DEAR SIR,_The Royal Mint

Your success in obviating the difficulty of coining gold containing

a minute portion of antimony or arsenic is a benefit to this

department, which calls for my most grateful thanks. In recognition

of your services I have the pleasure, with the approbation of the

Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Treasury, to present to you the

sum of one hundred pounds, for which cheque is enclosed.

I have the honour to be,

Dear Sir,

Most faithfully yours,

THO. GRAHAM.

George F. Ansell, Esq.

]

I do not accept the conclusion arrived at by Mr. Graham, for my

experiments showed clearly that this peculiar gold could not be heated

even to a black heat after coining without becoming absolutely brittle

under all circumstances. Notwithstanding the experience gained by

the coining of this brittle gold, the annealing of coined money was

effected by the present authorities at the Royal Mint in 1868, when

a vast amount of brittle gold was coined, of which considerably more

than half a million sterling in coined pieces were annealed and plunged

into cold water, just as was done in 1859, and with precisely similar

effects; that is, the production of brittle pieces, as soft as lead

and perfectly rotten. These pieces were sent to the Bank of England,

where they have given great dissatisfaction. They should have been

melted, as were those of 1859. I, being an officer of the Mint at the

time, offered to coin this gold as I had coined that in 1859; my offer

was declined, and a vast mass of very brittle coin was, in addition

to that of which I have spoken as having been annealed after coining,

issued to the public, besides many thousands of ounces uncoined having

been returned to the Bank of England by the Mint authorities, who found

themselves unable to coin it; these facts being, as I think, little to

the credit of the official ability.

The Right Honourable Lord Kinnaird, with a view to relieve the Mint

authorities, suggested, on the 22nd of March last, from his place in

the House of Lords, a proviso “that such gold”—specified in clause 8

of the Coinage Bill then under discussion—“should be free from lead,

antimony, and other substances, so as to admit of its being coined

without previous refining.” The Government promised to consider this

suggestion, and, after consideration, rejected it, although the right

thus proposed to be established has always been claimed by the Mint but

disputed by the Bank of England. His lordship then drew the attention

of the House of Lords to the issue of the brittle sovereigns, to which

I have alluded, as having given so much dissatisfaction at the Bank,

and on the 25th of March, the following letter appeared in the _Times_:—

“THE COINAGE BILL DEBATE.

“_To the Editor of the Times._

“SIR,—In your full and very correct report of what I

stated in the House last night on the Coinage Bill, there is an

error which I think must have occurred in the printing—‘sweat’

should be ‘sweep.’ I think what I said in regard to the £640,000

sent by the Mint to the Bank would have been clearer if I had

added—‘Its brittleness was increased by being annealed after

coining.’

“Your obedient servant,

“KINNAIRD.

“50, Avenue Road, Regent’s Park,

“March 23rd.”

Attention being thus forcibly drawn to a great evil, the Marquess of

Lansdowne, in reply to Lord Kinnaird’s remarks on the appointment of

Mr. Roberts, stated that “Mr. Roberts was a very eminent chemist, who

had proved his capabilities by devising a system for depriving gold of

the obnoxious properties on which the noble lord recently commented.”

Lord Kinnaird has already pointed out that this process, which the

eminent Mr. Roberts has “devised,” was discovered by Dr. Percy, and

that the process was published by that gentleman so long since as 1848.

Dr. Percy conceived the elegant idea that if a stream of chlorine gas

were passed over an ore containing gold, the chlorine would combine

with the gold and dissolve it out from its matrix, as water would do

sugar. This it does with complete success, forming a chloride of gold

which is readily soluble in water, and from which it can be obtained

with the utmost ease.

With regard to the invention of the process for which Lord Lansdowne

gave Mr. Roberts credit, the facts of the case stand as follows. Dr.

