answersLogoWhite

0

Rubber would have come first as an eraser is made out of rubber.

People used pieces of bread to erase mistakes long before they figured out that a piece of rubber would do the trick. Ancient Greeks and Romans had been using flat pieces of lead to draw on papyrus. By the 1400s, graphite had been discovered and, around a century later, the modern pencil began to take shape. Though the milky liquid that was produced by trees in tropical areas had been discovered centuries ago, it was only in the eighteenth century, that the substance "caoutchouc," which was used to create natural rubber, made its way to Europe. Sometime around 1750, it was suggested that the substance be used as an eraser. It was the scientist Joseph Priestley who proposed that the name of the substance be changed to "rubber," because it was used to rub pencil marks away.

User Avatar

Wiki User

17y ago

What else can I help you with?