Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 9.djvu/412

 318 OK THE ASSAY MARKS OX GOLD AXD SILVER PLATE. This I have been incliued to consider a Scotch mark ; it is usually accompanied by some other mark, an emblem, -which is repeated three times. For a very long period jDlate has not been marked anywhere but at Edinburgh. Glasgow was, however, also made an assay town by the 59th George III., by which the assay offices are now regulated. Scotch plate is now indicated by the mark of a thistle. A castle dis- tinguishes that made at Edinburgh, and the arms of Glasgow, a tree on a mount with a salmon in fess over the trunk, mark the plate made there. With regard to the marks on Irish plate, a full account of these, together with a copy of the charter of the Goldsmiths' Company of Dubhn, is given in the work before alluded to, called " The Assay of Gold and Silver Wares ;" a brief notice here will therefore suffice. The Goldsmiths' Company of Dublin was incorporated by a charter from Charles I., dated 1638 ; it gives the Company the power to assay gold and silver wares, and appoints for a mark, a harp crowned, to be stamped upon them. In 1729, 3rd George II., the Irish Parhament enacted that all articles of gold and silver should be assayed at Dublin, by the Assay Master appointed by the Company of Goldsmiths, fixed the standard of gold at 22 carats, and silver at 11 oz. 2 dwts., and ordered that the articles should be marked with the marks then used. In 1783, the 23rd and 2-4th George III. repealed that statute as far as gold was concerned, and fixed three standards for gold, of 22, 20, and 18 carats. All articles of 22 carat gold, were to be marked at the Assay Office, Dublin, ■with the maker's mark ; consisting of the first letter of his christian and surname, and the harp crowned : and at the Assay Office at Kew Geneva, just then estabhshed, with the harp crowned, having a bar across its strings : 20 carat gold at Dublin with the maker's mark and a plume of three feathers ; and at New Geneva, with a plume of two feathers ; and 18 carat gold in Dubhn, with a unicorn's head ; and at New Geneva, with a unicorn's head, with a collar round his neck. It further ordered, that the punches were so constructed that the impression should be indented, instead of being in relief, so as to prevent its being defaced. New Geneva is a village near Waterford, where in 1783, a colony of foreign protestants was established after some persecution on the Continent. !Many Swiss were among them, especially Gencvesc, whence the name ; they exercised