Nicolas-Jacques Conté
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nicolas-Jacques Conté (4 August 1755 - 6 December 1805) was a French painter, balloonist, army officer, and inventor of the modern pencil.
He was born at Saint-Céneri-près-Sées (now Aunou-sur-Orne) in Normandy, and distinguished for his mechanical genius which was of great avail to the French army in Egypt.
Conté invented modern pencil lead, more specifically conté, at the request of Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Carnot. The French Republic was at that time under economic blockade and unable to obtain graphite imports from Great Britain the main source of the material. Carnot asked that Conté create a pencil that did not require foreign imports. After several days of research, Conté had the idea of mixing powdered graphite with clay and pressing the material between two half-cylinders of wood. Thus was formed the modern pencil. Conté received a patent for the invention in 1795, and formed la société Conté to make his crayons.
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from the public domain 1907 edition of The Nuttall Encyclopædia.
