The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1883-09-01
Making Money at the New Orleans Mint.

If you so into the mint at New Or
leans, as you certainly will II you visit
the city, you will find a guard in the
rotunda to receive visitors. The James
Brothers might have penetrated that far
easy enough, but they could not have
gone further. The barred gates rising
up between the visitor and Uncle Sam 5
store of silver dollars have a State prison
look, and one is put on his good be-
havior AZ once.
When your credentials are pronounced
all right and the gates unlocked to you,
you are ushered into the receiving and
weighing room. Silver bullion is corded
up on all sides, and is being handled
with as much contempt as the brick
carrier loads his hod. A bar of bullion
looks exactly like bar OF plumbers
solder, and when you are about to pick
up and walk offwith one of the bars you
suddenly change your mind.
In this room are the most perfect pair
of large scales in America. They weigh
up to 10000 ounces, Troy weight, and
are so delicate that crumb weighing
the five-hundredth part of an ounce will
drop the bar. All the silver received is
weighed upon these scales, and they are
looked upon by the general visitor rs
one of the sights Of the institution.
All the bullion first goes to the melt
ing department and is melted, alleged
aud run into ingots of standard fneness,
which means 900 parts of silver and 100
parts of copper. The copper is put in
to harden it, and without this alloy there
would be great loss by natural 'sweai
and tear" There is n new assay after
melting. and this assay must prove that
the composition is exact and correct.
The loss Of even the three hundredth
part of an ounce between the weighing
and the melting rooms must be &C
counted for.
After the assay the ingots are turned
over to the coiner, who rolls them into
strips by means of powerful machinery.
These strips are about three feet long,
and little wider than dollar. The
thickness is designated to be the same
as dollar, but is sometimes too thick
or too thin. The strips are then passed
to the punchcr, who feeds them under
his punch as fast as you can count, and
the smooth, greasy blank dollars fall in
to the box below: To discover il the
blanks are of the standard weight, they
are wheeled into the adjusting room
The demand is for 4l2l grains, but the
Government permits slight shortage.
If the black is one grain short, it is cast
out to be melted. II it is one grain over
weight, file is used TO secure exact
weight
In the adjusting room are about two
dozen women, each with a delicate pair
of scales before her and the blanks are
handled with surprising dexterity. Those
found of standard weight are sent on
their way through the mint and the light
ones will form parts of new ingots.
You think of silver dollar as per-
fectly fiat surface. Hold one to your
eye and you will see that is concave. If
the letters and ornaments were even
with the rim of the dollar they would
soon wear of. The concave is to pro-
tect them. From the adjusting room
blanks go to the machine to be con-
caved and then to the bath. The silver
is greasy and blackened, and the bath
is to remove this and restore the luster.
After being treated to an acid bath the
trays filed with blanks are placed in
red-hot oven and subsequently placed
in a revolving cylinder, with saw-dust.
When they emerge from this they shine
like stars.
Here are the smooth, round pfeeas3
and to make dollars of them they are
sent to the stamp presses. These power
full machines feed themselves at the
rate of 285 per minute, and ii you pick
up one of - coins you will find one
side complete, and the other side still
blank. They are picked up and fed to
second machine, and now your dollar
is complete except on the edges. A
smooth-edged coin would wear away
faster than one with milled edge, and
hence the larger denominations are
milled. 1t is no use TO try to guess how
it is done, for forty nine out of fifty
persons would miss it. They are
dropped into cavity in powerful
machine arranged to fit them, and the
coins, lying flat upon one side, are
squeezed the same as ii tube shut up
on all sides of your finger at once. This
mills the edges. The pressure on each
dollar in stamping and punching is
about eighty tons.
Uncle Sam contracts for his silver
bullion the same as private individual
does for his vegetables. He agrees to
take all the ore furnished by two large
Colorado mines, and any supply which
an individual may wish to dispose Of
finds ready sale. The mines ship by
express at their own expense, but in
sending away money the Government
pays all charges.
The New Orleans mint makes about
100000 silver dollars per month. This
is about the only coin made there of
late years. The dollars are sacked up,
1000 in bag, and stored in the big
vault until wanted for shipment. Money
is handled as recklessly as if it had no
value. You meet men and boys carry
ing great trays loaded with it, and you
see wheelbarrows containing full
bushel going in several directions, but
you do not see the records kept by the
chiefs of each department. These re-
cords follow every fraction of an ounce
of silver from the time it is taken in
until it is sacked up in the vault Let
one of the employees cabbage" a coin
and detection would he as certain as
shutdown.
There is a general idea that the Con-
federacy made big haul when it capt
ured the mint at the beginning of the
war. There was scarcely any bullion
on hand at that date. and probably the
loss to Uncle Sam was not over 5000.
The Davis Government turned out few
coins of no great value, and building
and machinery were preserved in good