d that goes into
the furnace twelve ounces, if it comes out again eleven ounces, and the
piece of silver which goes in twelve and comes out again eleven and two
pennyweight, are just of the alloy of the standard of England. If it
comes out, either of them, either the gold above eleven, as very fine
will sometimes within very little of what it went in, or the silver
above eleven and two pennyweight, as that also will sometimes come out
eleven and ten penny weight or more, they are so much above the goodness
of the standard, and so they know what proportion of worse gold and
silver to put to such a quantity of the bullion to bring it to the exact
standard. And on the contrary, [if] it comes out lighter, then such a
weight is beneath the standard, and so requires such a proportion of
fine metal to be put to the bullion to bring it to the standard, and
this is the difference of good and bad, better and worse than the
standard, and also the difference of standards, that of Seville being
the best and that of Mexico worst, and I think they said none but
Seville is better than ours.

2. They melt it into long plates, which, if the mould do take ayre, then
the plate is not of an equal heaviness in every part of it, as it often
falls out.

3. They draw these plates between rollers to bring them to an even
thickness all along and every plate of the same thickness, and it is
very strange how the drawing it twice easily between the rollers will
make it as hot as fire, yet cannot touch it.

4. They bring it to another pair of rollers, which they call adjusting
it, which bring it to a greater exactness in its thickness than the
first could be.

5. They cut them into round pieces, which they do with the greatest
ease, speed, and exactness in the world.

6. They weigh these, and where they find any to be too heavy they file
them, which they call sizeing them; or light, they lay them by, which
is very seldom, but they are of a most exact weight, but however, in the
melting, all parts by some accident not being close alike, now and then
a difference will be, and, this filing being done, there shall not be
any imaginable difference almost between the weight of forty of these
against another forty chosen by chance out of all their heaps.

7. These round pieces having been cut out of the plates, which in
passing the rollers are bent, they are sometimes a little crooked or
swelling out or sinking in, and therefore they have a way of cl