Pencils

=Pencils=

In ancient Rome, people wrote on papyrus (an early form of paper) with a thin metal rod called a stylus.

In 1565 German-Swiss naturalist Conrad Gesner first made a writing instrument made of graphite inserted into a wooden holder. The name graphite is from the Greek word 'graphein', meaning, "to write."

Graphite left a darker mark than lead, but it was so soft and brittle that it needed a holder. At first, sticks of graphite were wrapped in string. Later, the graphite was inserted into wooden sticks that had been hollowed-out by hand! And the wooden pencil was born.

The hardness of a pencil depends on how much clay is keeping the graphite together (clay is used as a binder). The dark pencil mark means the pencil has deposited more particles of graphite onto the paper.

Today we still call the core of a pencil the "lead" even though it is made from nontoxic graphite.

What can we expect pencils to be like in the future?