The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1885-12-05
THE SILVER DOLLAR.
How the Bullion Becomes the Gilt
tering Coin,

How the Bullion Becomes the Gilt
tering Coin.
There's millions in it," said Colonel
Sellers. looking at the United States
Treasury building in Washington, "and
millions after it., he concluded. In the
work of keeping the millions in it.
which the millions after it are con-
stantly depicting, the Philadelpha Mint
is the chief agent, and to this end
turned out daily average of 100000 OF
those large white coins to which WASH
ington Irving gave the title of "Al-
might" afterwards disclaiming all
impious intent in its manufacture. when
the phrase became as widely circulated
as the token to which he applied it.
Divided only by the length of short
corridor of the Chestnut and Juniper
Street Temple of Mammon from the
rotunda ante-room, where the crowd of
hopeful or hopeless faced people hang
on the favor of the new Superintendent,
is small stone paved courtyard. open
as courtyards are to the air All around
the walls of Enclosure are ranged crates
of merchandise. The crates are pad
locked and made Of the stoutest of wire
netting. This, their central position
and the guard by day and night
are the only protection of the
crates of merchandise. From tho
action of the elements they have and
need no more defense than piles of pig
iron. Yet in each of the half dozen
crates were piled one day last week,
when a Press artist and reporter saw
seventy-five blocks of dull colored metal
containing each the mighty potentially
$l,OOo-that is to say 859 375-l000
ounces of silver. Thus were $4,000
embryo dollars separated only by wire
netting from an artist aud a newspaper
man, and only by that and hallway
from crowd of Office seekers As the
visitors continued their Journey the
exigencies of the furnaces called for
more bullion. and the workmen set to
work wheeling it off on battered old
trucks as complacently as if the big
bricks were composed of the stuff that
bricks generally are composed of.
I'VE get it in shipments twice q
week. said Colonel Maurice, who, as
Oh eff Clerk Hickock said. could tell
more about the Mint than ANYBODY else
in it. Its about 999-1OO0 fine when.it
comes from Colorado, and enough
copper has to be added to make it 600
1000 fine" The copper had been added
by the meters in the hot room to the left
OF the courtyard, into which the Colonel
led the way. and in white-heated ladies
they were dipping the molten money
out of the furnaces and pouring it into
the ingot moulds. Six great furnaces
were in operation. Three of these are
normally gold meters, but the call for
silver has kept them busy these last
weeks at producing the much abused
Bland dollars.
1--WE are melting only clippings now,"
said one of the bare armed artisans
before the row of glowing furnaces.
"WeM be after the bricks later"
'How many melts arc you runnings"
asked Colonel Maurice.
''Fifty-four day." was the answer.
Each melt is Of 3, 900 ounces, so that
the fifty-fou shows total OF 162. 900
ounces or 1880 pounds of silver dsy,
taking its start into circulation via the
furnaces. 1t was curious scene in the
melting room. Like all the rooms in
the Mint. it was, low and heavy. The
walls were Sblackened with SCOT and
CRIME and the furnaces looked well
worn and primitive There is this same
air about all the INT machinery Des-
pite its perfection there Is an absence
OF decoration and jimcrackery about it
which makes it all look old fashioned
and in measure foreign. Yankee no.
tons of gay paint and gliding are every
where absent. Taken. with the proven
durability of all the Mint machines this
appearance gives one certain con-
tempt for the gingerbread work found
on tho exterior of machinery in other
and less important establishments 1t
seems proper that the appliances which
are entrusted with the execution of the
most necessary il not the highest finc-
ton of great Government should have
a sober air about them, and when one
is told that the great engine which runs
all the works has never needed repairs
since it was built by Kensington arti-
nicer quarter Of a century ago, one. is
anclined to think that the attention
which might have been given to the or
namentation of the monster has gone
into the construction which enables it to
work through the lives of generation
OF men without hitch or stumble in its
undev ating course.
Assistant Meter Culp. giant whom
the visitors saw in the melting, room.
should, by reason of his massive size, be
associated with the care of the big engine,
AS it is. his duty is to snatch each hot
as another artisan drops it from its ingot
mold and tong it into a cold wafer
bath, thereby raising a. continuous hiss,
ing which wraps the giants existence
in mystic cloud of siblation.
The feet of the visitors changed over
iron gratings at every step of their way
from the bullion court into the pepetra-
liza OF the Mint. Colonel Maurice ex-
planned, as he saw them looking down,
why the grating was there. THE bits
OF silver that fall through there he
said. Ito the cement floor on which the
grating rests amount, when swept up,
to the sum of 1925. 600 year. II the
grating wasn't there you'd carry quite
appreciate amount OF Government
property out on your boot heels"
Inc VlSlJors pasSeu uoWn INTO the
cellar on the first elevator erected in
Philadelphia Cellars must have come
higo when the Mint was built. for there
was remarkable economy in digging
it. 1t is not a common. ordinary fiat
cellar. but concave pit. When you
stand in the middle of it the floor runs
up hill so abruptly on both sides Of you
that you can see no higher than the
knees Of the man who is standing at the
door. Down these the bags Of coin are
piled like potatoes. The visitors, how
ever. did not come down TO see these, but
merely to examine into the topping ma
chine. whose operations on the gold
lids 1t tI,s mslfing-roorn had excited
~ esr osisy. Ikss csly sehsld "a
s. ssi.s::' :. .sI. e; "a ~.