|64|Gold-weighing Machines.
„Mr. Cotton's machine … the most delicate ever yet constructed for weighing gold coin. Adopted von der Bank of England. Scheidet die Schaafe von den Böcken … In the transactions between the Bank of England and the public, the weighing of gold coin has been a most anxious and tedious process. As between the Bank and the Mint, the labour is not so minute; for 200 sovereigns being first accurately weighed, all the rest are weighed in groups of 200. The Mint officers are allowed a deviation of 12 grains in about 50 sovereigns; but they generally work to within half of this amount of error; and if the groups of sovereigns are correct within the prescribed limits no closer weighing is adopted. In the transactions between the Bank and the public, however, matters must be treated in more detail. It is no satisfaction to Smith to know that if his sovereign is light, Brown has a correct one and Jones a heavy one, so that therefore the Bank is just in the aggregate; each one demands that his sovereign should be of proper weight … If a difference of even of a grain existed between 2 sovereigns, it is said that this machine would detect it. On a rough average, 30000 sovereigns pass over the Bank counter every day; each machine can weigh 10000 sovereigns in 6 hours; and there are 6 machines; so that the Bank can weigh all its issues of gold by these means, and have reserve power to spare. Between 1844 and 1848 there were 48 million gold coins weighed by these machines at the Bank … These machines save £ 1000 a year to the Bank in weighers' wages. (A child can turn the handle, but the machine judges for itself, wirft die vollwichtigen sovereigns auf 1 Seite, die leichten auf die andre.) (Früher liability of error on the part of the weighers (the ‚personal equation‘, as the astronomers would term it) nicht equal.) An expert weigher could weigh about 700 sovereigns in an hour by the old balance; but the agitation of the air by the sudden opening of a door, the breathing of persons near the apparatus, the fatigued state of the hand and eye of the weigher–all led to minute errors.” (Dodd's Curiosities of Industry. Lond. 1854.)
Curiosities des Geldes. “When society rises above the level of mere barter[ing] transactions, any substance which is equally valued by buyer and seller may become money; … One of the earliest cattle, but this is obviously a coin inapplicable to small purchasers, for it would puzzle the seller to give change out of an ox. Shells are used to a great extent as money, in India, the Indian islands, and Africa; the cowry shells of India have a value of about 32 to an English farthing. Cocoa-nuts, almonds, maize have all had to do duty as money. In hunting countries skins … salt … Dried fish[is] often the money in Iceland and Newfoundland; sugar has at times been a West-India money.”
“Gold very solid and dense; divisible or separable in an extraordinary degree; very little affected by air or moisture, or ordinary usage etc (its supply very limited).
Wearing away of gold coin, by the constant friction to which it is exposed. No one can say whither the worn particles go … When gone, somebody must bear the loss. A baker who takes a sovereign one day, and pays it away to his miller the next, does not pay the veritable sovereign itself; it is a lighter one than when he received it … Nach Jacob bears each gold coin in England an annual loss of about by friction (little more than a farthing in the pound). In silver coins the loss is supposed to be 5 or 6 times greater, owing to the more unceasing circulation of silver than gold, and to the less fitness of the metal to bear friction.” |