DESCRIPTION OF THE NEW COINING

PRESSES LATELY INTRODUCED INTO THE UNITED STATES MINT, PHILADELPHIA. BY FRANKLIN PEALE, ESQ. (From the Franklin Journal for November.) To the Committee of the Franklin Institute, on Publications.

Gentlemen,-After seven months of experience, it will not be considered prema ture, to send for publication, a brief notice of the Coining Press, a model of which I had the pleasure to exhibit and describe, at one of the Conversation Meetings at the Institute last year.

This press has been in operation since the 23rd of March, last, the period of the first coinage by steam in the Mint of the United States; and the results, which are more than satisfactory, have authorised us to proceed with the most perfect confidence in the formation of the presses for the branch Mints at New Orleans, and at Charlotte and Dahlonega, in North Carolina and Georgia; also, with the manufacture of others for the use of this Mint, all of which, it is probable, will be completed at an early period in the coming year.

The above design exhibits a side view of the medium-size press, intended to strike eagles, quarter dollars, and cents. Three grades have been adopted, corresponding in linear proportions to the numbers of nine and a half, seven and six, suited to all the denominations of our coin respectively.

The side view (fig. 1.) exhibits the general proportions and arrangements of parts, consisting of a shaft with a fast and loose pulley to receive motion by means of a strap from the moving power, whether water, steam, horse, or hand: the latter, of course, being least desirable, will only be used, when neither of the others is available. Upon this shaft is placed the fly wheel, the momentum of which, during one revolution at the rate of sixty per minute, is found, on trial, to be quite sufficient to overcome the resistance offered by the piece whilst subjected to the pressure of the dies. Upon the same shaft is the crank, which gives motion, through the pitman, to a lever and toggle-joint, the structure of which is exhibited in the left upper corner of the front view presented in figure 2.

The feeding of the blanks, or plan

chets, and their discharge after being struck, is performed by an excentric and set of levers, all combined in so simple a manner, as to be effectual, and not subject to derangement; as much so these parts as are visible in the two views, are faithfully exhibited; but it if impossible to describe them intelligibly without the aid of drawings of the separate parts; and, further, since the drawings were executed, changes have been made in the position and form of the excentric, by which the press is much improved. A general notice is all that is intended in the present communication.

The feeding tube is a vertical pipe to receive the blanks, in which they are placed by hand, and from which they are taken by the feeders; the latter are so arranged, that when a crooked, or otherwise faulty blank impedes the motion, (not an unfrequent occurrence in coining,) the whole is immediately released from action, and will not again operate until the impediment be removed.

A few familiar facts are added as evidences of the peculiar adaptation of the toggle-joint to coining, as proved by the operation of the press which is the subject of this notice.

1. The pressure acts with increasing force until the close of the operation, at which time its intensity is greatest, and it is always carried to the same extent.

2. No injury occurs from the absence of a blank from between the dies when the blow is given, an accident that results in the destruction, or great injury, to one, if not both of the dies, in presses of the ordinary construction.

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3. An immense saving of labour From trial, we have ascertained that a man, with one hand applied by means of a common winch handle, can eighty pieces per minute (the experiment was tried upon cents, which have a diameter of 11 inches). A boy, fourteen years of age, was able to coin sixty per minute, without any unusual exertion; and, lastly, it was impossible for the operator to tell, by the resistance offered to his exertions, whether the pieces were being coined or not.

It is by no means my wish to be considered the first who has applied the toggle-joint to the striking of coin. It is difficult to say to whom priority belongs; for presses on similar principles are in use

in more than one city in Germany, and their successful operation was witnessed at Carlesrhue, in the Grand Duchy of Baden. Particular advantage has also been derived from a careful examination of the coining presses of Monsieur Thonnellier, of Paris. It is just to observe, that none of these presses were perfectly satisfactory. I have, therefore, made my own distribution and proportion of parts, thrown off whatever was complex, and added such as were necessary to its perfection, particularly the arrangement for the disengagement of the feeders in case of the presence of defective pieces.

Our esteemed friend and fellow-citizen, Mr. M. W. Baldwin, several years since, commenced the construction of a press on similar principles. His talents and mechanical skill are amply sufficient for its completion; and it is to be regretted, therefore, that his numerous occupations have prevented the prosecution of the subject.

I take advantage of the present occasion, to make a few remarks on the application of steam power to coinage, as applied in the Royal Mint, on Towerhill, London, which is one of the greatest curiosities in mechanics that I have ever seen, exhibiting consummate skill and great resources, on the part of the inventor, who, if I am not misinformed, was Mr. Boulton, of Soho Works. For a series of years this machinery was kept rigidly secret; some even of the officers of the Mint not having the favour of seeing it accorded to them, and it might yet have remained so, if it were not for the advancement of liberal principles, which bid fair to keep pace with the rapid increase of mechanical ingenuity and skill.

