PENCILS. The well-known Nack-lead pencil is made by cutting black-lead, or plumbago, into thin plates with a saw, and again into strips as wide as the plate is thick. These strips are then laid in a groove in a piece of cedar, upon which is glued another and thinner piece: the whole is afterwards rounded by a plane adapted to that purpose. The finest plumbago is obtained from a mine in Cum berland. [PLumsficio.] Some pencils arefilled with coloured chalk instead of black-lead.
The ever-pointed pencil is an instrument for using cylindrical pieces of black-lead, which are forced forward in the pencil just so far as to allow them to be used without breaking. The leads are manufactured of different thick nesses, and the pencil-cases are marked with a letter to correspond with the lead required for it.
The pencils for using liquid colours or paints are of course wholly different from those just described. They are made of hog's bristles, camel's hair, fetch, sable, &c. Those of a large and common kind are described under Bausu himaxe. The soft pencils for artists are made as follows :—The tail of the animal (sable, badger, marten, &c.) is scoured in a solution of alum; then steeped for several hours in luke-warm water ; then dried in linen cloths ; and finally combed out regularly, The hairs are seized with pincers, and cut off near the skin ; and the little parcels of hair are sorted into groups according to their length.
A few hairs are then taken enough for one pencil, and placed in a little receptacle which holds them while a thread is bound round near the roots. The base of the pencil is them trimmed flat by scissors. The hairs thus prepared are fitted either into quills or into tin tubes. The quills are those of swans, geese, ducks, lapwings, pigeons, or larks, ac-' cording to the size of the pencil. Each quill is softened and swelled in hot water: and the bunch of hairs is introduced at the larger end, and pulled forward by a simple apparatus to the smaller end, where the shrinking of the quill binds the hairs closely. The great art in pencil making is so to arrange the hairs that their ends may be made to converge to a fine point when moistened and drawn between the lips; and it is said that females are more successful then men in preparing the small and delicate pencils.