Mexico weekly ledger., 1878-06-06
THE UNITED STATES TINT.

HE UNIFIED a
1t was founded nearly one hundred
years ago, and in it was coined the
first money used in the United States.
Until 1916 all the work was done by
hand or horse power; the building
was guarded by watch-dogs, and the
artisans were supplied with plentiful
quantities Of liquor as q fatigue-ra-
ton, the ancient and supplemented
citizens looking upon them with espe-
cial favor. The earliest director was
appointed by Washington. The
original copper cents were made in
1898, the silver dollars in 1874, and
the gold eagles in 1895. Both the
metal and machinery were imported
but in coming, as in many other
things, the American has made such
progress within the century that the
implements of his own construction
are now superior to the models after
which they are patterned.
The casual visitor is welcomed
from 9 q. m. until noon, and is taken
in hand by polite and %garrulous ush-
ers, who in common with all the 9TH
er employees, bear themselves with the
dignity that BELTS persons living in
such close contact with enormous
wealth. "I'vs seen five hundred and
fifty million dollars 60 in and out OF
this place." said one of the employees,
as he led us into a dimly-hghted
vanlt, where the pale bricks of silver
were piled from roof to ceiling
''ive hundred and fifty million dol
lars in tweEty-eight years." he re-
peated with particular gusto; and at
the statement our fancy Immediately
took a wild fight among the enchant-
ing possibilities Of such treasure, for
when Nammon mounts Pegasus nc
adolescent muse can career through
realms so luminous and vari-colored
8 this metallic deity, who is worship.
ped and despised, courted and revA-
ed, by the best and worst of men.
The very contemplation Of so i'm,
mense a sum was dazzling to the inn.
%agination. It was the aggregate for
tune Of five hundred millionaires, the
income of scores of thrones and the
value of q state! What q protean
influence it must have exercised
corrupting and sustaining how many
lives paying the scant wages of the
ten-hour laborer, and sufficing for the
extravaganza of princely spendthrift
carrying happiness with it now, and
then c~apriciously destroying the bene
ficiary secluding the virtuous and
breeding sedition among the honest
forever doing good and harm by tickle
strokes; forever indispensable and
forever alluring. In one of his clever
essays, Junius Henri Browne says
with Emersonian sententiousness
"Cash is the cause and consequence
of civilization, the measure Of its
breadth, and plummet of its profundi-
ty. Every true ideal must rest on
the real, and the real to-day is the
coinage Of the mint" The contents
Of the little vault had probably left
deeper marks on the world than all
the books written and the sermons
reached during the twanty-eight
years Of the custodian's service.
In passing through the deposit
room all the metal is carefully weigh
ed. The largest scale, with a pom
derous beam and huge trays, and
balances from six thousand ounces to
the on~e-hundredth part Of an ounce /;
another scale tells three thousand
ounces at a time, and o third tells
three hundred ounces. They are ad-
justed several times a week, erected
on solid masonry, and r true to a
grain. Having been weighed, the
silver is carried to the smelting-room,
where it is mixed with copper, in Or
der to give it sufficient hardness to
endure the friction of constant hand
ling, and melted in stone crucibles
heated to 1900 by charcoal fires.
This heat is so intense that the work
men must protect their hands and
arms with gloves and gauntlets. The
stone crucibles are placed within 9TH
ers of plumbago, in order to insure
them gainst breaking. Reduced to
a molten fluid, the metal is now pour
ed into iron moulds, whence it emer-
ges in the form Of ingots, which are
transferred to rolling-mills, which
shape them by a rapid process OF at
tenuation into long, narrow slips
From Appleton's Journal for June.