Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1870-04-06
From the Scientific Americana
Our New Paper Currency.

In July, 1869, letters patent We're issued,
through the Scientific American Patent
Agency, to James M. Wilcox, bank-note
paper manufacturer, near Philadelphia,
for an improvement in paper, to prevent
counterfeiting. As this peculiar paper has
been adopted by the Treasury Department
for United States securities, and reaches
the hand of everybody in the shape of
greenbacks, a few words in explanation
will be useful to all handlers of money
Protection in paper, as in engraving,
consists in peculiarly and in difficulty of
imitation; nothing else. Many yeaIs ago,
bank-nOte paper was made peculiar by the
mixing of red, blue, and other colored silk
shreds in the pulp before converting it into
sheets of paper. This peculiarly was con-
sidered test of genuineness, and was so to
n certain extent. Paper made in that way,
however, came into the open market, and
could be bought by counterfeiters as well
as by bank officers and engravers. Mr..
Wilcox has added q new feature to the in
PRODUCTION of colored shreds, which makes
paper so peculiar that it cannot be made
by hand process, or by cylinder machine,
but only by the better class or Fourdrinier
machine. Even here special machinery is
required to locate the cOlored shreds in GER
tain part of the notes and not i'm others.
AS this machinery exists only in his own
mill, and the process is protected by patent,
the paper is kept out of the market, and
the Government and the public have the
benefit of its exclusiveness. The mill is
guarded night and day by an armed force
in the pay of the Government, to prevent
robbery, and there is every reason to be-
lieve that this paper will be kept out of I'M
lawful hands.
1t will be observed that line of blue
shreds cross the left hand end of all legal
tender notes new issue) of the denomina-
tiOns of one, two, five and ten dollars and
a cip,ilor lima croasaa Sba a.i0Lf hand and af
all notes above ten dollars. AS these lines
are ingram, the alteration of a low note to
high one would be at once detected by
the position of the localized shreds. As
these shreds are interviewer with the fibers
of the paper, care should be used to make
sure that they are neither under the surface
nor entirely on the surface, but both.
In the United States currency double
process is carried out. In the first place, a
red fiber is mixed Unfortunately through
the pulp, and consequently through the
sheet. This is done in the grinding en-
CINE.
A second process with special machine
ry) is carried ont in the Fourdrinier paper
machine by the localizing of a blue fiber as
the pulp is changed into. paper. An is in
terwoven together, and when the sheets
are cut into notes the blue fibers find their
position as described. .E
The new fifty cent note which the De-
partment is preparing to issue, will be upon
paper of this description the localized blue
fibers occupying one end only of the notes,
while all the remainder will have the in
discriminate red. The double process of
manufacture viii be shown and the exclu-
sive feature will be prominent.
The thanks of the community are due to
the Secretary of the Treasury for his ear
nest and well-directed efforts to protect
them from counterfeits; and their atten-
ton is called to a proper understanding of
this new feature i'm protection.
As IL has been placed under the guar
dianship of the Department, ii is believed
to be effectual, and we are glad to have had
an agency in bringing il into use.