Percy discovered that by means of chlorine gas he could separate gold

from its ores. He described his invention in the Transactions of the

British Association in 1848, and in the Philosophical Transactions

in 1850. Plattner carried it out practically about 1852 in Silesia,

and I, in January, 1856, conducted a long series of experiments upon

it for the Chancellorsville Gold Mining Company. The exact process

now proposed or “devised” by Mr. Roberts was patented by Mr. Miller,

the present assayer to the Sydney Mint, in 1867—No. 1767. When Lord

Lansdowne finds himself thus deceived, he will probably in future think

it necessary to examine statements suggested to him before making them

from his place in the House of Lords.

This _new_ process consists in forcing chlorine gas through melted

gold, and it is assumed that the chlorine will carry off the silver,

lead, antimony, tin, and arsenic, which render the gold brittle. On the

face of the proposition, there are very grave reasons for believing

that it will fail if tried. This also is the deliberate opinion of the

most eminent metallurgical chemist of this or any other time; indeed,

it has been tried and found a failure. It has failed of its object, and

instead, attacks the gold, which, with the chlorine, will leave the

melting-pot and pass into the chimney, creating a use for the proposed

chimney chambers of Mr. Roberts.

Experience at the Mint is to the effect that the run of gold ingots

produced by the melting of worn and light coins culled from those in

circulation is found to be worse than standard by 1-500th, or two in

each thousand parts. There can be no doubt but that this is mainly

due to the fact of the loss of copper by the processes of annealing

and blanching. In actual practice extending over many millions, it is

found that 1,000,000 sovereign blanks lose 5,708 grains of copper:

now, since this copper is removed from the surface, it leaves a

sponge of pure gold coating that surface. Pure gold is very soft, and

rapidly wears away, so that when the coins from which 5,708 grains of

copper have been taken go into circulation, this film of gold, which

amounts to £555·62 on each million pieces, is removed by friction.

It will probably be argued that the copper being taken first and the

gold afterwards, leaves the coin of the same standard as the original

bars;[33] if, however, this proposition be examined, it will be seen

that the bars are assayed and found to be below standard 0·55562 on the

thousand coins; but the blanks obtained from the bars are, by annealing

and blanching,[34] brought to standard before they are coined, and

those coins assayed WHILE NEW are found to be standard by the jury

of goldsmiths at the trial of the pyx, because they retain this film

of gold; let them, however, go into circulation and lose their film

of gold, and they will be reduced to the original composition of the

bar; that is, worse than standard 0·55562 in the 1,000. The trial of

the pyx[35] is supposed to be a great protection to the people against

deterioration of the coinage. This opinion is not entertained by those

who have witnessed the whole operation, for then it is manifest that

the copper is sufficiently oxidised while melting to insure the alloy

containing enough gold to enable the jury to find it “Fine, 4 grains

on the pound,” or any other degree of fineness. There can be no doubt

that the jury should be composed of men knowing something practically

of assaying, and who would not hesitate to publish every detail of the

process adopted, stating specifically the amount of loss incurred by

melting the ingot produced from the selected coins. That the jury is

composed of honourable men—goldsmiths—is beyond doubt; but that these

goldsmiths should know how to assay is also an important matter, and

should be a _sine quâ non_. It would be well if some independent

member would move the House for a return of the assays by the Mint of

ingots produced from worn and light coin received from the Bank of

England.

[Footnote 33: See pages 48, 49.]

[Footnote 34: See pages 48, 49.]

[Footnote 35: See pages 166, 167.]

Having thus specifically stated in my previous editions the facts as

they exist of our coinage, I waited a refutation of my statement.

I was informed that the Bank of England had made careful assays,

and proved that the worn gold coin was not below the standard of

fineness. I was also informed that bullion merchants in London had

obtained newly-coined sovereigns, and by means of a scratch-brush had

removed the film of pure gold of which I spoke, and upon a re-assay no

difference had been detected. My reply was, and continues to be, the

assays were either made by bunglers or were carelessly made, while with

regard to the statement related _for_ the Bank of England, I simply

refused credence because in my own knowledge that Institution has been

greatly puzzled for years as to the reason of the lower assay, and it

was myself who pointed out the cause to Mr. Thomas Graham on the 4th

January, 1860. That gentleman mentioned my suggestion to the then chief

cashier, who preferred to think “it was due to the base coins which

found their way into the Bank.” I said then as I think now—“I believe

the officers of the Bank of England are far too sharp to take one base

coin in five hundred.” This reply settled the discussion.

