Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/503

Rh MINT 481 whose functions were more limited, and were not hereditary. This office was only recently abolished. In the Middle Ages an important duty devolving on the officers of the mint was the collection of the seigniorage which was levied on the coining of money, not only for the purpose of covering the expenses of minting, but also as a source of revenue to the crown which the sovereign claimed by virtue of his prerogative. In former times the collection of the seigniorage was entrusted to the warden, who also superintended the manufacture of the coins, so far as to ensure the proper relations between the moneyers on the one hand and the state on the other. He does not appear, however, to have had any responsibility with regard to the fineness and weight of the coins. The king s assay master was specially charged with all matters relating to the accuracy of the standard. The officer next in rank to him was the comptroller, who presented annually to the barons of the exchequer a report of all the gold and silver money struck in the kingdom during the year. These reports, which were always written upon parchment, constitute the chief mint records. The king s clerk exercised a general superintendence and kept an account of all the mint transactions. As the work of the mint became more extensive and more complicated, other officers were added such as the surveyor of the meltings, surveyor of the money presses, and many others. The present arrangements with regard to the officers of the mint were made in 1870, when several important changes took place in the mint establishment. Up to that time there had been two controlling officers, the master, who in some instances was selected on account of distinguished scientific attainments (as in the cases of Sir John Herschel and Professor Graham), and the deputy master and comp troller. A careful inquiry, however, having led to the conclusion that the control of the mint might with advantage be concentrated in the hands of a single officer of experience in the conduct of public business, it was decided, on the death of Professor Graham, to entrust the actual administra tion of the department to the deputy master, the office and title of master of the mint being held by the chancellor of the exchequer for the time being, without salary. At the same time the services of a scientific officer were secured, by the appointment of a chemist of the mint. The coining and die department and the melting depart ment were united under the name of the operative depart ment, and placed under a single superintendent. The first deputy master appointed under the new regulations was the Hon. C. W. Fremantle, C.B., to whom the public are indebted for a series of Annual Reports which have given a new and increased interest to the subject of the coinage, and may be said to constitute in themselves a mint literature. The actual operations of coining in early times were few in number and simple in character. The metals forming the alloy were melted together in the proportion necessary to bring them to the required standard, and the alloy thus obtained was cast into bars, which were reduced by hammering to the requisite thickness. They were then cut with shears into pieces more or less regular in size and form, roughly annealed, and finally impressed with the prescribed device by a blow with a hammer. The last-named appears to have been the only part of the process which was performed with any great amount of care. The blank piece was placed by the hand upon a die fixed into a block of wood having a large heavy base to resist the oscillation caused by the blow ; the die on which was engraved the device for the reverse of the coin was then placed upon the upper side of the blank and held by means of a holder, round which was placed a roll of lead to protect the hand of the operator while heavy blows were struck with a hammer by an assistant workman. One of the earliest improvements in coining was the introduction of a tool in shape resembling a pair of tongs, the two dies being placed one at the extremity of each leg. This avoided the necessity of readjusting the dies between successive strokes of the hammer, and ensured greater accuracy in the impres sion. It was long before the system of coining by hand was superseded by the coining press, or mill, which, even after its first introduction, was only very slowly adopted. Several attempts were made to introduce machinery for coining before it was brought into active use, the objection to it being its great expense. The mill and screw were finally introduced into the mint under Charles II., when many improvements were also made in the preliminary operations. Steam-power was first applied in 1810, when the vacuum screw-press was introduced. In 1839 Uhlhorn invented the lever-press, which still remains in use. The subject of the design on coins, besides being inter esting both from an artistic and an historical point of view, becomes very important when it is remembered that it is the impression of the coin with the authorized device which makes it legally current. The artistic merits of the design of the early Greek coins are well known, and prove that the dies from which the coins were struck must have been engraved with much skill and care. The form of the coins before being stamped was at first merely that of natural rounded nuggets of gold, or of the silver-gold alloy known as electrum. Such coined nuggets of gold are still to be found among the hill tribes of India. Simple nuggets were afterwards replaced by roughly-fashioned masses like half bullets, a form which rendered it easy to impart high relief to the obverse and comparatively low relief to the reverse of the coins. The early British coins T had for their prototype the gold &quot;stater&quot; of Philip of Macedon, but the design of this beautifully finished coin was so roughly imitated by a succession of British copyists that ultimately the wreath round the head of the monarch alone survived, and that in a scarcely recognizable form. It is not only in the early British coins that the influence of classical art may be seen, for it is very evident in some of the present day, the most notable instances being the reverse of the bronze coinage, and the beautiful design of St George and the dragon by Pistrucci, which is still used as an alternative design for the sovereign. It has been ascertained that the impressions on the reverse of very early Greek coins were produced by the rough surface of the anvil or the nail head on which they were placed, while the obverse was struck with the die. A little later the device on the reverse of the coins was obtained by placing the blank piece on small points of metal arranged in geometrical forms which caused corresponding indenta tions on the coins when struck with the hammer. The beauty and accuracy of design on coins gradually increased as art and manual skill developed, and probably culminated at the period of the Renaissance. Although it has been the custom since the time of the Saxons to stamp coins with the head of the reigning monarch, it does not appear that any attempt at actual por traiture was made in England until the reign of Henry VII., who, &quot; about the eighteenth or nineteenth year of his reign, did make a great alteration in the form of his coin, upon which his head was now represented in profile, and with a good resemblance of his other pictures.&quot; 2 Since then much care seems to have been taken to stamp the coins with a true likeness of the monarch. In most cases the heads bear a striking resemblance to the portraits drawn by the great artists of the respective periods, and were, indeed, generally designed by artists of eminence. Some of the Milan coinage of Louis XII. is said to have been 1 See Evans, Coins of the Ancient Britons. z See Martin Folkes, Tables of English Silver and Gold Coins. XVI. 6 1