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Comment by nkurz

I wanted to know when pencil leads stopped by made of lead, and was surprised to learn that they never had been:

Going back to an earlier point, when the graphite was discovered the English thought they had unearthed a lead deposit, a misunderstanding caused because lead and graphite look uncannily similar in their natural form. It is because of this prevailing thought that the pencil was known as the lead pencil, a name that has endured until today.

parent nkurz 2 years ago

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