IJLp Professor Braiide on the Manufacture 



by the number 2, being in the descending scale, half-gallons, 

 quarts, pints, half-pints, and gills ; and in the ascending scale, 

 pecks, half-bushels, and bushels. And that, for greater pre- 

 cision, the last, or measure of eight gallons, shall contain at 

 the mean pressure of the atmosphere at the level of the sea, 

 eighty pounds of distilled water at its maximum of density. 



On the Manufacture of Dies for Medals and Coinage. By 

 W. T. Brande, F.R.S., Prof Chem. R. I., &c. 



[The subject of this discourse is not, I apprehend, of any general 

 interest, but it has, as far as I know, been no where particularly 

 described, if we except a brief notice respecting it annexed to Mr. 

 Mushet's valuable paper on the art of coinage, printed in the supple- 

 ment to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. I therefore thought it worthy 

 the attention of the members of the Royal Institution, and trust that 

 the following outline will not be unacceptable to the readers of the 

 Journal.] 



The first circumstance that claims particular attention in the 

 manufacture of dies is the selection of the best kind of steel 

 for the purpose, and this must in some measure be left to the 

 experience of the die-forger, who, if well skilled in his art, 

 will be able to form a tolerably correct judgment of the fitness 

 of the metal for the purpose, by the manner in which it works 

 upon the anvil. It should be rather fine-grained than otherwise, 

 and above all things perfectly even and uniform in its texture, 

 and free from spots and patches finer or coarser than the 

 general mass. But the veiy fine and uniform steel, with a 

 silky fracture, which is so much esteemed for some of the pur- 

 poses of cutlery, is unfit for our present purpose, from the 

 extreme facility with which it acquires great hardness by pres- 

 sure, and its liability to cracks and flaws. The very coarse 

 grained, or highly crystalline, steel, is also equally objectionable ; 

 it acquires fissures under the die-press, and seldom admits of 

 being equally and properly hardened. The object, therefore, is 

 to select a steel of a medium quality as to fineness of texture, 

 not too easily acted upon by dilute sulphuric acid, and exhibit- 



