The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1896-11-17
NEW KIND OF BNNIE
Some Experiments to Be Made With
Aluminium,

Aluminium,
PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 6.-Some i'm
portant experiments are being made at
the Philadelphia mint. Metals and
alloys heretofore untried for the pur-
pose will be tested and stamped into
token coins. Their availability as sub
stitutes for the alloys of which the
minor coins-nickels and cents-are
now made will be ascertained and
samples submitted to Congress.
OF all the countless possible alloys to
be obtained from copper, tin, nickel,
and aluminium in different Combina-
tiyns, perhaps fifteen or twenty may
be found fairly satisfactory. 1t is pos
sible that one or two of these may ad
vantageously be brought into use for
general coinage. No fault has been
found with the present q cent and
five-cent pieces. The experiments are
merely ordered to keep in touch with
the times, and to gain a knowledge of
resources. The Philadelphia mint,
while having no regular experimental
department., is well equipped to make
the tests.
Aluminium, which has never yet
found a place in the currency of any
nation, is to be worked up into trial
coins. 1t is Plso to be given a chance
in new alloys. Aluminium is a metal
OF which little he's been known until
recently, and it hcs been found useful
in 20 many ways that a sort of popular
idea prevails that it would be good for
coins. Chief among its advantages
would be it's very light weight. Cents
made of it could be readily distin
guished from coins of the came size by
this remarkable lightness alone.
DR.. D, K. futile, the chief ri finer at
the mint, who knows all about the
properties of metals, is somewhat skep
tical, however, as to whether aluminium
will come out Of the proposed tests
with flying colors. 1t is extremely
difficult to anneal, and when heated
will suddenly run like butter instead
Of become plastic. There would be
trouble in rolling it into the long strips
from which disks are cut preparatory
to stamping. OF course, it can be
worked, but not with sufficient ease
and rapidity to make it practicable for
coming on a large scale
Pure nickel has recently been coined
in Switzerland, but it has been found
just as difficult to handle as aluminium,
though for a different reason. Such
great heat is necessary to bring it into
condition for coinage that the opera
ton is slow and expensive. While
pure nickel coins might be satisfactory
made in the mints of Swi zerland. it
does not follow that the same would be
true at the Philadelphia mint, which is
called upon to turn out fifty times as
many five cent pieces as the minis Of
that country, and could not spare the
time to work over them.
The fve-cent coin now in use con-
tains only % per cent. of nickel, the
remaining Is per cent. being of copper.
Nickel, more than any other metal,
has the property of giving it's color to
an alloy. Even an alloy OF 80 per cent.
of copper and 10 per cent. of nickle
will be nearly white. TIE ADVANTAGE
Of using a greater proportion of nickIe
in the five cent piece is, therefore, not
apparent, especially as more than 25
per cent. of it makes the alloy refrac-
tory.
The experiments in the mint will in
clude different combinations of nickel,
copper and zinc, forming the alloys
known under the head of German sill