Now, one final washing in acid, then in water, and these much-enduring bits of metal are admitted to the coining-room, there to receive the stamp which testifies to their worth. In the coining-room the planchets are first given to the milling-machine. They are laid down flat between two steel rings, and as the rings move one draws nearer to the other, and the planchets are squeezed and crowded on every side, and finding no escape they turn up about the edges and come out at the end of the sorry little journey with a rim raised around the edges. Beyond the milling-machines stand the ten coining-presses. These presses are attended by women. Watch this one near us. At her right hand is a box containing silver planchets, which are to be coined into fifty-cent pieces. On that round "die," which you see in the center of the machine, are engraved the letters and figures which are to appear on the back of the half-dollar. Directly above the die, on the end of a rod, which works up and down with the most exquisite accuracy, is the sunken impression of the face.

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