That the light and worn coin is habitually below the standard is

conclusively proved by the fact that if any man should take, as the

great Duke of Wellington did, a thousand sovereigns to a jeweller’s to

be made into plate—and his Grace took coined money that he might be

sure to have plate of the fineness of 22 carats, or standard gold—he

would find, as the duke found to his cost, the plate “cut” at the

Goldsmiths’ Hall as being below standard. That the case still exists is

so well acknowledged by jewellers that they invariably add “fine gold”

when they melt coin for plate which is to be stamped with the Hall mark.

“Monetarius,” who wrote to the _Times_ from Malvern—where, singularly,

Mr. Thomas Graham was then residing—and Sir John Herschel, quoted in

their letters to the _Times_ the report of a Belgian chemist to prove

that our coinage is invariably standard. Such authorities seemed to

quiet public opinion; but Lord Kinnaird moved on two occasions in

the House of Lords for the “Returns of assays by the Mint of ingots

produced from worn and light coin received at the Mint from the Bank of

England.” The Government firmly refused these returns on the alleged

ground that they were “too bulky;” Lord Kinnaird, however, explained

the true cause of the refusal when he said that these returns would

conclusively prove that the gold coinage, when worn, is habitually

below the standard, as is also shown by Mr. Ernest Seyd in his letter

of the 20th, inserted in the _Times_ of the 21st August, 1869:—

“... The British public are under the impression that

English sovereigns stand highest as far as correctness in

quality is concerned. In reality, the British gold coin

falls much more below its standard fineness than French,

American, and Russian coin.... But the best proof of the

greater inferiority of the British gold coin is given by

the action of the Bank of England. The Bank of England

cuts light gold coin, and so renders it unfit for further

circulation. The holder of such coin thus loses, in the

first place, the value of the gold worn away by abrasion,

and the cut sovereigns are handed back to him as being now

only bullion (the loss so far amounts to from 1_d._

to 4_d._ per sovereign); the bullion now remaining is

the metal of which the coin had been made, presumably at

the rate of 77_s._ 10½_d._ per ounce, and worth

that much, or, at the Bank rate for buying gold, at least

77_s._ 9_d._ per ounce. Yet the Bank of England

will not give more than 77_s._ 6½_d._ for it.

Worth at Mint price, 934½_d._, the Bank pays but

930½_d._ per ounce—a deduction of 0·43 per cent.”

_I_ need not express an opinion upon such a case so stated; but I can

quote one of far higher value, for Mr. J. G. Hubbard, who is a profound

authority, says, in his letter in the _Times_ of September 4th, 1869:—

“This inaccuracy of our Mint assays was pointed out by Mr.

Seyd in his intelligent and well-informed letter of the

20th ult., and I can corroborate his observations by my own

experience of sovereigns sent to Russia, where the Mint,

more exact than our own, ranked sovereigns at fully ⅛ carat

grain worse than standard.”

Let us now see what steps are taken by the authorities, and then judge

of their motive for introducing a reform so greatly needed, and which

would never have been attacked had not I unceasingly urged it since

1860. In his Report on European Mints, Mr. C. W. Fremantle says:—

“I have therefore received with much satisfaction the

expression of Mr. Roberts’s opinion that the process

of blanching may, as far as gold coin is concerned,

be discontinued without detriment to the appearance

of the coin. _It is this process which leads to the

deterioration of standard found to exist in gold which has

been for some length of time in circulation_, and _in

consequence_ of their Lordships’ decision that light

gold coin shall FOR THE FUTURE BE RECEIVED BACK BY

THE MINT FOR RECOINAGE, the question becomes at this

moment one of PECULIAR IMPORTANCE.”

I have emphasized some of the passages as showing that this decision

is very like that of the unjust judge—not so much from conviction of

right as from the necessity of the case. I do not charge the Mint with

yielding to importunity; but being made to bear the loss, they are

willing to amend that which they _now_ openly admit to have been a

wrong. Why is the opinion of Mr. Roberts quoted? why not some of the

great officials at the Mint? Silence on this head is significant. Mr.

Roberts will hardly desire to claim a discovery which he found in my

last book, for he, too, bought one of the first copies which were sold.

That I may not appear to be claiming that which is not my own, I quote

the words from Mr. Roberts’s report:—

“It is evident that bars slightly below standard may be

allowed to pass to the subsequent operations of coining,

on the assumption, justified by calculation, that the

blanching would be attended with a sufficient elevation of

standard to bring the coins within the limits of fineness

prescribed by law. The _film of soft pure metal_,

however, _is removed by wear_; and the coins, _when

remelted, will consequently be found to be below standard

fineness_.

“This is a question of some importance NOW that

the Mint has undertaken the operation of re-coining light

pieces, and I would recommend, therefore, that the process

of blanching gold coin should be altogether abolished.”

The italics are my own, and if the words so pointed out be read with

reference to those I have persistently used, there can be but one

conclusion, Mr. Roberts having had but a few months’ experience in the

Mint, notwithstanding Mr. Fremantle’s reliance on his judgment.

As regards the trial of the pyx, useless and mischievously deceptive as

it is shown to be, the Act of Parliament, 33 Victoria, cap. 10, makes

it imperative to give this excuse for a dinner at the Goldsmiths’ Hall

at least once a year. Had the Government assented to the proposition of

Lord Kinnaird, and nominated the Professor of Metallurgy for the time

being in the Royal School of Mines, one of their own officers, and who

at present is the most distinguished of metallurgists, foreman of the

jury, the country could have relied upon the verdict now given honestly

enough; but upon inadequate knowledge, indeed, if the reader will refer

to pages 10-12, it will become clear that so delicate a process as

assaying should be watched by those who can appreciate its refinements,

or its results can possess no judicial value.

I attended the trial of the pyx, which was held on the 17th July,

1860, with an especial view to, and an avowed intention of, publishing

details of the operation. With a desire to further this object Mr. W.

H. Barton, the then Deputy-Master, gave me the following particulars,

and I, for myself, observed that the coin when melted was placed in an

open crucible, without flux, and for part of the time without a cover:

the ingot produced was of a GOOD BLACK colour from the oxidation of the

copper. The objections to such a melting can hardly be exaggerated, and

I am of opinion that however fairly selected—and they were honestly

taken—1·310 ounces is not a sufficient bulk on which to form an opinion

as to the purity of £24,654,849 of gold coin.

+------+---------------+--------------------+--------------+

| | | | |

+------+---------------+--------------------+--------------+

| | | £ _s. d._ | Ounces. |

| |HERSCHEL, BART.| 2,977,190 12 2 | 1052·200 |

| |ESQ. |24,654,849 0 9¼ | 8300·087 |

+------+---------------+--------------------+--------------+

| |HERSCHEL, BART.| 100,450 7 0 | 121·899 |

| |ESQ. | 2,331,666 19 6 | 2811·543 |

+------+---------------+--------------------+--------------+

+------+---------------+--------------+-------------+---------------+

+------+---------------+--------------+-------------+---------------+

| |HERSCHEL, BART.| 9·116 | 0·020 | 0·766 |

| |ESQ. | 51·500 | 0·077 | 1·310 |

+------+---------------+--------------+-------------+---------------+

| |HERSCHEL, BART.| 3·137 | 0·046 | 1·287 |

| |ESQ. | 67·881 | 0·652 | 1·781 |

+------+---------------+--------------+-------------+---------------+

The authorities of the Mint, having assented to part of my proposition,

have yet stopped half way, and blindly considering that the blanching

_alone_ was the cause of loss to and fictitious value of the coinage,

they will find that their loss is greater now than it was when they

unwisely permitted blanching. I do not point out to them the reason

why—that is now their business; but I confess that I am a little

amazed at Mr. Roberts’s recommendation—one that was given up by the

moneyers before he was born, yet now gravely made by that gentleman in

these words, “I should prefer that in order to prevent needless wear

to the dies, the blanks should be annealed, after every trace of oil

has been removed by washing with the aid of alkali, the utmost care

being taken to avoid oxidation by exposure to air.” One seems to see

Mr. Roberts in the presence of men who would dwell on his instructions

as would a soldier on those of his general, directing the filling of a

copper tube with gold blanks, previously divested of “oil by alkali,”

