Excerpt from Encyclopaedia Americana, Vol. 10: A Popular Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature, History, Politics, and Biography, Brought Down to the Present TimePencil, an instrument used by paint ers for laying on their colors. Pencils are of various kinds, and made of various materials, the larger sorts are made of boar's bristles, the thick ends Of which are bound to a Stick, large or small, according to the uses they are designed for, these, when large, are called brushes. The finer sorts of pencils are made of camels', badgers' and squirrels' hair, and Of the down ofswans, these are tied at the up per end with a piece of strong thread, and enclosed in the barrel of a quill. Good pencils, when drawn between the lips, come to a fine point.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.