254 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



These "were extracted and sold as Suhlian nickel silver, and in 1823 

 Brande showed that these white granules consist principally of 

 an alloy of copper and nickel, and thus originated the manufac- 

 ture of the widely used nickel alloys known as nickel or Ger- 

 man silver. This German silver, so extensively used as the basis 

 of electroplate, is, as is well known, an alloy of copper, zinc, and 

 nickel, the proportions varying according to the use to which the 

 alloy is to be put. Copper is the principal ingredient, and the 

 nickel varies according to the color desired, for it is this metal that 

 has the property of whitening the copper. Sometimes a little iron 

 (from two to two and a half per cent) is added to the ingredi- 

 ents named, with the result of producing an alloy that is whiter 

 and harder than the ordinary composition. 



Doubtless all Americans know that nickel is used in coinage, 

 but probably few are aware of the extent to which it is so used. 

 As early as 1837 one Dr. Feuchtwanger, of New York, called at- 

 tention to the suitability of nickel for coinage, and is said to have 

 actually issued a number of one-cent and three-cent coins made 

 of a nickel alloy. But the first national issue of a nickel-alloy 

 coinage was made by Switzerland in 1850, the issue consisting of 

 twenty, ten, and five centime pieces, containing respectively fif- 

 teen, ten, and five per cent of silver, alloyed with ten parts of 

 nickel and twelve and a half parts of zinc, copper making up the 

 balance. In 1857 an alloy consisting of eighty-eight parts of cop- 

 per and twelve of nickel was adopted by the United States for the 

 one-cent pieces. In 1860 Belgium instituted a nickel coinage, the 

 alloy used for the purpose consisting of seventy-five parts of cop- 

 per and twenty-five of nickel. This particular alloy appears to 

 have given much satisfaction, for we find it adopted by the United 

 States in 18G5, by Brazil in 1872, by Germany in 1873, and still 

 later by Jamaica. 



It is not only in the form of an alloy that nickel is used in 

 coinage. Improvements in the metallurgy of the metal have 

 rendered possible a coinage of pure nickel, and it is interesting to 

 note that Switzerland, which was the first to adopt a nickel-alloy 

 coinage, was also the first to issue coins of the pure metal, the 

 Swiss twenty-centime pieces coined in 1884 being pure nickel. In 

 1886 the Royal Berlin Mint executed for the Egyptian Govern- 

 ment a nickel coinage, and during the same year a Birmingham 

 firm coined in nickel five hundred thousand half-decimos and one 

 million centimos for the Republic of Ecuador, while in 1887 Bo- 

 livia issued a nickel coinage. It thus appears that nickel is gain- 

 ing in favor for subsidiary coinage, and not without cause. It is 

 superior to copper in color, and, being more valuable, smaller 

 coins are obtained ; both the pure metal and the alloy are hard 

 and thus wear well, and they possess the additional advantage 



