Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/437



1836 imitations of bank-notes were so easily made, and the forgeries so numerous, that the Directors of the Bank of England resolved on appointing a small committee to examine the subject, and advise them upon a remedy.

The Governor of the Bank wrote to ask me whether I would consent to act upon that committee. Not being myself a professional engineer, I entertained some doubts whether my presence would be agreeable to the profession. Having consulted Sir Isambard Brunel and the late Mr. Bryan Donkin, who had been also applied to, they both pressed me to join them in the inquiry.

We examined the existing means of preventing forgery, which were certainly very defective. The system of the Bank of Ireland which had recently been greatly improved, was then discussed. Not many months before, I had carefully examined the whole plan at Dublin. After a full deliberation on the subject, I drew up our Report, which unanimously recommended its adoption. The identity of the steel plates from which the bank-notes were to be printed was secured by Perkins's plan of multiplying the number of such plates by impressing them all from one roll of hardened steel.

This plan answered its purpose fully at that time. It has,