DuBois. ] 208 (Oct. 5, 
President Taylor. Prof. Booth assumed the duties of office, December 10, 
1849. ‘The date,’’ says Mr. Robert Patterson, ‘‘ was nearly coincident 
with the discovery of gold in California, and the pressure of deposits from 
that source had already become heavy. 
“The gold reacht the Mint for the most part in its native state, and 
required intricate and at the same time accurate and prompt metallurgic 
treatment to fit it for coinage. In one particular the Mint was ill prepared 
to sustain the pressure brought to bear upon it. The California gold being 
naturally alloyed with silver in excess of the amount admissible in the 
coinage, it was necessary to extract the superfluous metal by chemical 
treatment. The appliances at the Mint, which had proved suflicient to 
treat bullion received anterior to the California discoveries, were quite in- 
adequate thereafter. It was necessary to reconstruct the whole plan of 
the parting apparatus, and this work devolved upon Mr. Booth. Under 
his supervision a process which had before been little more than one of 
the laboratory expanded into that of a manufactory. To this work, as 
well as to all the other labors of his department, he brought the full 
knowledge of theory and practice derived from former professional experi- 
ence, and further showed, what is not always the case with chemists, a 
capacity to apply his knowledge in the larger way required for commercial 
results. Some little impatience at the delay in introducing the needful 
changes had been exhibited by bullion dealers and others, ignorant of the 
obstacles attendant thereon ; but all difficulties were overcome, and the 
parting (or refining) capacity of the Mint was soon, under Mr. Booth’s 
energetic and capable management, enlarged to meet promptly every de- 
mand. ‘This time of trial, at the very outset of his Mint career, proved 
the man and the officer.”’ 
There were, naturally, many trying times during the long years that 
followed the California gold discovery ; there were periods of changes in 
the coinage, changes in method, changes in administration ; there were 
periods of extraordinary losses through the nature of the bullion, as. well 
as from other causes; there were the annual settlements, the annual trials 
of the pyx, and trials less than annual and more than annual of the nerves 
of the operative officers—trials such as only devoted servants of a soulless 
government can understand. But there were many matters of new inter- 
est, new study, new relations, new processes to try, to lighten the bur- 
dens, relieve the tedium, and divert the mind from a wearying and ex- 
hausting sense of its peculiar responsibilities. 
A paragraph from Mr. W. E. DuBois’s sketch of Mr. Jacob R. Eck- 
feldt, then Chief Assayer, is in place here as an illustrative bit of history : 
“The gold pressure continued for about five years, when it was relieved 
by the creation of a Government Assay Office in New York, and a Branch 
Mint at San Francisco. But directly sequent to this came the change of 
standard in silver coin, causing an immense recoinage in small pieces. 
Thus our daily assays continued to count by hundreds. This lasted for 
some years. When it began to slacken off, a law was passed for calling 
_in the large copper coins, and issuing in their stead pieces of copper-nickel 
