ardened.

Die-sinking is one of the arts so interesting in all its branches, from the
first design to the finished coin or ornament, that every intelligent
traveller should endeavour to see it.

* * * * *

PLATERS, GILDERS, AND ELECTRO-PLATERS.--Large fortunes have been made in
Birmingham by plating copper, "in the good old times;" but Sheffield was,
until within the last ten years, the principal seat of the manufacture.
Sheffield plate was a very superior article, and for years would look and
stand wear like silver. Plating was effected by laying a thin film of silver
on a sheet of copper, which was afterwards shaped into tea or coffee
services, forks, spoons, candlesticks, trays, tea urns, and other articles
for house use. It was also applied to harness, saddlery, and every thing
formerly made of silver alone. A great impetus was given to this trade by
our intercourse with the continent at the close of the war, which sent steel
pronged forks out of fashion. The first inroad upon the plates on copper was
made by the invention of white metal, called German silver. The next was the
discovery of the art of plating by galvanic instead of mechanical agency, now
known as electro-plating. The result of the application of electric power to
plating, however, has been to transfer a large share of the Sheffield plate
business to Birmingham. It is a curious fact that a veterinary surgeon (of
the name of Askew) invented the first German silver manufactured in England,
and that a Dr. Wright, of the same town, discovered the practicability of
electro-plating about the same time that several other persons had discovered
that metal could be deposited by a galvanic current, but had not thought of
applying it practically to manufactures.

The old system of plating is still carried on both in Sheffield and in
Birmingham; improvements have been introduced by the employment of a white
metal instead of copper as the foundation, and by grafting on, as it were,
silver tips to forks and silver edges to prominent ornaments; but the balance
of advantage in economy and facility are so greatly in favour of the electro-
plating process, that, no doubt, when the patents under which it is now
worked expire, its use will become universal.

Since the first patent was published, important improvements have been made
in France, Germany, and America, which the original patentees have
incorporated. Copperplates cast from wood cuts and stereotypes