AMERICAN JOURNAL 



OF 



AGRICULTURE AND SCIENCE. 



No. XVI. AUGUST, 1847. 



UNITED STATES COINAGE. 



Character of the Metallic Currency of the United States — Spu- 

 rious AVD Counterfi';it Coin — Gold and Silver Coinage — Counter- 

 feit Coin — How it may be detected, etc. 



It is not irrational to suppose that the speedy and certain detec- 

 tion of a felony will operate as a surer preventive of a crime, 

 than its severe punishment. If our knowledge was sufficiently 

 exact to detect at a glance a piece of spurious coin, we believe 

 that such coins and attempts to pass them would be extremely 

 rare. Indeed we believe we may lay down this proposition, that 

 this kind of offence against our laws will always bear a certain 

 ratio to the facility with which the offence may be discovered. 



So it must be evident that if the coin 6r any kind of circulating 

 medium could be fabricated in a manner, and at the same time of 

 those materials which resemble the true so closely that they would 

 escape detection generally, then a community would be flooded 

 with it, and the perpetrator of the crime would of course escape 

 detection. In passing counterfeit coin, as in poisoning, if the 

 means of a speedy and certain detection were generally known, 

 those attempts to defraud and destroy will be proportionally di- 

 minished in frequency. It is the great uncertainty of detection 

 which makes it so prevalent. A more general knowledge, then, 

 of our coins, and the means which may be instituted for their de- 

 termination, we deem a subject of sufficient importance to merit a 

 place in this journal. 



The subject, it may not be improper to state, excited our at- 

 tention in consequence of being present at a trial for passing 

 counterfeit money; in the course of which, the evidence against 

 the defendant was stated in a form and manner which it seemed 



Vol. VI., No. 16. 5 