The direct application of high steam to the screw press, would have answered every purpose, but still better the substitution of the toggle-joint for the screw has rendered all this ingenious complexity unnecessary; but mechanicians may make their own inferences from the following sketch.

A low-pressure engine is employed to create a vacuum in a large receiver, (in this case a misnomer,) by means of an air pump, which serves as a reservoir of power, through the agency of which, the pressure of the atmosphere is exerted as occasion requires, both for the blow and recoil of the screw press; the former pro

duced by a cylinder and piston, furnished with valves, one of which opens to the reservoir, and the other to the external air; the latter, by a cylinder and piston, constantly acting, but with less power than the former. The valves are moved by levers which are struck at a proper time by a plug frame of similar construction to those employed in the ancient atmospheric engine. The power is communicated to the screw by tumbling shafts, connecting rods, and levers, the construction and operation of which could not be rendered intelligible without full drawings for reference. More words would, perhaps, render this brief notice as mysterious as the contrivance of which it treats; I will, therefore, close, by adding that eight of these systems, attached to eight screw presses, constitute the coining power of the British Mint.

FURTHER REMARKS ON THE REPORT OF AND THE COMMITTEE ON THE ARTS PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN.

Sir, In a former communication (No. 696, p. 187), I ventured the remark, in reference to the Parliamentary Report on the Arts in connexion with Manufacture, that "the Committee seemed to have entirely lost their memory as to any fact creditable to the talents of their countrymen"-following up the observation with a few pretty striking proofs of the fact. On looking over the evidence on which the Report ought, at least, to have been founded, proofs of the same nature are to be found at every step 66 as plenty as blackberries"-so plentifully, indeed, that it becomes in some sort an amusement to detect the shifts to which the writer of the Report has been continually put, in contriving to omit all mention of British proficiency, and more especially of British superiority, and forcing forward every iota of testimony in favour of foreign pre-eminence, in order to justify the monstrous conclusion that the fine arts in England are in the lowest conceivable state of degradation, and particularly that the arts of design in connexion with manufacture, present, to use Milton's phrase, "in the lowest deep a lower deep The leading members of this illustrious Committee were evidently "all agog" to convict the artisans of England of every possible species of bad taste; and several at least of the wit

nesses seconded, with might and main, their patriotic endeavours. And with all this note of preparation, what does their bill of indictment amount to at last? Why, truly, its counts, after all, are so miserably few, and, few as they are, so many of them will not "hold water," as the lawyers have it, that the defendants may well think it hardly worth while to plead to them at the bar of public opinion. In fact, when the matter comes to be investigated, the evidence on which the prosecutors rely either flies so directly in their faces, or with a little sifting breaks down so completely, as to put them out of court at once and for ever, with "not a leg to stand upon!"

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The want of instruction experienced by our workmen in the arts," observe the Committee," is strongly adverted to by many witnesses. This deficiency is said to be particularly manifest in that branch of our industry which is commonly called the fancy trade; more especially in the silk trade; and most of all, probably, in the ribbon manufacture. Mr. Martin (the celebrated painter) complains of the want of correct design in the china trade; Mr. Papworth (an eminent architect), of its absence in the interior decorative architecture of our houses, and in furniture. Hence the adoption of the designs of the era of Louis XV. (commonly dignified with the name of Louis XIV.), a style inferior in taste, and easy of execu tion. To a similar want of enlightened information in art, Mr. Cockerel attributes the prevailing fashion for what is called Elizabethan architecture; a style which (whatever may be the occasional excellencies of its execution) is undoubtedly of spurious origin."

And this is the sum and substance of the Committee's charges, a true copy of the whole bill of indictment! Well may we exclaim, "Is this the mighty ocean, is this all?" But it would be in vain to look for more, and, few and frivolous as these charges are, they lay a much greater weight on the shoulders of "our workmen" than they ought to bear. Passing by, for the present, that regarding the silk manufacture, let us look a little into the grounds of the rest.

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China-painting" may be soon disposed of by referring to the evidence. Mr. Martin did testify that the art was now in a very low state;" but, at the same time, he gave a very good reason

