MINT 



221 



Peppermint, pennyroyal, and spearmint are used 

 in medicine. The pharmacopoeias contain an^a, 

 sjiiritus, and oleum of each of them ; the officinal 

 part being the herh, which should be collected 

 when in flower. Peppermint is a powerful dili'usible 

 stimulant, and, as such, is anti-spasmodic aud 

 stomachic, and is much employed in the treatment 

 of gastrodynia and flatulent colic. It is also exten- 

 sively used in mixtures, for covering the taste of 

 drugs. Pennyroyal and spearmint are similar in 

 their action, but inferior for all purposes to pepper- 

 mint. 



Mint (Lat. moneta), an establishment for mak- 

 ing coins or metallic money (see MONEY). The 

 early history of the art l>eing traced under the 

 head Numismatics, the present article is mostly 

 confined to a sketch of the constitution of the 

 British mint, and of the modern processes of coin- 

 ing as there fo lowed. 



In Canute's laws, an officer called a 'reeve' is 

 referred to as having some jurisdiction over the mint, 

 and certain names which, in addition to that of the 

 sovereign, appear on the Anglo-Saxon coins seem 

 to have Iwcn those of the moneyers, an important 

 class of functionaries, who were, until the operations 

 of coinage wore undertaken by the state in 1850, 

 responsible for the manufacture of the coin. Be- 

 sides the sovereign, barons, bishops, ami the 

 greater monasteries had the control of mints, 

 where they exercised the right of coinage, a 

 privilege enjoyed by the archbishops of Canter- 

 bury in the rei"n of Henry VIII., and by Wolsey 

 as Bishop of Durham and Archbishop "of York. 

 After the Norman Conquest the officers of the 

 Iiiival mint became to a certain extent subject to 

 the authority of the exchequer. Both in Saxon 

 and Norman times there existed, under control of 

 the principal mint in London, a ntimlier of pro- 

 vincial mints in different towns of England ; there 

 were no fewer than thirty-eight in the time of 

 Ethelred, and the last of them were only done 

 away with in the reign of William III. The 

 officers of the mint were formed into a corporation 

 by a charter of Edward II.; they consisted of the 

 warden, master, comptroller, assay master, workers, 

 coiners, and subordinates. Coining at the Scottish 

 mint in Edinburgh ceased with the Union ; but the 

 office of master of the mint was not incorporated 

 with the English one till 1817. 



The Mignoran for coining at one time formed no 

 inconsiderable item in the revenues of the crown. 

 It was a deduction made from the bullion coined, 

 and comprehended both a charge for defraying the 

 expense of coinage, and the sovereign's profit in 

 virtue of his prerogative. In the reign of Henry 

 VI. the seignorage amounted to 6d. in the pound ; 

 in the reign of Edward I. it was Is. 2Jd. By 

 18 Car. II. chap. 5, the seignorage on gold was 

 abolished, and it has never since been exacted. 

 The 'shere' or 'remedy,' as it is now called, is an 

 allowance for the unavoidable imperfection of 

 the coin in regard to both standard weight and 

 fineness. 



The function of the mint, so far as concerns the 

 standard gnld coinage, JM to receive gold in ingots 

 from individuals, and return an equivalent weight 

 in sovereigns. But, in point of fact, gold is now 

 exclusively coined for the Bank of England ; for, 

 although any one has the right to ini[>ort gold into 

 the mint for coinage, receiving an equivalent weight 

 of sovereigns at the rate of 3, 17s. 10d. per /.. 

 Btandard, after a sufficient delay to allow of the 

 gold he imports being converted into coin, he can 

 at once receive payment on presenting his bullion 

 at the Bank of England at the slightly lower rate 

 of 3, 17s. 9d., anil the additional IJd. offered by 

 the mint is not found sufficient to compensate for 

 Ihe necessary delay which occurs. 



Silver, which was formerly a legal tender to any 

 amount, has, by 56 Geo. III. chap. 68, ceased to 

 be so. That act provided that each troy pound of 

 standard silver should be coined into sixty-six shil- 

 lings, and, since this exceeds the price at which 

 the metal in its uncoined state can be purchased, 

 it follows that the coinage of silver is a source of 

 profit to the state. When the price fell to 42 r Sd., 

 this profit, or seignorage, amounted to no less 

 than 54 per cent., and even at 5s. per ounce there 

 remains a prolit of about 10 per cent. It should, 

 however, be borne in mind that this ' token ' coin- 

 age is only a legal tender to a limited amount 

 (forty shillings), whereas gold coin is legal tender 

 to any amount. The prolit derived from the 

 bronze token coinage is proportionately even 

 greater. The seignorage, which was formerly 

 retained by the master of the mint to defray the 

 expense of coinage, has since 1837 been paid to 

 the credit of the Consolidated Fund. 



A new mint was erected on Tower Hill in 1810. 

 In 1815 some alterations were made in its consti- 

 tution ; and in 1851 a complete change was intro- 

 duced in the whole system of administration. The 

 control of the mint' was then vested in a master, 

 a deputy-master, and a comptroller. The master- 

 ship, which had, in the early part of the 19th 

 century, become a political appointment held by 

 an adherent of the government, was restored to the 

 position of a permanent office, the master being the 

 ostensible executive head of the establishment. 

 The operative department was entrusted to the 

 assayer, the melter, and the refiner. The moneyers, 

 who had from early times enjoyed extensive privi- 

 leges and exemptions, and were contractors with 

 the crown for tlie execution of the coinage, were 

 aUJi.shed, and the contracts with the crown were 

 entered into by the master of the mint, who also 

 made auliordiiiate contracts for the actual manu- 

 facture of the coin. Further changes were made 

 in the administration of the mint in 1869. The 

 mastership was added to the duties of the Chan- 

 cellor of the Exchequer, without any addition of 

 salary, and the offices of deputy-master and comp- 

 troller were amalgamated. A yearly saving of 

 10,000 is believed to have been effected by the 

 changes of 1851, and a further 8000 by those of 

 1869, with an increase of efficiency. Mints were 

 established at Sydney aud Melbourne to coin the 

 gold so largely found in Australia, in 1853 and 1809 

 respectively. 



Processes of Coining. Down to the middle of 

 the 16th century little or no improvement seems 

 to have been made in the art of coining from the 

 time of its invention. The metal was simply 

 hammered into slips, which were afterwards cut 

 up into squares of one size, and then forged round. 

 Ihe required impression was given to these by 

 placing them in turn between two dies, and strik- 

 ing them with a hammer. As it was not easy by 

 this method to place the dies exactly above each 

 other, or to apply proper force, coins so made were 

 always faulty, and had the edges unfinished, which 

 rendered them liable to be clipped. The first great 

 step was the application of the screw, invented in 

 1 .").">:} by a French engraver of the name of Brucher. 

 The plan was found expensive at first, and it was 

 not till 1662 that it altogether superseded the 

 hammer in the English mint. The chief steps in 

 coining as now practised are as follows : The gold 

 or silver to lie coined is sent to the mint, for the 

 most part in the form of ingots (Ger. einyicssen, 

 I)u. itiffielen, 'to pour in,' 'to cast'), or castings; 

 those of gold weighing either about 200 or 400 

 troy ounces, while the silver ingots are much 

 larger. Before melting, each ingot is weighed and 

 tested as to its pur'ty by Assaying (q.v. ). For 

 melting the gold, pots or crucibles of plumbago 



