THE CITY OF MELBOURNE. 



455 



of washing-tanks, weighing them in automatic balances EO exquisitely adjusted as to denote 

 variations as minute as the hundredth part of a -rain, ringing them so as to ascertain 

 that they are flawless, passing them through an edge-compressor, softening them In- 

 annealing, and subjecting them to a pressure of fifteen tons in the coining press. -s, 



LJ 



ST. PATRICK S CATHEDRAL. 



where the lateral expansion imprints the milling on the edge by means of the steel 

 collar surrounding the dies. Some highly ingenious and valuable improvements in the 

 machinery of coining have been invented and introduced by officials employed in the 

 different departments of this colonial branch of the Royal Mint. All the gold is weighed 

 into and weighed out of the melting-house and its adjuncts, and if any losses occur, 

 which is very rarely the case, they have to be made good by those through whose 

 hands the precious metal has passed. . . 



A little way beyond the Mint, on the opposite side of William Street, are the 

 Flagstaff Gardens. Thirty years ago this spot was a bare and isolated hill, so remote 

 from the limits of the city that to visit the place was regarded in the light of a 

 country walk. In a cottage on the summit a man was stationed, whose duty it was to 

 notify by a system of flag-signals the names of vessels arriving at the Heads and the 



