The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-04-01

"Do you think that the coinage Of the
new dollars will at all increase the. circu-
lation of the silver itselfl"
mo. The circulation of silver coins
does not vary much. The only way to
get silver into circulation is to stop issu-
ing certificates in the one, two and i've
dollar denominations"
Down in the vaults of the mint at Phil
adelphia are silver bars which weigh in
the aggregate 49, 600 ounces. This
silver is from $685. to l 200 fne-that is,
so far as it can be made so, it is pure sill
yer. These bars are of different sizes.
None of them exceeds 200 ounces in
weight. The majority ranges between
800 and / 200 ounces. Some years ago sill
yer refiners used to bring in 2,000-ounce
bars. and not infrequently these heavy
bars broke the crucibles when they were
put in the furnace to be melted. There
fore, the director of the mint requested
the refiners not to cast bars of more than
], 200 ounces. One reason for the slight
imperfection that is found in bars OF sill
yer is the accumulation of dirt on and in
them-a slight accumulation, but un-
ayoidable. Another is the oxidation of
the surface of the silver bar. There are
other minor causes. theoretically, the sill
yer bars are without alloy. Theoretically
also. the silver dollars turned out by the
mint from a certain amount of bar-sllver
should represent the weight of that silver
plus the weight of one-ninth as much
copper silver of standard tneness con
tanning nine parts of silver and one part
OF copper. But in fact there is a great
waste of the precious metal as it goes
through the mint and the amount Of sill
yer which Uncle Sam gets back in dollars
is not the amount which he intrusts to the
melter of the mint. This waste varies
according to conditions. AT one time
more than twenty years ago., the waste
was so much above the average that the
Secretary of the Treasury had 1t lnyestl-
gated and the investigation proved that
the wastage was on a sliding scale which
could not be fixed and which depended
largely on chemical conditions which no
one could control. There is another
theory which differs from experience in
the handling of coin. The common under
standing is that one coin weighs as much
as another coin of the same de-
nomination when il is issued from the
mint. As a matter of fact, there is
constant variation in the weight Of stand
ard dollars. Moreover there is a varia-
ton in the fneness of standard dollars as
well as in different parts of the same dol
lar. So, while one part of dollar may
come I'D to the government standard or
even exceed il, another part may fall be-
low that standard. The variation IS not
large, but it is unavoidable Therefore,
when the assayer Of the mint wishes to
obtain the quality of certain ''melt," he
takes his samples from the melting pot
and not from the inFot But all of these
variations are so slight, comparatively,
that they are not of commercial impOr
lance. There is no discrepancy between
the coins which go out from the mint
which would warrant banker in refus-
ing to accept any one of them, because it
was below the standard. Certainly there
could be nothing above the standard to
excite the cupidity Of anyone. when the
silver dollar is worth, intrinsically, to-
day about Az cents.