WRITING, MATERIALS
REPORT BY IGNAZ NAGEL.

GOLD PENS. —The first attempts to tip pens with points whichresist the corrosive influence of ink were made in the beginning of this century in England. Glass, tortoise-shell, and bone pointed with metal were used as pens. These crude attempts did not succeed well, but they contained the germ of a more useful invention. John Isaac Hawkins, an American living in England, first made tortoise-shell nibs with diamond and ruby points; soon he succeeded in making gold pens pointed with iridium and osmium.

The gold pen in its present perfection is made by F. Morgan in London, and has gained a universal celebrity, which it also preserved in the Exhibition of this year.
In America, the gold pen has been introduced by Levi Brown, a watchmaker, and at present enjoys a great popularity. The best estalblishment for manufacturing of gold pens is without doubt that of Leroy Fairchild of New York. His exhibits contained a large treasure of gold pens, pen and lead-pencil holders, gold rubber-holders. We must also mention James Morton and Ephraim Johnson, who exhibited aluminiumn pens with gold points of good quality; J. A. Brown & Co. the same, kind with diamond points, also specialities, as lead-pencil and penholders of aluminium, mother-of-pearl.