A slate is a thin piece of hard flat material, historically slate stone, which is used as a medium for writing.
A slate is a thin piece of hard flat material, historically slate stone, which is used as a medium for writing.
The writing slate consisted of a piece of slate, typically either 4x6 inches or 7x10 inches, encased in a wooden frame. [1] Split slate was prepared by scraping with a steel edge, grinding with a flat stone and, finally, polishing with a mix of slate powder in water. Pencils were of a softer stone, such as shale, chalk or soapstone. [2] In 1853 Charles Goodyear patented a compound of hard-vulcanised rubber with powdered porcelain, from which to make white pencils for writing on slates. [3]
Usually, a piece of cloth or slate sponge was used to clean it and this was sometimes attached with a string to the bottom of the writing slate.
The exact origins of the writing slate remain unclear. References to its use can be found in the fourteenth century and evidence suggests that it was used in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The central time period for the writing slate, however, "appears to begin in the later eighteenth century, when developments in sea and land transport permitted the gradual expansion of slate quarrying in Wales and the growth of a substantial slate workshop industry." [4]
By the nineteenth century, writing slates were used around the world in nearly every school and were a central part of the slate industry. At the dawn of the twentieth century, writing slates were the primary tool in the classroom for students. In the 1930s (or later) writing slates began to be replaced by more modern methods. [5] However, writing slates did not become obsolete. They are still made in the twenty-first century, though in small quantities.
The writing slate was sometimes used by industry workers to track goods and by sailors to calculate their geographical location at sea. Sometimes multiple pieces of slate were bound together into a "book" and horizontal lines were etched onto the slate surface as a guide for neat handwriting. [6]
A hammer is a tool, most often a hand tool, consisting of a weighted "head" fixed to a long handle that is swung to deliver an impact to a small area of an object. This can be, for example, to drive nails into wood, to shape metal, or to crush rock. Hammers are used for a wide range of driving, shaping, breaking and non-destructive striking applications. Traditional disciplines include carpentry, blacksmithing, warfare, and percussive musicianship.
The inch is a unit of length in the British Imperial and the United States customary systems of measurement. It is equal to 1/36 yard or 1/12 of a foot. Derived from the Roman uncia ("twelfth"), the word inch is also sometimes used to translate similar units in other measurement systems, usually understood as deriving from the width of the human thumb.
A pencil is a writing or drawing implement with a solid pigment core in a protective casing that reduces the risk of core breakage and keeps it from marking the user's hand.
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic rock. Foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering, but instead is in planes perpendicular to the direction of metamorphic compression.
Until 1974, Glamorgan, or sometimes Glamorganshire, was an administrative county in the south of Wales, and later classed as one of the thirteen historic counties of Wales. Originally an early medieval petty kingdom of varying boundaries known in Welsh as Morgannwg, which was then invaded and taken over by the Normans as the Lordship of Glamorgan. The area that became known as Glamorgan was both a rural, pastoral area, and a conflict point between the Norman lords and the Welsh princes. It was defined by a large concentration of castles.
In archaeology, in particular of the Stone Age, lithic reduction is the process of fashioning stones or rocks from their natural state into tools or weapons by removing some parts. It has been intensely studied and many archaeological industries are identified almost entirely by the lithic analysis of the precise style of their tools and the chaîne opératoire of the reduction techniques they used.
A ribbon cable is a cable with many conducting wires running parallel to each other on the same flat plane. As a result, the cable is wide and flat. Its name comes from its resemblance to a piece of ribbon.
A blackboard or a chalkboard is a reusable writing surface on which text or drawings are made with sticks of calcium sulphate or calcium carbonate, known, when used for this purpose, as chalk. Blackboards were originally made of smooth, thin sheets of black or dark grey slate stone.
An eraser is an article of stationery that is used for removing marks from paper or skin. Erasers have a rubbery consistency and come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. Some pencils have an eraser on one end. Erasers can come in various shapes and colors. Less expensive erasers are made from synthetic rubber and synthetic soy-based gum, but more expensive or specialized erasers are made from vinyl, plastic, or gum-like materials.
A planchette, from the French for "little plank", is a small, usually heart-shaped flat piece of wood equipped with two wheeled casters and a pencil-holding aperture pointing downwards, used to facilitate automatic writing. The use of planchettes to produce mysterious written messages gave rise to the belief that the devices foster communication with spirits as a form of mediumship. The devices were popular in séances during the Victorian era, before their eventual evolution into the simpler, non-writing pointing devices for ouija boards that eclipsed the popularity of their original form. Scientists explain the motion is due to the ideomotor effect, but paranormal advocates believe the planchette is moved by the presence of spirits or some form of subtle energy.
A mechanical pencil or clutch pencil is a pencil with a replaceable and mechanically extendable solid pigment core called a "lead". The lead, often made of graphite, is not bonded to the outer casing, and the user can mechanically extend it as its point is worn away from use. The vast majority of mechanical pencils have erasers.
Quoits is a traditional game which involves the throwing of metal, rope or rubber rings over a set distance, usually to land over or near a spike. The game of quoits encompasses several distinct variations.
A writing implement or writing instrument is an object used to produce writing. Writing consists of different figures, lines, and or forms. Most of these items can be also used for other functions such as painting, drawing and technical drawing, but writing instruments generally have the ordinary requirement to create a smooth, controllable line.
St Tyfrydog's Church, Llandyfrydog is a small medieval church, in Llandyfrydog, Anglesey, north Wales. The date of establishment of a church on this site is unknown, but one 19th-century Anglesey historian says that it was about 450. The oldest parts of the present building are dated to about 1400, with the chancel dating from the late 15th or early 16th century. It is built from rough, small, squared stones, dressed with limestone. One of the windows on the south side is raised to illuminate the pulpit, a decision that in the eyes of one 19th-century commentator "disfigures the building."
A cue stick is an item of sporting equipment essential to the games of pool, snooker and carom billiards. It is used to strike a ball, usually the cue ball. Cues are tapered sticks, typically about 57–59 inches long and usually between 16 and 21 ounces (450–600 g), with professionals gravitating toward a 19-ounce (540 g) average. Cues for carom tend toward the shorter range, though cue length is primarily a factor of player height and arm length. Most cues are made of wood, but occasionally the wood is covered or bonded with other materials including graphite, carbon fiber or fiberglass. An obsolete term for a cue, used from the 16th to early 19th centuries, is billiard stick.
St Cynfarwy's Church is a medieval parish church in Llechgynfarwy, Anglesey, north Wales. The first church in the vicinity was established by St Cynfarwy in about 630, but no structure from that time survives. The present building contains a 12th-century baptismal font, indicating the presence of a church at that time, although extensive rebuilding in 1867 removed the datable features of the previous edifice.
St Peter's Church, Llanbedrgoch, is a small medieval parish church near the village of Llanbedrgoch in Anglesey, north Wales. The oldest parts of the building date from the 15th century; it was extended in the 17th century and restored twice in the 19th century. The doorway is decorated with carvings of two human heads, one wearing a mitre. The church contains a reading desk made from 15th-century bench ends, one carved with a mermaid holding a mirror and comb.
Bambata Cave is one of the Southern Africa prehistoric sites situated in Motobo National Park along with Inanke, Nswatugi, Pomengwe and Silozwane caves in Zimbabwe.
The Slate Industry in the Nantlle Valley was the major industry of the area. The Nantlle Valley is the site of oldest slate quarry in Wales at Cilgwyn, and during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries it was a major centre of the Slate industry in Wales. The quarries of the area are a World Heritage Site.