| The urge to write and draw can be dated back to | | | | the pen was tilted to all sides. The pen wrote fluidly |
| the early ages of human civilization. Caves discovered | | | | on contact with paper, and ink disappeared as soon |
| by archeologists are proof of the attempts of the | | | | as the pen was lifted from the surface of paper to |
| primitive men to draw and write. From engraving on | | | | the amazement of the onlookers. Except for the |
| stone plates and cave walls to writing on palm leaves | | | | writing on the manuscript, there was no other |
| and hieroglyph inscriptions, mankind has been trying | | | | evidence that such a writing implement was ever |
| to preserve its thoughts using various implements: | | | | used. |
| sharp stones, reeds, metals and quills. | | | | The earliest fountain pen was designed by M. Bion, a |
| The invention of ink and paper changed the mode of | | | | Frenchman, in 1702. There were many producers of |
| writing by scratching. Quills were dipped in a reservoir | | | | fountain pens in the early 1800s. John Scheffer, a |
| of ink and used for writing. Holding a thin quill didn't | | | | Britishman, mass-produced fountain pens that were |
| suit to writing for long hours. It struck the early | | | | half quill and half metal. The ink was stored in sheep's |
| inventors that the hollow channel in a bird's feather | | | | gut. But all such early attempts at holding ink in hard |
| can store ink for writing. The fountain pen in its raw | | | | rubber tubes with a metal nib at the bottom were |
| form was born. | | | | messy. |
| The first mention of fountain pen can be traced to | | | | "Necessity is the mother of invention," and it's |
| the Egyptians. Hassan El Basha Mamoud an Egyptian | | | | wonderful how path breaking inventions are made. |
| scholar translated a manuscript from Fatimid dynasty | | | | Lewis Waterman, the inventor of the fountain pen |
| dating to 969 AD, which talks about using a pen | | | | used widely, determined to do something after a |
| without an inkpot. A pen was made of gold and | | | | valuable contract document was destroyed by spilling |
| presented before the caliph. It had its own ink | | | | ink from the pen he used--an insurance salesman |
| reservoir. But the pen leaked, and hence a better | | | | turned into an inventor. Waterman patented the |
| one was ordered. The same pen with modifications | | | | fountain pen in 1884, and started mass-producing it. |
| was presented. This time, there was no ink spill when | | | | The fountain pen in its true form was born. |