COPPER, STEEL, AND BANK-NOTE ENGRAVING. 613 



These machines cost about five thousand dollars, and are built 

 by the inventor, Mr. C. W. Dickinson, Sr.,of Belleville, N. J., who 

 has invented and improved several other kinds of very useful 

 bank-note machines. 



It is said the American Bank-note Company, of New York, 

 has a lathe, built by the company some years ago, which took 

 about three years to build and cost more than ten thousand 

 dollars. 



The variety of forms that can be produced on one of these 

 lathes is endless ; and if Spencer could have had one of these, in- 

 stead of the crude one he had, and could have started with the 

 opening of this century and cut a new form every day, Sunday 

 included, and every hour of each day up to the present time, he 

 would still have possibilities enough left to fill out the next 

 century. 



This machine and its work have been thus minutely described 

 because it is considered a most important security against coun- 

 terfeiting ; not exceeded in value even by the artistic perfection 

 of the vignettes, or portraits, and lettering. 



Doubt as to the character of a bank note has often been settled 

 by a microscopic examination of the lathe-work. Even by means 

 of the lathe on which a cutting has been made, it could not be 

 absolutely reproduced ; so, of course, it could not be done by hand 

 or by another lathe. Possibly, after reading this article, some one 

 will look upon a bank note as something more than simply cash. 



The results of observations taken by Mr. Ilallock, of the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion, at depths extending to 4,462 feet, in a nearly dry well at Wheeling, W. Va., 

 were coniniunicated to tlie British Association by the Committee on Underground 

 Temperature. When the observations taken in 1891 were concluded, the well 

 was plugged. The plug was withdrawn in July, 1893. and the observations were 

 resumed. The well, which had been dry before, was filled with fresli water to 

 within forty feet of the top. The results of measurements at various depths 

 between 1,586 feet and 3,196 feet were practically identical with those obtained 

 two years previously, when the well was full of air, the greatest certain diti'er- 

 ence being only one fifth of a degree. The temperatures at 103 feet, 206 feet, and 

 300 feet were also observed with suitable tbermometers, the temperature at 103 

 feet being 52-53, which is 1-2 higher than the true temperature of tlie soil at 

 that depth, as determined by other observations in the immediate neighborhood. 



The four-hundredth anniversary of the establishment of the earliest Slavonic 

 printing press in the country was celebrated throughout Montenegro in July, 

 1893. The press was set up at Obod by the ruling prince in 1493, before either 

 Oxford or Cambridge had a permanent press. Some of the books printed then 

 are still to be seen at the Monastery of Cajnice, just over the Bosnian frontier. 

 On the occasion of the celebration, universities and learned societies of Europe, 

 including the University of Oxford, sent addresses of congratulation. 



