The Portland Pudgy safety dinghy is a self-rescue boat, even without the optional inflatable exposure canopy and other survival gear. With the exposure canopy, sea anchor, and sail kit, the Portland Pudgy is an unsinkable, dynamic lifeboat.
The âlead pencil,â containing no lead, was invented in 1564, a turning point in pencil history. Although civilizations were centuries away from making mechanical pencil history, the pencil invented in the sixteenth century advanced the writing instrument. Before 1564, artists mainly used stylus-like pencils. The history of the pencil owes a dept to the discovery of a graphite mine in Cumbria, England.
But the history of the pencil, like that of many seminal innovations, has a dark side: The purest deposits of lump graphite were found in Borrowdale near Keswick [England] in the Lake District in 1564 and spawned quite a smuggling industry and associated black economy in the area.