world’s stock of gold is moved about from country to country at the call of commerce, and how true it is that the trade of any country is, or ought to be, regulated solely by its supply of gold, or ready money. The offices comprised in the Issue Department of the Bank are the Hall, the Bullion Office, and the Gold-weighing Room. In the Hall, notes and gold are exchanged by the public one for the other, and notes are exchanged for other notes of a higher or lower denomination. In the Bullion Office bar-gold is bought at the rate of £3 17s. 9d. per ounce, or exchanged for sovereigns at the rate of £3 17s. 10½d. per ounce, at which rate bullion is also sold. Nearly all the imports of gold and silver to this country are taken to the Bank of England for delivery to the consignees. The duties connected with these consignments are undertaken by the Bullion Office, where small charges are made for weighing, packing, and collecting freight, &c. In the Gold-weighing Room gold coin is weighed automatically, at the rate of about 2,000 pieces an hour each, by about a dozen beautiful little machines worked by an atmospheric engine. Bank notes are not re-issued after having been once paid, and in the Bank Note Office registers are kept in which are recorded the dates of issue and return to the Bank of each respective note. The particulars of the payment of any note can be ascertained by a reference to the Bank Note Library, where the paid and cancelled notes are kept for seven years, after which they are burnt on the Bank premises. For the privilege of issuing the £15,750,000 against securities, and for exemption from stamp duty, the Bank pay an annual sum of about £200,000, together with any profit which they may derive from the notes issued against gold to the Government. The paper on which bank notes are printed is manufactured expressly for the Bank of England at Laverstock in Hampshire, but the dies from which the water-mark is made, as well as the plates from which the notes are printed, are made at the Bank. The notes are all printed at the Bank’s own printing-office under the care of the printing superintendent, the quantity of notes required from time to time being regulated by the chief cashier, who is responsible for their safe custody as soon as, by a second process of printing, the numbers and dates have been filled in for the purpose of issue. The average number of bank notes paid and cancelled each day is more than 40,000, and no less than 80,000,000 cancelled notes may be found as a rule, stored and sorted for reference, in the Bank Note Library. The Bank of England also undertakes the printing of “rupee paper” for the Indian Government.