Among the various German industries the manufacture of black-lead pencils occupied but a very modest place.
The first traces of its existence are to be found at Stein, a village not far from Nuremberg. As far back as the year 1726 the church registers mention marriages between "black-lead pencil makers," and, at a later date references are found in the same registers to "black-lead cutters" of both sexes.
The manufacture of black-lead pencils, however, occupied a position on the very lowest rung of the industrial ladder.
But is time proceeded the Bavarian government directed their attention to this branch of industry, and did all in their power to encourage it; and, as early as the year 1766, a Count von Kronsfeld obtained a concession to establish a lead pencil factory at Jettenbach. Later on, in the year 1816, the Bavarian government established a royal lead pencil manufactory at Obernzell (Hafnerzell), and introduced into it the French process, described above, of using clay as a binding medium for graphite.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
ANCIENT INK BACKGROUNDS (THE ORIGIN OF PAPYRUS).
FROM WHENCE COMES THE NAME PAPER—FIRST CENTURY
COMMENT ABOUT IT—KNIGHT'S COMMENTS MORE THAN
1,800 YEARS LATER—PAPYRUS AN EGYPTIAN
REED—NAMES BESTOWED BY ANCIENT WRITERS—THE
SAME NAMES AS EMPLOYED IN MODERN TIMES—LEAVES
OF PLANTS PRECEDED THE INVENTION OF PAPYRUS—
WHEN IT WAS THAT ROLLED RECORDS CAME INTO
VOGUE—VARRO'S ESTIMATION AS TO THE ORIGINAL USE
OF PAPYRUS NOT CORRECT—REAL FACTS RESPECTING
THE INTRODUCTION OF PAPYRUS BEYOND THE LIMITS OF
EGYPT—CHARACTER OF MATERIALS EMPLOYED BY THE
GREEKS BEFORE THAT EPOCH—EMPLOYMENT OF IT
FOR LITERARY PURPOSES—ADOPTION OF PARCHMENT
AND VELLUM—PAPYRUS MSS. EMPLOYED IN THE FORM
OF ROLLS AND THE REASON FOR SAME—ANCIENT
MANUFACTURE OF PAPYRUS IN EGYPT—SOME OF THE NAMES
USED TO DESIGNATE DIFFERENT KINDS—PLINY'S
DESCRIPTION OF THE MANUFACTURE OF PAPYRUS AND HIS
MISINFORMATION ABOUT IT—WHERE IT FLOURISHED
BEST—PAPYRUS AS KNOWN TO THE HEBREWS AND ITS
BIBLICAL MENTION—MANUFACTURE OF PAPYRUS IN
THE ANCIENT CITY OF MEMPHIS—CHARACTERISTICS OF
THE PAPER EMPLOYED BY THE MEXICANS—MR. HARRIS'S
DISCOVERY OF ANCIENT FRAGMENTS OF PAPYRUS—
THE STORY ABOUT IT AS TOLD BY THE LONDON
ATHENaeUM—DATES OF THE OLDEST KNOWN SPECIMENS
OF GREEK PAPYRI—DATE OF THE FIRST DISCOVERY
OF GREEK PAPYRI—USE OF OTHER PLIABLE MATERIALS
WITH PAPYRUS—HOW THEY WERE PREPARED
FOR WRITING PURPOSES—DOUBTS AS TO TIME THAT
ROLLED RECORDS SUPERSEDED TABLET FORMS—SUGGESTIONS
BY NOEL HUMPHREYS—VIEWS ENTERTAINED
BY EARLIER WRITERS.
THE name paper is derived from papyrus, a reed grown in Egypt, whose stalk furnished for so many centuries the principal material for writing upon to the people of that country and those bordering on the Mediterranean Sea. In the first century of the Christian era the younger Pliny remarks:
"All the usages of civilized life depend in a remarkable degree upon the employment of paper. At all events, the remembrance of past events."
A statement which has caused Mr. Knight to make the following comment: