Excerpt from I. P. Alibert, the Pencil-Lead Mines of Asiatic Siberia: A Historical Sketch, 1761-1861
So important did this branch of industry soon become, that the Government thought it necessary to prohibit the exportation of the lead, and that a regular black-lead market was established in London, where, on the first Monday of every month, sufficient lead was sold at auction to meet the supposed wants of the pen cilmanufiacturers. The price averaged from 36 to 40 English shillings gold) per lb. Avoirdupois, but the finer qualities, according to Dufr noy, were run up as high as 400 francs gold) per kilogramme (about 2 lb. Avoirdupois); and although the mine never re mained open longer than six weeks in every year, yet the value of the yearly product is said to have reached 40, b00, - a much more considerable sum in those days than it now seems to us. So great and perhaps exaggerated was the value of the ore, that the mines on several occasions were attacked by organized ma rauding expeditions from the neighboring mountains, and had to be protected by a large military force sent for the purpose by the authorities.
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