a pencil, as its name implies, should be made of lead. However, the main raw material of the pencil core we use now is graphite instead of lead. It is called a pencil because a long time ago, people did write and keep accounts with lead. According to records, pencils were used in China in the early Eastern Han Dynasty more than 19 years ago. Pencils were used in Europe as early as in Greece and Rome. However, this veritable pencil is not easy to use, the lead is easy to break, and the handwriting is light and fuzzy. In the 16th century, the English began to use a kind of graphite strip. At first, it was mainly used by businessmen to mark goods, so people called it "printing stone". According to legend, the "printing stone" was accidentally discovered by a shepherd. In 1564, a violent hurricane hit the plains of Cumberland, England. After the storm stopped, a shepherd drove his sheep past a big tree. He walked curiously to the root pit and found a large black stone exposed in the pit. "Strange, what is this?" So, he jumped into the pit and used his hand to mold "Blackstone", and his hand was immediately stained black; With a nail stroke, a trace appeared on the "Blackstone". This kind of black and soft "stone" has never been seen before. Looking at his pair of black hands, the clever shepherd suddenly thought: use it to mark the sheep, so that his own flock will not be mistaken. He quickly picked a lot of "Blackstone" to take away. Because this kind of "black stone" is like lead, it will make things that come into contact with it black, so shepherds call it "black lead". Later, a shrewd businessman saw "black lead" and decided that there was money in it. At that time, Britain's trade was developed, and businessmen needed to mark numbers and write on the packaging bags of goods when doing business, but businessmen had been suffering from the lack of ideal writing tools. The businessman dug up "black lead", cut it into strips, wrapped it in cloth, labeled it and sold it to businessmen. In fact, this "black lead" is graphite. Compared with the real pencil, its handwriting is bold and black, and the effect is much better. Therefore, this "printing stone" business is booming, and the whole ship's "printing stone" has crossed the English Channel and been transported to the European continent, which has almost become an indispensable commodity in the trade of various countries. Fabayre believes that to improve graphite, it is necessary to grind it into powder and then bond it with some substance, so as to achieve the goal. According to this idea, he conducted repeated experiments and found that improved graphite can be obtained by mixing a certain amount of sulfur antimony and rosin into graphite powder and heating and solidification. It has proper hardness, smooth writing and clear handwriting, and it is not easy to get hands dirty. In order to protect the pen core, Fabayre also wrapped the lead core with a piece of paper. Thus, a new type of pencil was born. In 176, Fabayre raised funds to set up a pencil factory to produce pencils in large quantities. Its products are not only sold in China, but also shipped to Britain, France and other places. In 1789, after the French bourgeois revolution broke out, Britain, Germany and other neighboring countries blocked France and pencils could not be brought in. For French writers and painters, this is tantamount to breaking food. At that time, a painter named Kandy made up his mind to develop his own pencil. Conti knows that the amount of graphite is very limited, and it is necessary to produce as many pencils as possible with as little graphite as possible. In order to achieve this goal, he mixed various substances into graphite powder for firing. As a result, he was surprised to find that pencil cores with different properties can be obtained by adding different amounts of clay to graphite or using different temperatures during firing. In 179, Conti made pencils for different purposes. The pen invented by Conti works well and is very popular with people. It is said that Napoleon also liked to use this pen. However, both the pencils invented by Fabayre and Conti have a big problem: when writing, the pens are easy to break if you are not careful. In 1812, an ingenious carpenter in the United States, William Monroe, put a wooden coat on a pencil. Monroe ingeniously created a pencil with a protective object, that is, two small wooden strips were respectively grooved, then a pencil core was placed on one groove, and glue was applied, and then the groove of the other small wooden strip was aligned with the pencil core to form a modern pencil. To this end, Monroe also developed a machine to "coat" pencil cores. Since then, people have developed different pencils that are more suitable according to various needs.