80 Automatic Weighing at the Royal Mint. 



of " too heavy/' " too light/' and ' ' medium" planchets was the 

 consequence. 



In 1851 the knell of this imperfect system of weighing was 

 sounded. The Company of Moneyers, who had long enjoyed the 

 profitable privilege of coining the moneys of the realm, and who 

 traced the existence of predecessors filling similar posts back to 

 the days of the Heptarchy — fell, under the pressure of a Royal 

 Commission, and were pensioned off. The Mint thus came 

 entirely into the hands of the Government. Sir John Herschel 

 was appointed Master, and Captain Harness, R.E. (now Colonel, 

 C.B.), Deputy Master of the Mint, and the last-named gentle- 

 man employed himself energetically and skilfully in re-organiz- 

 ing the establishment on a new footing. Two clerks and two 

 mechanics were appointed to succeed in the performance of the 

 duties, though, unfortunately for themselves, not to anything 

 resembling the emoluments of the Moneyers, and in November, 

 1851, the first coinage of gold under the Government regime 

 commenced. Several millions of sovereigns were struck by the 

 following Christmas, and very soon the new Moneyers, as they 

 may be termed, became masters of their work. Captain 

 Harness was not long in discovering the fallibility of the mode 

 of sizing which had been for many centuries before pursued ; 

 and, as Mr. Cotton, of the Bank of England, aided by the 

 mechanical genius of Mr. James Napier, had already devised 

 and patented an automaton balance for the detection and rejec- 

 tion of light gold, the Captain determined, if possible, to make 

 the apparatus available for minting purposes, and thus to super- 

 sede the time-honoured, but very inadequate and unsatisfactory 

 practice of hand-weighing. Mr. Napier was consulted, and 

 that eminent mechanist was not long in realizing the aspira- 

 tions of Captain Harness. In a few months several automaton 

 balances were prepared for the Mint. It was essential that ' 

 these should be so constructed as that they should bo capable of 

 separating the light and heavy planchets from those which 

 were of the medium weight, and it will bo at once understood, 

 therefore, that this exigency demanded further complexity in 

 the machines than was apparent in the Bauk automatons. The 

 Bank had no objeetion to too heavy coins; their dislike was 

 simply confined to those which were too light, and their 

 machines had only to reject such as "when weighed in the 

 balance" wore " found wanting." Mr. Napier solved the moro 

 difficult problem in the manufacture of the automatons for the 

 Royal Mint. Experiments in his own factory in the first 

 instance enabled him to <lo this, and when the machines were 

 transferred to the Mint, they were accordingly found to perform 

 their onerous and delicate functions with unerring exactitude. 

 It became u, question of some moment as to what part of the 



