New Mint

Contrary to what many people think, no U. S. coins are minted at Washington, D. C. although the lady Director of the U. S. Mint, Mrs. Nellie' Tayloe Ross has her office there and all U. S. paper money is printed in Washington. Coining is confined to mints at Philadelphia, Denver and San Francisco.

Last week a new $1,000,000 white granite mint, built like the legendary San Francisco hillside cow (five stories in front, three behind) was dedicated in that city by Mrs. Ross. Covering a city block bounded by Buchanan, Hermann, Webster and Duboce Streets, the box-shaped mint squats on the scalped dome of live rock which made that block a real-estate liability until the Government took it. From the sidewalk visitors must climb 175 steps to the huge sliding bronze front door where bas relief dollars two feet wide greet them. A storage and assay depot as well as a mint, the new building began last week to receive some $400,000,000 in gold and silver from the smoke-stained old San Francisco mint at Fifth & Mission. The two storage vaults, 48 x 78 and 28 x 52 ft., are equipped with triple-locked doors, wired with microphones so a central guard room hears every sound in the vaults. Trucks enter the mint through an anteroom guarded by a pair of steel portcullis doors of which only one can be open at a time. Corridor corners are mirrored so guards can see around them. A fan system sucks all waste air and sifts it for gold dust. All waste materials except sewage are burned on the premises, gold dust recovered. Employes must change clothing upon entering, shower before leaving.

P: Site for a central U. S. silver storage vault comparable to the gold cache at Fort Knox, Ky. (TIME, Jan. 25 et ante], was approved last week by Secretary of War Harry Woodring: four acres near the old north gate on the U. S. Military Academy reservation at West Point, N. Y.

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