As a matter of convenience for the purpose of settling the balances, the members of the Clearing House deposit with the Clearing House gold coin, gold certificates, silver certificates and legal tender notes, and receive clearing house certificates, therefor, in denominations of $1,000, $2,000, $3,000, $4,000, $5,000, $10,000, $20,000, $50,000 and $100,000 each. All notes of a smaller denomination than $5.00 should, according to practice, be put up in packages of not more than $5,000. All packages are sealed and marked with the name of the institution depositing them with the amount, date and kind of money they contain. The banks, also, deposit at the Sub-Treasury in New York gold coin, for which certificates are issued by the Assistant United States Treasurer. These certificates are in two denominations, $5,000 and $10,000 each; the holders of these certificates are the absolute owners of them. _It is stated upon high authority that the amount of such money now deposited at the various Clearing Houses throughout the United States exceeds the sum of $200,000,000. In other words, that we have today in the United States centralized our reserves to that extent for certain purposes._ MR. MERCHANT: Mr. Banker, your history of the development of the Clearing House and your description of its operations have certainly been very clear, and most interesting. The second point you mention, the clearing of country checks, will appeal to all the business men of the country as it has to me for a long time; especially since I have a great deal of business up in New England, where this practice has been in force since 1899. I was up there the other day, and my partner took me to see Mr. Charles A. Ruggles, the manager of the Boston Clearing House. After he had described the system of clearing country checks, he handed me a little pamphlet giving the history of its development in Boston and setting forth its reasons and advantages so graphically, that I am going to quote from it in telling you gentlemen about it. Let me say to you that I am confident that when this principle is fully understood, and carried out, as it soon will be, to its logical conclusion, checks, precisely like our bank notes, will be par everywhere in the United States. I am fully aware that you are greatly surprised at this statement; but take my word for it and remember that what I have prophesied is going to happen. _Free zones are going to increase until every check will be free within its own zone, and almost immediately as a consequence, the zone centers will settle with each other daily; that is all checks will not only be free in their own zones, but will be free between all zones, that is all checks will be par everywhere._ However, let me tell you how it developed in New England. Ruggles describes it in these words: