Modern Industries and Commerce (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1897 Excerpt: ... Lesson XIX. Making Money. One can see millions of dollars in cash exhibited any day at the Treasury Department in Washington, but to see the money in process of manufacture is much more interesting. At the Treasury you can behold thousands of bags full of silver and gold. All you see, however, are the bags of coins. In the mint, on the contrary, --supposing that you are a favored visitor, --you may view the actual precious metal, walls of gold bricks, and pure silver. You will see a little bookcase behind a sort of cage, in which is stored about $17,000,000 worth of gold bricks. It is astonishing to note how little room so enormous an amount of wealth takes up. One gets a notion, from the sight, how it is that all the gold that has ever been dug out of the earth would not more than fill a room seventy-five feet cube. A gold brick of the shape of an ordinary brick for building purposes, and of about the same size, is worth $8,000. The weight of one such gold brick is astonishing. A part of the mint's business is to manufacture what are called "merchants' bars," for sale to jewelers, dentists, and others, including gold-leaf makers, who need for their trade pure metal. Such bars, whether of gold or silver, are made 999 fine; that is to say, 999 parts pure out of 1,000. How fine this quality is may be judged from the fact that our gold and silver pieces are only 900 fine, the remaining 100-1000 being copper. What is called."coin silver" is, therefore, only 9-10 pure. The mint derives its supplies of gold and silver mainly from mines. Such precious metals as it gets in this way come direct from the mines through the United States assay offices. Upon its receipt at the mint, the silver or the gold is separated, refined, melted, and molded into bricks. A good deal ...