The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1885-12-17

into the construction which enables it to
work through the lives of a generation
OF men without hitch or stumble in it's
undertaking course.
Assistant Melter Culp, giant whom
the visitors saw in the melting, room,
should, by reason of his massive size, be
associated with the care ofthe 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 water
bath, thereby raising continuous hiss
ing which wraps the giants existence
In mystic cloud of sibilation.
The feetsof the visitors elanged over
iron gratings at every step of their way
from the bullion court into the penetra-
Tia 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, ''to the cement floor on which the
grating rests amount, when swept up,
to the sum of $4,000 year. If the
grating wasn't there you'd carry quite
appreciable amount of Government
property out On your boot heels"
The visitors passed down into the
cellar on the first elevator erected in
Philadelphia. Cellars must have cone
high when The Mint was built, for there
was remarkable economy in digging
1t. 1t is not common, ordinary flat
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 notcome down tosee these, but
merely to examine into the topping ma
chine, whose operations on the gold
side of the nelting-roo had excited
their curiosity. They only beheld an
S00-pouud tlywheel making only few
hundred revolutions minute and send
ing a shaft at q still slower rate of
speed up into the flooring. Then they
reascended and reinvestigated the top
ping machine. 1t is the most sullen,
morose. malevolent looking bit of
enginery ever looked at. Perhaps it is
its resemblance to the guillotine which
makes it. lookso 1t is@sa straight,
heavy steel shaft running up from the
flooring and constantly bobbing up
and down with reluctant sort of mo-
ton. There is square hole in the up
per end of it, and in the upper side of
the hole is knife. This bobs solemnly
up and down past stationary bench in
which is another knife. A workman put.
the end OF an ingot half an inch thick
into the space between them as the bob
bing knife went up. Down it came, bit
off the half-inch of precious metal as
knife cuts cheese, and spat it into the
iron basket underneath. The move
ment is very slow. 1t does not strike
one as being very forcible. It is simply
awfully relentless. with look of
grim relish for an eternity Of morose
bobbing and biting. The workman fed
his sulky pet various tid-bits of
precious metal, and talked about its
achievements. 1t would bite off, he
said, all its Jaws could hold. that is to
say, two inches OF cold metal, without
need of purchase. or momentum but
simply by that irresistible dragging
force from the fiywheel. 1t chewed off
the top of another workman finger,
one time, he said. and before the artist
left he stuck the end of the pencil which
sketched the topping machine into its
jaws, and had that chewed off. too.
The nse of the machine is to cut the
ends of the ingots off straight when
they come wedge shaped from the
moulds.
The visitors followed an ingot into
the coiners' department. The ingot has
IN It's name, with its suggestions of
treasure galleons and buccaneers, about
all the romance there is in the nomen-
clature of money. 1t has in itself fifty
dollars worth of silver prepared by the
melter for the coiner's use, the shape
OF bar twelve inches long, two inches
wide and half an inch thick. 1t has
rapid. varied and rather trying experi4
enee before it is on it's ways into dollar
shape The first room in the, coiners'
department was ful1s of artisans rolling,
drawing, cutting and milling the ingots.
Through sheer force is the. first of the
coiner's art exercised on the ingot.
That which sthe visitors had followed
was inserted between the Jaws of two
huge rollers and slowly went through a
process of sdeglutition down an iron
throat. Twelve times it has to 90
through this ordeal, the pressure being
increased BY the narrowing of the space
! through which the ingot passes bya
sixteenth of an inch each time. It is
then twice its former length and SO re-
duced in this press that when split in
the middle the two bars which are pro-
duced are just the thickness of a dollar.
The, rolling process imparts d heat to
the metal which necessitates the use of
handling it, and a brittleness to over.
come which another trip to the furnace
is required.
= Some eoinerg of imperial Rome was
doubtless d long time athammering out
Judas thirty pieces Of silver The
machine which was working across the
room from the rellens. cut out In the
minute which the visitors looked at it
Just eight timesaas many pieces as
Judas sold his Lord for-tWo hundred
and forty. all told A-iising up in the
process about ten bars of metal which
had been heated in a furnace and
Strengthened gin a drawing machine