which a few seconds of the sulphuric solution accomplishes with the blank of the coin. They emerge from their bath in every sense white as snow.
Drying blanks.
The blanks are, of course, wet, and before they can assume the full honours of the complete coin they have to be dried. How is this done? By blowing on them with a bellows? By wiping each blank separately with a cloth? By placing them in front of a fire or even in the oven again? No. They are simply emptied into a revolving box containing beechwood sawdust. A turn about in this, and they and the sawdust are emptied into a sieve, from which the sawdust escapes with a little shaking. The sawdust is dried on a hot slab or bench, and is used. again; the blanks are ready for the Press or Die room.
In the illustration of this room the man is standing with a handful of blanks feeding a small tube or shoot, from which they drop on to a sliding plate and are conveyed into a collar, as it is called. We see the piece a blank for the last time. Once in the collar, if the machinery is in motion, nothing can save that smooth-faced blank from becoming, in appearance at least, a coin of the realm. The blank rests on a die and beneath a die. The latter descends with precision and force, and the blank finds itself for an instant in a grip more powerful than miser ever gave his hoard. It would, if it could, spread itself out to the thinnest possible substance. But as it seeks to escape under the pressure its edge comes in contact with the sides of the collar. These are milled or lettered, and whatever they contain appears on the coin. It is not generally known that the object of this milling or lettering is to prevent the clipping or debasement of the money. In Queen Elizabeth's time, and on to the reign of William III.—during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—the operations of the clippers were very serious. Men made fortunes by paring a small piece from every coin in their possession, and even the death penalty failed to check the evil. A year or two before the beginning of the eighteenth century a mill, worked by horses, was started in the Tower of London to replace the old system of making money by the hand-wielded hammer. The edge of the coin was made to bear an inscription, and the operations of the clipper were rendered practically impossible. Even today offences in connection with the currency are numerous. In 1889 110 persons were convicted out of 194 charged with issuing counterfeit coins, having them in their possession, or actually making them. The more ingenious the device on the coin produced by the Imperial mint, the less likely is a counterfeit to pass muster for long.
The coin leaves the Press-room complete, and has to pass only one other ordeal, that, namely, of the Weighing-room. Here it is placed on a wonderful automatic balance. If it is too light it falls into a drawer on one side, if correct into a drawer in the centre, if too heavy into a drawer on the other side. The average of coins which are either too heavy or too light, and consequently have to be returned to the melting pot, is, owing to the smallness of the "remedy" or margin of weight allowed, as much as 13 per cent.
There are thirty of these little machines employed, and their workmanship may be judged by the fact that each one costs £300. Bronze coins are not subjected to this severe test, but are weighed in bulk in a huge scale. Every year there is what is called "The Trial of the Pyx"—the
