being raised instead of sunken. From the
model thus made, a mould was to be
obtained. Here came a marked change from the
old system. Until the year eighteen hundred
and thirty-seven, the device was engraved
on a copper or steel-plate, and the notes
were printed from that plate by the ordinary
copper-plate process; from thence till eighteen
hundred and fifty-four, the method of Messrs.
Perkins and Heath was adopted (as described
in our former article), whereby the device is
transferred, by intense pressure, from steel
dies to steel plates; but, in our day, the
wonderful electro- metallurgic process comes into
requisition. The original, or model, the
result of a large amount of patient ingenuity
and careful engraving, is immersed in one of
Mr. Smee's platinised silver voltaic batteries,
such as are used in the preparation of
copper-plates for the Ordnance Maps; and
there it remains, until a film of copper has
been deposited upon it thick enough to bear
handling, and having the device in intaglio
instead of relief. The chemical and galvanic
arrangements of the apparatus are so managed,
as to produce a copper deposition of a certain
definite quality, the metal having a degree of
ductility which would admit of one pound of
it being drawn out into a mile and three-
quarters of wire. The film thus produced is
not the plate to be printed from: it is only a
mould, from which a cast is to be taken.
This cast is obtained by the same electro-
metallurgic process as that which has
produced the mould itself: the mould instead of
the model being dipped into the battery. As
a natural consequence, the film now deposited
will have the device in relief instead of
intaglio; and this film, when backed up and
strengthened by a thick plate of solder or
other metal, forms the plate from which
bank-notes are printed. One mould will
yield an indefinite number of casts; one
model will yield an indefinite number of
moulds; and thus it happens that, however
rapidly the plates may become worn out by
printing, one engraved model or original will
suffice for countless millions of notes. But
this will only apply to a note of one
particular denomination, and issued from one
office; any change in the device or the note
renders an entirely new model necessary.
Now there are nine denominations of notes
issued by the Old Lady of Threadneedle
Street (£5, £10, £20, £50, £100, £200, £300,
£500, £1000); and as there are branches of
the parent establishment—children of the Old
Lady—at Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham,
Bristol, Leeds, Newcastle, Leicester,
Portsmouth, Plymouth, Hull, and elsewhere,
and as each of these issues its own notes of
four or five denominations, there are about
seventy kinds in all, each requiring an
engraved model as its original. So wonderful is
the multiplying power supplied by the electro-
process, that the nine or ten million bank-
notes now issued annually from Threadneedle
Street are a mere trifle in relation to the
productive capabilities of the original models
or dies.

We come next to the paper. And here, as
in the case of the engraved plates, the
description given in our former article no longer
applies. True, the material possesses all
those qualities which render bank-note paper
different from any other; but the processes
of manufacture have been rendered subservient
to a great change in the water-mark.
This water-mark, one of the means for
preventing or detecting forgery, was, until the
last two or three years, produced by twisting
wires to the desired forms, and stitching them
to the wires of the sort of square sieve which
constitutes the paper-making mould; the
design was thus above the level face of the
mould by the thickness of the wires
composing it; and to that extent the paper of the
bank-note was rendered thinner at the water-
mark than at any other part, presenting a
difference observable by transmitted light.
Some one has had the patience to count no
less than seventy-thousand twistings or
intersections of wires, in the old wire-wrought
watermark. A change has appeared; a
patent process has been adopted by the Bank
of England, in virtue of which the water-mark
is engraved on steel-faced dies, to be thence
transferred by stamping to brass plates,
which, by further delicate processes are
adjusted to the paper-making mould. By this
means it is considered that greater identity
is produced than under the old system; and
moreover, there is a gradation of light and
shade in the present water-mark very difficult
to imitate. We are no longer permitted to
say that "Machinery has made no inroads
on this branch of paper-making." The same
Hampshire mill still produces the paper, and
the dipping of the mould into the pulp is still
performed by hand; but almost every other
part of the manufacture is now assisted by
machinery, on the principle that machinery
is better fitted than manual labour to produce,
identity of form in the articles manufactured.
The paper made for surface-printed notes
undergoes a process of dry-glazing by rolling,
not applied to the paper formerly used for
plate printing; and this process is effected
at the mill, before the paper is sent up to the
Bank of England.

The change of system has led to a change
in the ink as in most other of the appliances;
for the two modes of applying the paper to
the device, or the device to the paper, render
different qualities of ink necessary. Instead
of being made from the charred husks of
Rhenish grapes after their juices had been
expressed, and carefully combined with
linseed oil; the bank-note ink is now, Mr. Smee
tells us, prepared by collecting in large
chambers the smoke from burning coal-tar
naphtha, and combining this soot with a
peculiar varnish, into an unctuous compound
suitable for surface-printing ink.