The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1872-11-07
Coming Money.

DR.. Mackenzie in an article on coin
ing money, says: The metal 1--WE will call
it gold) having been reduced, or elevated,
to perfect degree of purity, is cast into
ingots, in crucibles of plumbago, with
the requisite quantity of alloy-say
twenty-five parts of gold to two of cop
per. When thorough amalgamation is
produced, by great heat, the liquid metal
is poured into iron moulds, from which,
when cool, it is turned out in bars
twenty-one inches long, one inch thick
and nearly two inches wide. A small
piece is cut from the end of each bar,
and this fragment is assayed. A small
piece of hair, about an inch in length, is
put into one of two scales, protected
from the dust by a glass case, and so
finely balanced this morse1 of hair will
turn the scale. If the Mint assayist, thus
weighing the gold, discovers impurity in
it equal to the weight of that inch of hair,
he would reject the whole bar. This as
say of the gold is vigorously performed
several times before the coin is delivered
for circulation.
The bar of gold having been declared
to be call right" and of the requisite
fineness, is now ready for the rolling
room. There the first thing done is to
clip off the ends with huge pair of
scissors or shears-the theory being that
such ends are subject to undue contrac-
ton in cooling, and the fact being that
coin produced from these ends would be
"dumb," that is, not have the proper
ring. The bars are then repeatedly
passed between successive pairs of rollers
of hardened steel surfaces, driven by
steam power. By this action the length
aud breadth are extended, and by grad
ually bringing the rollers closer, the
thickness is diminished.
As the bars become extended, they are
cut into several lengths each of which,
in turn, is passed through the rollers,
until it becomes "flllet" of the thick
ness required for punching out blanks"
Though the rolling is not very rapidly
performed, the workmen are careful to
touch the gold or silver only with thick
ly gloved hands. If you were to take
up one of these fillets, you would in
stantly know the reason why, for your
fingers would be as severely burned as if
you had drawn them across heated iron
bars. The heat generated in the opera
ton of rolling is very great. The finish
ing rollers are so finely adjusted that
the fillets Tor thinned bars) do not vary
in thickness in any part more than the
ten-thousandth part of an inch. The
fillets finally are put into the "draw-
bench" where they are drawn between
steel dies, as in wire drawing, to the ex-
act thickness of the coin required. In
the process of rolling, the bars are an
nealed, to remove the hardness induced
by the pressure.
The fllets are handed, when they
finally leave the rollers, to a workman
called the ." tryer," who punches trial
blank out of each, and weighs it in a
balance; if it vary more than one-eighth
of a grain in weight, that fillet is reject
ed. After this, if the trial be satisfactory,
final rolling reduces it to what may be
called " coin-thickness." Next the fillet
passes into the cutting-room," where
the coins are punched out of it by steam
and pneumatic pressure the fllets be-
ing fed into the press rapidly, as each of
the twelve cuts out sixty blanks in each
minute. The scraps left after the punch
ing are called scissel," and are taken
care of, to be remelted. Each blank,
actually an unstamped coin, is weighed
in the automaton balance-which tests
twenty-three blanks per minute, and
each to the 0'0l of a grain. All under q
certain weight are pushed into box to
be remelted all Ouer it are put aside to
be reduced by filing. The correct blanks
are separately rung on a sounding-iron,
and those which do not give clear
ringing sound are rejected.
This ordeal passed, the blanks are
"milled on the edge by a machine which
raises or ribs the edge, and makes them
perfectly round. They are then filed, to
take off any wiry rising which the pro-
cess may have produced. After this they
are annealed, to soften them before they
are struck with hardened steel dies, and
also put into pot of boiling diluted
sulphuric acid, to remove any oxide of
copper from the surface. Next they are
washed with water, dried with great
care in hot sawdust, and finally put into
an oven, at temperature slightly above
that of boiling water. These processes
produce the beautiful bloom which may
be observed in new coin.
Now the blanks pass into the stamping
room, to receive the impressions, on both
In the Mint in London the stamping
presses make much noise, and convey
the idea, by the tremor which their con-
cussion creates, that the building might
probably fall down. In the Mint at
Philadelphia this noise and this concus-
sion are not perceptible. There are two
dies in each coming press. The lower
one is stationary; the other is firmly
fixed into a screw, worked by steam,
which, each time it descends upon a
blank, placed on the lower die, makes
the desired double impression, techni-
cally designated the " diverse" and the
"reverse." A steel ring or collar holds
the coin while it is being stamped, and
the impressed coin falls out as soon as
completed. A person attends to each
press, and regularly feeds it with a sue
cession of blanks. The machine does
all the rest-seizes the blank, pushes il
forward on the die, holds it steadily
there, jerks down another die on it, with
a heavy but noiseless thump-can mill
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