It happens millions of times every day in factories around the world.

Chunks of graphite and clay are crushed in a rotating drum. Water is added and the mixture is blended, dried, hardened, ground into a fine powder, rehydrated into a paste, extruded into thin rods and baked at 1,800 degrees.

Elsewhere in the factory, blocks of wood, usually incense cedar, are cut into slats. Each slat is etched with eight lengthwise grooves. A thin layer of glue is applied to the slats, the graphite rods are inserted in the grooves and another slat is pressed on top, sandwiching the rods into place.

Rotating steel blades cut the products into round, hexagonal or triangular shape and the pieces are sanded, varnished and finished with up to 10 coats of paint.

Most of the items will undergo one more process, that of attaching a “plug” consisting of a mixture of rubber, pigments, vegetable oil, pumice and sulfur, held in place by a crimped metal band called a ferrule.

And voila, we have the creation of that ubiquitous writing instrument known as the pencil, annually celebrated March 30.

The pencil has come a long way since prehistoric times, when chalky rocks and charred sticks were used to draw figures on animal hides and cave walls.

The Greeks and Romans used pieces of lead to score faint lines on papyrus, and the precursor of the modern pencil consisted of lead wrapped in string.

The 1564 discovery in northwestern England of graphite, an abundant commodity which quickly replaced lead, spawned the invention of the modern leadless pencil the following year.

Great Britain was the chief exporter of pencils to the United States until the War of 1812 ended English imports. That year, the first American pencils were manufactured by William Monroe, a Massachusetts cabinet maker.

The mechanical pencil was first patented in Britain in 1822. The inventor’s factory operated until 1941 when it was bombed by Germany during World War II.

The first pencil factory in the United States was built in 1861 in New York City and pencils were standard issue for Union soldiers during the Civil War.

Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck and Henry David Thoreau wrote their novels in pencil.

The website www.thisoldhouse.com lists 10 unconventional uses for the pencil, including propping up seedlings, plugging holes left by countersunk screws, lubing sticking locks, using erasers to shine brass doorknobs and remove scuff marks and rolling the pencil over a caulk tube to squeeze out the last remnants.

QUIZ:

1. How many pencils are manufactured in the United States every year?

2. How many pencils are manufactured in the world every year?

3. How many times can the average pencil be sharpened?

4. What company is the world’s largest pencil manufacturer?

5. The average pencil can draw a line how long?

6. Why did teachers shun the addition of erasers on pencils?

7. How many pencils are used annually on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange?

8. How many pencils did John Steinbeck use to write “East of Eden”?

9. How many words can the average pencil write?

10. How tall is the world’s largest pencil (displayed at a pencil manufacturer near Kuala Lumpur)?

ANSWERS:

1. Two billion. 2. 14 billion. 3. 17 times. 4. Faber-Castell. 5. 35 miles. 6. They felt the erasers would encourage students to make mistakes. 7. One million. 8. 300. 9. 45,000. 10. 65 feet.