apping
100 or 2 together into an engine, which with a screw presses them so
hard that they come out as flat as is possible.

8. They blanch them.

9. They mark the letters on the edges, which is kept as the great secret
by Blondeau, who was not in the way, and so I did not speak with him
to-day.

[Professor W. C. Roberts-Austen, C.B., F.R.S., chemist to the Royal
Mint, refers to Pepys's Diary and to Blondeau's machine in his
Cantor Lectures on "Alloys used for Coinage," printed in the
"journal of the Society of Arts" (vol. xxxii.). He writes, "The
hammer was still retained for coining in the Mint in the Tower of
London, but the question of the adoption of the screw-press by the
Moneyers appears to have been revived in 1649, when the Council of
State had it represented to them that the coins of the Government
might be more perfectly and beautifully done, and made equal to any
coins in Europe. It was proposed to send to France for Peter
Blondeau, who had invented and improved a machine and method for
making all coins 'with the most beautiful polish and equality on the
edge, or with any proper inscription or graining.' He came on the
3rd of September, and although a Committee of the Mint reported in
favour of his method of coining, the Company of Moneyers, who appear
to have boasted of the success of their predecessors in opposing the
introduction of the mill and screw-press in Queen Elizabeth's reign,
prevented the introduction of the machinery, and consequently he did
not produce pattern pieces until 1653.... It is certain that
Blondeau did not invent, but only improved the method of coining by
the screw-press, and I believe his improvements related chiefly to a
method for 'rounding the pieces before they are sized, and in making
the edges of the moneys with letters and graining,' which he
undertook to reveal to the king. Special stress is laid on the
engines wherewith the rims were marked, 'which might be kept secret
among few men.' I cannot find that there is any record in the Paris
mint of Blondeau's employment there, and the only reference to his
invention in the Mint records of this country refers to the
'collars,' or perforated discs of metal surrounding the 'blank'
while it was struck into a coin. There is, however, in the British
Museum a MS. believed