough to overpower him. When the cask has been thus guided safely to the bottom, the man carries the sledge up hill upon his shoulders, and prepares for another descent.

Up to about the middle of the eighteenth century the mine was opened only once in seven years, the quant.i.ty taken out at each time of opening being such as was deemed sufficient to serve the market for seven years; but when, at a later period, it was found that the demand was increasing and the supply decreasing, it was deemed necessary to work the mine six or seven weeks every year. During the time of working, the mine is guarded night and day; and when a quant.i.ty sufficient for one year's consumption has been taken out, the mine is secured until the following year.

Several hundred cartloads of rubbish are wheeled into the mine, so as to block up the entrance completely; and this rubbish acts as a dam to prevent the springs and land waters from flowing out, so that the mine gradually becomes flooded.

When the Year's mining is concluded, the barrels of black-lead are brought to market, and the mode of effecting the sales was described by Dr. Faraday some years ago to be as follows: A market is held on the first Monday of every month at a house in London, where the buyers, who are generally only seven or eight in number, examine each piece with a sharp instrument to ascertain its hardness, those which are too soft being rejected. The person who has the first choice pays 45s. per pound, the others 30s.

But, as there is no addition made to the first quant.i.ty in the market, the residual portions are examined over and over again until they are exhausted. At one time the annual sale was said to amount to the value of L40,000 per annum, but it has been greatly reduced since.

A mode of applying manufacturing processes to the preparation of black-lead is described by Dr.

Ure as being adopted in Paris. The mineral, being reduced to a fine powder, is mixed with very pure powdered clay, and the two are calcined in a crucible at a white heat; the proportion of clay employed is greater as the pencil is required to be harder, the average being equal parts of both. The ingredients are ground with a muller on a porphyry slab and then made into b.a.l.l.s, which are preserved in a moist atmosphere in the form of paste. The paste is pressed into grooves cut in a smooth board, and another board, previously greased, is pressed down upon it. When the paste has had time to dry, the mould or grooved board is put into a moderately heated oven, by which the paste, now in the form of square pencils, shrinks sufficiently to fall out of the grooves. In order to give solidity to the pencils they are set upright in a crucible and surrounded with pounded charcoal, fine sand, or sifted ashes; the crucible, being covered, is exposed to a degree of heat proportionate to the hardness required in the pencils, the harder pencils requiring the higher degree of heat. Some of the pencils are shaped in a curious manner: models of the pencils, made of iron, are stuck upright upon an iron tray, having edges raised as high as the intended length of the pencils; and a metallic alloy, made of tin, lead, antimony and bis.m.u.th is poured into the sheet-iron tray. When the alloy has cooled, it is inverted and shaken off from the model-rods, so as to form a ma.s.s of metal perforated throughout with tubular cavities corresponding in size with the intended pencil pieces; the pencil paste is introduced by pressure into these cavities, and when nearly dry the pieces shrink sufficiently to be easily removed from the cavities.

The pencils just described are alike throughout all their thickness, but in the majority of English pencils there is a wooden holder to contain a narrow filament of black lead running down the middle. So long ago as the year 1618 this mode was adopted; for Sir John Pettus, who was deputy governor of the Borrowdale mine under Charles II, in his "Fleta Minor," while, speaking of black-lead says, that "Of late it is curiously formed into cases of deal or cedar and so sold as dry pencils, something more useful than pen and ink." In a general way modern black-lead pencils, are made by sawing cedar first into long planks, and then into smaller rods; grooves are cut out by means of a cutting machine moved by a fly- wheel to such a depth as will receive a small layer of black-lead; the pieces of the mineral are cut into thin slabs and then into rods the same size as the grooves, into which they are inserted; the two halves of the case are then glued together, and the whole is turned into a cylindrical form by means of a guage.

The kind of pencil called "crayon" is a mixture of some kind of earth with a coloring substance.

The earth employed is sometimes chalk, and at other times pipe-clay, gypsum, starch-flour, or ochre. The coloring substance is yellow ochre, mineral yellow, chrome, red chalk, vermilion, indigo--indeed, any of the usual dry colors, according to the tint required.

Besides the earth and the color, there is a gummy liquid required to combine them together; gum arabic, gum tragacanth, and in some cases oil, wax, or suet, are used as the third ingredient. The crayons here alluded to are employed rather for drawing than for writing, but they obviously belong to the cla.s.s of pencils in their mode of action.

The ancients drew lines and letters with wooden styles, and afterward an alloy of lead and tin was used. Pliny refers to the use of lead for ruling lines on papyrus. La Moine cites a doc.u.ment of 1387 ruled with graphite. Slips of graphite in wooden sticks (pencils) are mentioned by Gesner, of Zurich, in 1565; he credits England with the production. They are doubtless the product of the Borrowdale mine, then lately discovered. In the early part of the seventeenth century black-lead pencils are distinctly described by several writers. They are noticed by Ambrosinus, 1648; spoken of by Pettus, in 1683, as inclosed in fir or cedar.

Red and black chalk pencils were used in Germany in 1450; in fact, fragments of chalk, charcoal, and shaped sticks of colored minerals had been in use since times previous to all historic mention.

When Cortez landed in Mexico, in 1520, he found the Aztecs using graphite crayons, which were probably made from a mineral found in Sonora.

The firm of A. W. Faber are the largest manufacturers of lead pencils in the world. They have compiled a history of this implement of handwriting which they have permitted me to use in the story which follows.

The lead pencil is an invention of modern times, and its introduction may deservedly be ranked with the large number of technical innovations in which more especially the last three centuries have been so rich; nor can it be denied that pencils have played an important part in the diffusion of arts and sciences and in facilitating study and intellectual intercourse.

To the cla.s.sic ages and their art the pencil, and in general every application of lead as a writing material, was entirely unknown, and it was not till the advent of the middle ages that it began to be used for this purpose. This lead, i. e. metallic lead, however, was in no way equivalent to the graphite or black-lead of our pencils, which are only honored with the prefix of "lead," owing to the leaden color of the writing done with them.

Moreover, in those days, lead was used exclusively for ruling and in no way for writing or drawing; it was employed in the form of round, sharp-edged discs, similar to those which, it is said, were already used for the same purpose in ancient cla.s.sic times. It is only with the development and growth of modern painting that traces of pencil-like drawings first begin to be met. At so early a period even as the fourteenth century, mention is made by the masters of that time, more especially by the brothers Van Eyck, and again in the fifteenth century by Menlink and others, of studies or compositions which were made with an instrument similar to a lead pencil, upon a paper with chalk prepared surface.

This type of drawing was commonly cla.s.sed as "silver- style," a term, however, which was no doubt erroneous, as there could be no question of the use of pure silver in this connection.

In the same way it is also reported of the later mediaeval Italian artists that they drew their subjects in "silver-style," upon planished fig-tree wood, the surface of which had been prepared with the powder obtained from calcined bones,--a method, however, which seems only to have been employed in exceptional instances.

But in the fourteenth century, drawings were frequently done in Italy with pencils consisting of a mixture cast from lead and tin; these drawings could easily be erased with bread crumbs.

Petrarch's "Laura" was portrayed in this manner by one of his contemporaries, and the method was still in vogue in the days of Michael Angelo. From Italy these pencils subsequently found their way to Germany, but it is not apparent under what particular name. In Italy itself they were called "stili," the equivalent of the word stylus. At no time, however, do these varieties seem to have been the predominating material used for drawing purposes.

In conjunction with these, pens were used for writing and drawing, and at the zenith of the art period of those days black and red crayons were also used on a large scale. The Italians imported the best qualities of red crayons from Germany, the best black chalk being obtained from Spain.