so as to leave a film of lime soap neatly protecting their surface, and

covering them with powdered charcoal. The tube so filled will be duly

placed in the furnace, duly heated, and duly plunged into the cistern

of cold water by the foreman, who, having taken an insurance ticket

from the Accidental Death Company, feels quite safe, when, suddenly,

a mass of copper and some pounds weight of gold blanks occupy the

space from which it is hoped his head may have retired in time. Quite

seriously, I have seen the cap of a tube blown suddenly off, and the

blanks projected from the tube so plunged into water—from the same

cause that bursts a kitchen boiler when cold water is admitted to one

already red hot—with such violence as would certainly kill a man if he

chanced to be in the line of fire. Do they not at the Mint understand

the true cause of loss? An officer who tells his men to “go and do,”

is not so likely to effect his object as if he were to show them “how

to do” the work required of them; neither “bullying” nor making the

men pay for losses will stop those losses of bullion. Knowledge alone

is power. Knowledge alone can direct. Knowledge alone is required in

the Royal Mint. There are plenty of men there who are most desirous to

carry out any instructions; but, if the bugle give an uncertain sound,

who can obey?

The effect of the annealing having been thus dwelt upon and explained,

I will continue the description of the subsequent operations, stating

what was formerly done and what had better be recurred to till

experience is gained by those who are entrusted with the management of

the Mint. After about three minutes’ boiling in dilute sulphuric acid,

the blanks in their colander were washed under a stream of cold water,

to remove the sulphate of copper and the sulphuric acid from their

surfaces, otherwise these substances would deface the dies used for

coining, as well as give the coin a dirty appearance. From the washing

they were taken to a sieve of sawdust, A, Fig. 16, into which they

were thrown to be dried by friction with the hand. A revolving drum

of brass lined with wood has lately been introduced for this purpose.

The objections to this form of apparatus appear to be that the blanks

get hardened by blows, through falling against each other, lose more

in weight, and become indented on the surface, thus producing a less

perfect coin. It had been wiser to have introduced a sieve with an

eccentric motion, which, if filled with sawdust, would shake that dust

between the blanks and dry each one perfectly, when, by the removal

of a false bottom, the sawdust could be allowed to sift itself from

the blanks by one or two turns of the sieve, and the latter would be

as soft as they invariably were before the introduction of the brass

drum. This would be a matter of importance if, as is to be hoped,

the authorities are induced to abolish the process of annealing and

blanching, for then it would still be necessary to remove the film of

oil which is left on the blanks in the cutting-out process, and this

could be done more quickly and effectively in the proposed sieve than

by _any other process_. The sawdust absorbs the water from the surface

of the blanks just as would a piece of sponge; but the surface is not

all, for it is found that by the removal of the copper the gold on the

face of the blank has been brought almost into the condition known as

_frosted_; it is, in fact, to a small extent, honey-combed. The gold

represents the comb, and the copper the honey, but as the copper is

removed, water takes its place, and has to be dislodged from these

interstices by heat. The blanks, having been partially dried in the

sieve A, are put into the tray B, and from this they were shot into

the colander oven C, which was closed, and then thrust into the heated

chamber D, and twisted gently round and round at intervals during ten

minutes. The blanks were then turned out into a sieve E, by which any

particles of dust were separated; the blanks were finally, by the aid

of the tray B, placed in a bag. The sawdust fell from the sieve A on

to a plate of iron heated by the furnace E, by which it was dried, and

became ready for another operation. The chamber D was heated by a small

furnace beneath it.

[Illustration: Fig. 16.—Drying Room.]

[Illustration: BOULTON’S SCREW-COINING PRESS.