Believe it or not . . .
There's no lead in pencil lead!

The center of the pencil -- known as the writing core -- is made of a nontoxic mineral called graphite.

Graphite came into widespread in the 16th century, following the discovery of a large graphite deposit in Borrowdale, England. As the story goes, a passerby found bits of shiny, black graphite clinging to the roots of a fallen tree. The whole countryside was abuzz with talk about this mysterious mineral, which soon came to be known as "plumbagoi" or, more commonly, "Blacklead."