Notice has already been taken of Mr. Champlin’s article in which he criticised the seal of 1841, which the Department had been using for so many years, notwithstanding its glaring errors. His criticism, Mr. Totten’s agitation of the question of cutting the reverse, and the striking of the great seal medal were the moving causes of the important action of the Secretary of State, Theodore F. Frelinghuysen, in 1883. The first committee on the seal recommended a reverse, and so did succeeding committees, and a reverse was provided for in the creating act. From this it would appear certain that the original idea was to use a pendant seal of wax with an impression on either side of it. Pendant seals were then common and are still used in many cases. In affixing such a seal to a treaty it is so large that the wax would inevitably break if it were unprotected, so it is enclosed in a metal box, usually of gold or silver, highly ornamented. After the United States secured a great seal it affixed the same one to all its acts, and did not have a separate pendant treaty seal until about 1856, when one was made at the State Department’s instance, or upon an understanding with the Department, by Samuel Lewis, a jeweler in Washington. It was cut in iron, weighing about 20 pounds, and was 6 to 8 inches in diameter. The design followed the law accurately, but the treatment was realistic rather than heraldic. This seal was kept by Mr. Lewis, being, as it appears, his property, and whenever a seal for a treaty was required he furnished an imprint in wax with the silver or gold box in which it was to be placed, the box having upon the cover the arms stamped in relief. The cords or ribbons passing through the treaty were adjusted through the wax at the Department of State. The seal as thus attached to the treaties made by this Government with foreign powers for thirteen years compared favorably with the treaty seals used by other governments. In 1869 the use of the separate seal for treaties was abandoned, and the practice of fixing the regular seal to the paper itself was reverted to, and now maintains. [Illustration: [Seal]] VII THE THIRD SEAL