why it should be so-" when I first came to London, it was just going out of fashion." This at once clears up the mystery; there was no want of "correct design" when correct design was well paid for "it was their knowledge of drawing, &c. that made Mr. Moss and Mr. Marsh so superior to others; but owing to the decline of china-painting, they were compelled to leave it; and it has since entirely gone to the ground." So that it was no fault of "our workmen" that china-painting declined, but of their patrons; it "went out of fashion," and, being out, the inducement to attain excellence in its practice, or even for those who had attained it to continue in it, was gone. And "workmen" might as well be blamed for their want of skill in boring wooden water-pipes as in this insignificant branch of the fine arts—always supposing Mr. Martin's evidence to be undeniably correct. But Mr. Martin's evidence was by no means all that came before the Committee on the subject, although no other is alluded to in the Report. Why? Because it was favourable to the British artisan! The Committee were so anxious to express their sorrow at the comparisons which the witnesses too frequently, if not uniformly, felt themselves compelled to draw" to the advantage of "our foreign rivals," that they could not find room for the slightest notice of the evidence of Mr. Batt, of the bronze and porcelain department at Howell and James's to the effect, that "in some branches of the porcelain manufacture the French are superior to us in design, in others inferior. In that description of porcelain which is of the same nature as the old Dresden china, ornamented with raised flowers, we are vastly superior to them, and a considerable quantity of such percelain is, I believe, annually exported to Paris, and considered by the French superior to their own." As a matter of course, also, while they devote a paragraph to the praise of the French, even for their close study of the living flower," they are mute as to the evidence of Mr. Factory-Inspector Howell, who found" our workmen" at Worcester painting flowers on china from nature. To suppose, for a moment, that they should deign to notice the same gentleman's testimony as to the attendance of the Worcester china-painters on the lec

tures of Mr. Constable, the R. A., would be ridiculous; and equally so to imagine that they should chronicle the unsavoury information (from the same quarter), that "there is an impression that the mannfacture at Worcester is improving," and that he saw 66 a very beautiful service making for the Pacha of Egypt." Evidence of improvement is only admissible when it refers to our foreign rivals.

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Now for Mr. Papworth, a gentleman of no great eminence in his profession at home, but who became a first-rater in Germany, when the King of Wirtemberg sent from the immediate neighbourhood of "the classic country of the arts" to find an architect capable of building him a palace, and could find none nearer than that abode of dulness, England! We need only turn to his evidence, to perceive at once that the Committee have grossly misrepresented its purport, and to find, that so far from attributing the prevalent defects in art to our workmen," he lays the fault at the door of that Legislature of which the Committee formed an unworthy fraction. "I think," he observes, "the defects in art, as applied to manufactures, chiefly arise from the want of (not instruction, but) protection, because there are a great number of clever artists in this country who would occasionally (were their works protected) model a tablet, a frieze, or some other work of art, and would cast and sell the work in such numbers as would produce remuneration to the artist." Not a word have we here to bear out the charge of the Committeebut plenty to invalidate it, and that, too, be it remembered, from the mouth of one of the witnesses specially put forward to bolster up their cause. It is just the

same with the next count:-" Hence," say the Committee (i. e. from the " want of instruction experienced by our workmen")" hence the adoption of the designs of the era of Louis XV." But what says the evidence of Mr. Papworth to which they refer? "The absence of protection has induced manufacturers to seek a style of ornament capable of being executed with facility by workmen unpossessed of theoretical knowledge, and without practical accuracy. This style has been fostered to a great extent, and erroneously termed that of Louis XIV." &c. &c. &c. Can any thing be more conclusive than this? Is any thing more

wanting, after a comparison of the conclusions of the Committee, as in this instance, with the very evidence from which they profess to be drawn, to show in all its deformity the anti-national animus which must have actuated the getters-up of the concern? That charge must, indeed, be a rotten one, the evidence in whose favour is quite sufficient to prove it without foundation; and desperate, indeed, must be the condition of those who are reduced to the barefaced juggle of adducing, in proof of their "want of instruction" theory, the testimony of a gentleman who, like Mr. Papworth, distinctly traces the evil to so thoroughly different a cause as the want of protection," and who, moreover, far from joining in the hue and cry against native talent in the arts, repeatedly bears witness not only to its existence, but its excellence!

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The next burden " our workmen❞ have to bear is a heavy one. "To a similar want of enlightened information in art, Mr. Cockerell attributes the prevailing fashion for what is called Elizabethan architecture." Indeed! then the natural inference to draw would be, that Mr. Cockerell had made a very ridiculous assertion, and, even if he had made it, it argues a considerable capacity of swallow on the part of the Committee that they could entertain, for a moment, so preposterous an idea as that the prevalence of the Elizabethan, or any other style of architecture, is to be attributed to the "want of enlightened information upon art" among "our workmen!!! Whether Mr. Cockerell or the Committee originated the notion is of no consequence-it was most probably the latter. -and the worthy architect perhaps little thought, when he was aiming a side-blow at the "want of enlightened information in art" displayed by the Houses of Lords and Cominons in adopting the Elizabethan style for the new Hall of Legislature, that it would be turned against a body which usually has so little occasion to dabble in architecture as the working mechanics of the country. Whoever has to answer for the absurdity, our workmen" require little to be said to defend them from this charge. The Elizabethan style is for the moment popular, and, of course, most of the architects of the day, and their patrons, think it ought to be so. Mr. Cockerell thinks other

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