The cases around the wall are filled
with beautiful minerals, and, in particular, many fine specimens of
gold in its native state.
For so long a time have we been using paper money in this country that
it seemed almost useless to have mints to make coins, when ordinary
people never saw any of them, excepting those made of copper or nickel.
But our merchants, and others dealing with foreign countries, needed
gold, for our paper money could not be sent to Europe, or anywhere out
of the United States, to pay for goods; and so gold eagles and
double-eagles and half-eagles and quarter-eagles and gold dollars were
coined to be sent away, or to be used here to pay duties on imports.
Silver coins also were made, to be used in foreign countries, and among
these was the trade-dollar, which many of you may have seen.
[Illustration: THE COINING-PRESS.]
When silver small-change lately came into use again, there were many
boys and girls who had never seen a quarter or a half dollar. When they
spoke of fifty or twenty-five cents, they meant a piece of paper
currency, printed like a bank-note, of no value in itself, but only a
promise to pay.
But, since Congress has decided that we are to have not only silver
small-change, but also silver dollars, and now that these have became
again a part of the legal currency of the country; all three of our
mints have gone to work and are coining dollars as fast as they can,
for millions of them will be required, if we are all to use them.
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