Year: 1864

interesting description of the manner o
making government money, prepared BY
an Ohio ex-editor, now clerk In the
Treasury Department:


To obtain access to the printing bureau
requires pass from the Secretary of the
Treasury himself For obvious reasons.
it is privilege rarely granted, and never
except under the most thorough surveil-
lance. No lady not employed upon the
work is ever permitted, under any circum-
stances, to enter that part of the Depart
ment. If for no other reason, the crow
ded machinery would make it dangerous.


THE MACHINE SHOP


is the first room we enter. It is supplied
with forges, lathes, planes and drills capa-
BILE of doing all the repairing necessary
to be done to the machinery of the build
ing, and to facilitate the setting up and
working of such new machines as are de-
manded by our extensive paper circu!a-
ton. Compactness and utility has been
studied throughout this branch of the
Treasury Department.


THE PAPER MILL


though not as extensive as one for gener-
al manufacturing, is sufficient for all the
labor required in making the note print
ing paper. The engine used in this room
is great beauty, glittering with brass,
as highly polished and clean as the work
of watch, and running almost as quietly
and smoothly.


The manufacture of paper combining
the qualities of wear, and being splitless
and unphotographic, was much desired
desideratum. Accordingly it was resolv-
ed to make some experiments, which were
entrusted to DR.. Gym. He has produced
a paper firm as parchment, smooth as sat-
in, and of a combination of materials
known only to himself, and secured to the
exclusive use of the government. He
has introduced into it fibre which can
not be photographed without discoloring
the paper to which impressions may be
giving it the appearance of a
coarse, black spider web. Being mould
ed in the body of the paper it is impossi-
BILE to erase it, and it, must be great
preventative of counterfeiting by the pho
tographic process, which has latterly been
the most successful.


THE INK MILLS


are six in number, for making as many
colors. Each one is called four
horse power mill, though the whole six
are driven at the same time by an en-
gine which one could pick up with one
hand 1t not only turns these mills, but
at the same time runs three of Hoes cyl
inder presses. 1t was made in the ma
chine shop of the Department, and de-
rives its force from its great boiler capaci
ty. OF the manufacture of the ink but
little is to be said, for any one having
seen common paint shop, has the pro-
cess at once, and perhaps the only differ
ence is that here none but first quality
material is used


THE ENGRAVING ROOM
is of more interest than any we have yet
been in. Here science aud art are both
displayed to perfection. There is per-
haps no engraving SO fine and requiring
SO much time to execute as that on the
plates now being prepared for national
note printing. One, the size of bill, on
which the workman has been employed
almost a year, is a copy of one OF the
in the rotunda of the Capitol
The figures were of exquisite proportions,
and the water lines, though plain, ex-
delicate in their tracery.


With the single plate, as it comes from
the hands of the engraver, it would be
to do the printing required,
and as it is equally impossible to have a
number of plates engraved, it becomes ne
cessary to repeat them in another way,
this is done in the following manner
The engraving is done on plate OF steel
Just the size of the bill or bond, and the
cuttings are indentations. When finish
ed, the plate is hardened and taken to
transfer press where roller of soft
steel, just of circumference to take in
the size of the fiat plate, is rolled over it,
under heavy pressure, leaving the impress
sion on the roller in raised form. This
roller is in turn hardened, and then any
number of fat plates similar to the origi-
nal are prepared, and receive in like man
ner the impressions from this roller, and
become fac simIes of the plate engraved;
and we have reproduced in a few minutes
what it has taken months with chlsels
and eye glasses to make.


TIE PRINTING


is now done on the old fashioned engra-
ver's press, being nothing more than
simple iron roller covered with cloth and
paper to press the printing paper into the
iudentures, placed in strong frame and
turned back and forth by hand by spokes
placed in the end of the roller Two per-
sons work at each press, man and wo-
man, the former attending the plate, the
latter the paper. The plate is kept warm
while working, by gas heater. The
sheets when printed are each laid between
other sheets of thin brown paper to keep
them from blurring, and sent in hundreds
to the drying room The first process OF
bond printing is numbering the coupons
and tho don no,,,;pat;a,, with a ynliOW NOR