Daily Honolulu press. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1886, 1886-02-06
A DOLLAR In THE MINT
HOW THE SILVER BULLION IS TRANS
FORMED INTO GATHERING COIN.
Follow an Ingot- Between the Jaws OF
the Rollers The milling Machine
The steel DIgits of the
Coin Press.
Philadelphia Press.l

name with its suggestions of treasure
galleons and buccaneers, about all the
romance there is in the nomenclature Of
money 1t has in itself so worth of
silver prepared by the meter 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 experience before it is on its
way into dollar shape The first room in
the coiners department was full of ar
tisans rolling drawing cutting and mill.
ing the ingots.
u3wN AN IRON THROAT.
Through sheer force Is the first Of the
coners art exercised on the ingot That
which the visitors had followed was in
serted between the jaws of two huge rol.
lers aud slowly went through q process oil
deglutition down an iron throat Twelve
times it has to go through this ordeal, the
pressure being increased by the narrow
ing of the space through which the ingot
passed by a sixteenth of an inch each
time 1t is then twice its former length
and so reduced in this press that when
split in the middle the two bars which are
produced are just the thickness of dol
lar The rolling process imparts heat
to the metal which necessitates the use of
handling it aud britteness to overcome
which another trip TO the furnace is re-
quired.
some coiner of imperial Rome was
doubtless a long time at hammering out
Judas thirty pieces Of silver. The ma
chine which was working across the room
from the rollers cut out in the minute
which the visitors looked at 1t just eight
times as many pieces as Judas sold his
lord for--al0. all told-using up in the
process about ten bars of metal which
had been heated in furnace and
Strengthened in drawing machine before
they reached the cutter.
THE MfLLf-G MACHINE.
ats like girl cutting out cookies,
said Col Maurice as he watched the big
machine clanking silver like a greedy
boy. Each bar of cuttings was bent in
three folds by workman as the machine
finished with it and slowed in a box for
return to the meters Then the milling
machine was set whirling 1t is thick
circular plate of Steel with grooyed edges
revolving in d circular hoop of steel with
its inside edges also grooyed. A grist of
the metal disks from the cutter was
dropped into tube, of which
the bottom was the space between
the whirling and the stationary
grooves Then the milling machine began
scattering the disks from a slit in its Cir
cular side. The disks, when they came
out, had a raised edge on each side They
began to look like dollars Very dull and
zinclike looking dollars they were, how.
ever The visitors followed them into an
adjoin ng room, where they were plunged
into an acid bath AND then placed in
revolving wire radle with quantity of
hot sawdust There they were left, turn
ingbrighier and more dollar like every
moment
The djusting-room, where the tour
ka NM I'M Of
a Dorcas society, for at least score of
women matrnnly- looking for the most
part sat and stitched in knots of three and
four. talking meantime in low tones
They are sewing coin bags, said Col
Maurice in explanation.
A sIxrI-roN PRESS.
But of ali the flying fingers in the busy
room the most sentient and human
seemed the steel digits of the coin press
1t seemed a satire of humanity to one
watching the workings of this machine
that it should do so much and the mortal
who ruled it should do so little All the
share the quiet lady-like looking woman
who sal before the press had in its opera.
lion was in placing pile after pile of
bright silver moons it its tube Then at
every three-q quarters of second the two
steel fingers of the machine would catch
the bottom neon OF the pile, pilot it on
its course to it's place between the dies and
leave it there Then, with pressure of
sixty tons eyerted, every three,quartersS of
second the head of Liberty above came
down on the eagle beneath and the silver
moons between received their i'm ress
The silver moons which drop from the
coin press are dollars now. Before they
reached the coin press the conscience of
the treasury departing it had to decide
upon their claim to be dollars The con
science of the treasury department is the
weighing machine. The visitors saw the
thing draw into its recesses coin. They
saw 1t hold it there for seven seconds
while it weighed it and then slide it into
one of the TWO middle troughs of a row of
four Ii the conscience had found the
coin too light. it would have left 1t re.
bukingly in the trough at the left end of
the row. If it had found it too heavy
it would have left it in the right
hand trough. The conscience with
its tin tubes does this 400 times min
ute all day long, when it is running
full tilt The conscience was made
in Austria Mercy towards an improp-
erly constituted dollar enters into its com.
position TO the extent of ust one grain
and half the amount BY which the law
allows dollar to vary. More than this
it is impossible to describe the conscience.
Filled on a table at the far end of the
room the visitors saw heaps of dollars
waiting TO be marsilaed forth in weighty
columns 10 their tremendous work in the
world -Four ordinary mortals-a man
and three wonlen-stood there with me
cbanical fingers busy among those dor
mant forces.
They can count The output of $100 900
a day, said o. Maurice mo, it doesn't
require special knack, only experience.
cocoanut ceIulose.
Chicago Tines