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Woo, I'm on a roll this week. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the history here, not being a pencil history expert myself, but this read has a lot of good words for larnin'. I'd put this in the lower-advanced spectrum, as the sentence structure isn't over-the-top literary, but there are a ton of specialized words and proper nouns. 

<img src="http://chinesereadingpractice.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/20140205-INLINE.jpg" alt="Learn to Read Mandarin Chinese - Simplified Character Learning Short Stories" width="100" height="100" class="imgborder alignleft" />The tone is very encyclopedic, so, rather serious and not a lot of fun. 

A couple of proper names for you: 
<strong>巴罗代尔</strong> - Borrowdale, England
<strong>乔治二世</strong> - George the Second (English King)
<strong>法伯</strong> - Eberhard Faber, a German chemist
<strong>孔德</strong> - Nicolas-Jacques Conté, French scientist

Source: <a href="http://www.gushi365.com/info/9763.html" target="_blank">http://www.gushi365.com/info/9763.html</a>
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<h4>Click to Listen</h4>
简陋 - [pinyin]jian3 lou4[/pinyin] - Simple and crude
名副其实 - [pinyin]ming2 fu4 qi2 shi2[/pinyin] - Not in name only, but also in reality
诞生 - [pinyin]dan4 sheng1[/pinyin] - To be born
矿物 - [pinyin]kuang4 wu4[/pinyin] - Mineral
皇室- [pinyin]huang2 shi4[/pinyin] - Imperial household
缺点 - [pinyin]que1 dian3[/pinyin] - Weak point, drawback
硫磺 - [pinyin]liu2 huang2[/pinyin] - Sulfer
松香 - [pinyin]song1 xiang1[/pinyin] - Leap and frisk about
掺入 - [pinyin]chao2 xing3[/pinyin] - To be woken up by noise
芯
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铅笔的历史非常悠久，它起源于2000多年前的古罗马时期。那时的铅笔很<strong>简陋</strong>，只不过是金属套里夹着的一根铅棒，甚至是铅块，倒真是<strong>名副其实</strong>的“铅”笔。而我们今天使用的铅笔是用石墨和黏土制成的，里面并不含铅。

现代铅笔<strong>诞生</strong>于16世纪的英国。1564年，有人在巴罗代尔发现了一种名叫石墨的黑色<strong>矿物</strong>。石墨能像铅一样在纸上留下痕迹，而且比铅的痕迹要黑得多，因此，人们称石墨为“黑铅”。巴罗代尔一带的牧羊人常用石墨在羊身上做记号。后来，人们又将石墨块切成小条，用于写字、绘画。不久，英王乔治二世将巴罗代尔石墨矿收归<strong>皇室</strong>所有，把它定为皇家的专用品。

不过，石墨条也有它的<strong>缺点</strong>：容易弄脏手，还容易折断。1761年，德国化学家法伯用石墨粉同<strong>硫磺</strong>、<strong>松香</strong>等混合起来，制成条，这比纯石墨条的韧性大得多，也不大容易弄脏手。18世纪末时，只有英、德两国能够生产铅笔。

后来，法国也在自己的国土上找到了石墨矿，但矿的质量不高，储量也少。法国科学家孔德便在石墨中<strong>掺入</strong>黏土，放进窑里烧制，制成了既好用又耐用的铅笔<strong>芯</strong>。石墨中掺入的黏土的比例不同，铅笔芯的硬度也就不同。我们常看到铅笔头上标着B、HB一类的字母，表示的就是铅笔芯的硬度和颜色深浅。B表示黑度，H表示硬度，所以，HB就是软硬和颜色深浅都适中的铅笔芯，适合写字。 
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The history of the pencil is very long, dating back 2000 years to ancient Roman times. The pencils of that time were very crude, being nothing more than a gold cover cripping a lead stick, or even a lead block, and it really was a "lead" pen (not just in name only). Whereas the pencils we use toady are manufactured from graphite and clay, the inside doesn't really contain lead.  

Modern pencils were born in 16th Century England. In 1564, people in Borrowdale discovered a kind of black mineral called graphite. Like lead, graphite could leave marks on paper, and the marks it left were much darker than lead, thus, people called graphite "black lead". Shepherds in the Borrowdale region commonly used graphite to mark seals on the bodies of sheep. Later, people carved lead into little strips, using them for writing and drawing. After long, the English king George the Second brought Borrowdale graphite ore back to the imperial household for the royal family's particular use.   

However, graphite strips also had their weak point: they dirty the hands, and they break easily. In 1761, German chemist Faber mixed graphite powder together with sulfer, pine resin and other things, and manufactured them as strips, which was much tougher than simple graphite, and didn't dirty the hands as easily. At the end of the 18th century, only England and Germany were capable of producing pencils.    

Later, France discovered [deposits of] graphite ore in their earth, but the ore's quality wasn't high, and the quantities weren't great. French Scientist Conte mixed the ore with clay, fired it in a kiln, making a more easy to use and durable pencil wick. The amount of clay mixed with the graphite wasn't always the same, and so the hardness of the lead [wick] also changed accordingly. We often see "B" and "HB" letters marked out on the head of the pencil, indicating hardness and light or darkness of color. "B" indicates color, H indicates hardness, therefore, "HB" indicates that hardness and darkness  of the lead are both moderate, and are suitable for writing.   
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