In the meanwhile the manufactory assiduously endeavoured to attain to perfection in its products. As the stock of blacklead began to disappear in the mines of Cumberland, it succeeded, by its perfected manipulation of the material, in producing so many grades of hardness and supplying such an extensive variety of pencil, that no demand could present itself without meeting with satisfaction among the great choice of manufactures. In the opinion of connoisseurs the finest sorts even surpass the best Cumberland leadpencils in their lasting and uniform degrees of hardness, their greater firmness and durability as also in the increased purity of the lead. In addition to this they possess such an amount of softness and delicacy, as to be able to stand comparison in this and every particular with the Cumberland pencils. Besides this, and in addition to several other improvements relating to their external appearance, the most useful and ornamental shapes for pencils of the finer descriptions were devised and introduced, and still more recently the socalled “_Artist’s pencils_” were added to the list of novelties and immediately met with the most universal recognition, which soon stimulated other manufacturers to attempt imitations. In the midst of these exertions the news was suddenly received, that that, which the English had so long sought for and which the perfected system of manufacture still stood much in need of in order to yield more than was previously possible, had been found. A new blacklead mine had been discovered. _Johann Peter Alibert_, merchant of the first class at Tabasthus in Siberia, had undertaken an exploring expedition in the mountainous eastern portion of Siberia, partly to search for gold. He examined the sand of the rivers Oka, Belloi, Kitoi and Irkutsk, and in one of the mountain ravines in the vicinity of Irkutsk lighted accidentally upon specimens of pure blacklead. _Alibert_ immediately recognised the value and importance of the material and instituted strict investigations until in the year 1847 after much labor and exertion he arrived at the conviction that, in a branch of the mountain range of Saian among the heights of the Batougol mountains four hundred versts westward of the town of Irkutsk, close to the frontier of China, a primitive deposit of blacklead must exist. He addressed himself at once to the task of opening a mine in order to bring the costly material to the surface.