1804 DOLLAR.

UNITED STATES PATTERN DOLLARS.

HALF DOLLARS.

(Having "O" mark underneath bust, and meaning New Orleans Mint, under head like above cut. Ordinary 1838 half dollars without this mint mark are not wanted.)

QUARTER DOLLARS.

TWENTY CENT PIECES.

DIMES.

HALF DIMES.

SILVER THREE CENT PIECES.

NICKEL, FIVE CENT PIECES.

NICKEL, THREE CENT PIECES.

COPPER TWO CENT PIECES.

COPPER CENTS.

EAGLE NICKEL CENTS.

HALF CENTS.

AMERICAN SILVER AND COPPER COINS
NOT ISSUED BY THE UNITED STATES MINT.

SILVER COINAGE.

DOLLARS.—First coinage, 1794; none issued 1805 to 1835, inclusive, and 1837.

HALF-DOLLARS.—First coinage, 1794; none issued 1798, 1799, 1816.

QUARTER-DOLLARS.—First coinage, 1796; none issued 1794, 1795, 1797 to 1804, 1808 to 1814, inclusive, 1816, 1817, 1826, 1829, 1830.

DIMES.—First coinage, 1796; none issued 1794, 1795, 1799, 1806, 1808, 1810, 1812, 1813, 1815 to 1819, inclusive, 1826.

HALF-DIMES.—First coinage, 1794; none issued 1798, 1799, 1801, 1806 to 1828, inclusive. The coinage of half-dimes was discontinued in 1873 by Act of Congress.

THREE-CENT PIECES (SILVER).—First coinage, 1851; and then the dates follow in succession until 1873, when the coinage of them was discontinued.

COPPER CENTS.

COPPER CENTS.—First coinage, 1793, none issued 1815; they then follow to 1857, when the coinage was changed to nickel. The nickel cent of 1856 was only a pattern, which continued during this year up to 1864, inclusive. The bronze cent was introduced in this year. In 1865 the nickel cent was discontinued, and up to date the bronze cents are issued.

HALF-CENTS.—First coinage, 1793; none issued 1798, 1799, 1801, 1812 to 1824, inclusive; 1827, 1837, 1838, 1839; in 1857 the issue of half-cents was discontinued.

In 1864 the two-cent piece in bronze was introduced, and discontinued in 1873, by Act of Congress.

In 1865 the three-cent nickel piece was first issued.

In 1866 the five-cent piece was first issued; a very few were struck in 1865 as pattern. In 1883 the die was changed to that of the current issue with liberty head. Although upwards of five million coins of the 1883 nickels without the words "cents" were issued, they will in the course of a few years command a premium. At present they are still quite common.

  LOISETTE'S SYSTEM OF MEMORY.

So much has been said about Loisette's memory system, the art has been so widely advertised, and so carefully guarded from all the profane who do not send five or many dollars to the professor, that a few pages showing how every man may be his own Loisette, may be both interesting and valuable.

In the first place, the system is a good one, and well worth the labor of mastering, and if the directions are implicitly followed there can be no doubt that the memory will be greatly strengthened and improved, and that mnemonic feats, otherwise impossible, may be easily performed. Loisette, however, is not an inventor, but an introducer. He stands in the same relation to Dr. Pick that the retail dealer holds to the manufacturer; the one produced the article; the other brings it to the public. Even this statement is not quite fair to Loisette, for he has brought much practical common sense to bear upon Pick's system, and in preparing the new art of mnemonics for the market, in many ways he has made it his own.

If each man would reflect upon the method by which he himself remembers things, he would find his hand upon the key of the whole mystery. For instance, the author was once trying to remember the word blythe. There occurred to my mind the words "Bellman," "Belle," and then the verse

"Barcarole," "Barrack," and so on, until the word "blythe" presented itself with a strange insistence, long after I had ceased trying to recall it.

On another occasion, when trying to recall the name "Richardson," I got the words "hay-rick," "Robertson," "Randallstown," and finally "wealthy," from which naturally I got "rich" and "Richardson" almost in a breath.

Still another example: trying to recall the name of an old schoolmate, "Grady," I got "Brady," "grave," "gaseous," "gastronome," "gracious," and I finally abandoned the attempt, simply saying to myself that it began with a "G," and there was an "a" sound after it. The next morning, when thinking of something entirely different, this name "Grady" came up in my mind with as much distinctness as though some one had whispered it in my ear. This remembering was done without any conscious effort on my part, and was evidently the result of the exertion made the day before, when mnemonic processes were put to work. Every reader must have had similar experience, which he can recall, and which will fall in line with the examples given.

It follows, then, that when we endeavor, without the aid of any system, to recall a forgotten fact or name, our memory presents to us words of a similar sound or meaning in its journey toward the goal to which we have started it. This goes to show that our ideas are arranged in groups in whatever secret cavity or recess of the brain they occupy, and that the arrangement is one not alphabetical exactly and not entirely by meaning, but after some fashion partaking of both.

If you are looking for the word "meadow" you may reach "middle" before you come to it, or "Mexico," or many words beginning with the "m" sound, or containing the "dow," as "window" or "dough," or you may get "field" or "farm"—but you are on the right track, and if you do not interfere with your intellectual process you will finally come to the idea which you are seeking.

How often have you heard people say: "I forget his name; it is something like Beadle or Beagle—at any rate it begins with a B." Each and all of these were unconscious Loisettians, and they were practicing blindly, and without proper method or direction, the excellent system which he teaches. The thing, then, to do—and it is the final and simple truth which Loisette teaches—is to travel over this ground in the other direction—to cement the fact which you wish to remember to some other fact or word which you know will be brought out by the implied conditions—and thus you will always be able to travel from your given starting point to the thing which you wish to call to mind.

To illustrate: let the broken line in the annexed diagram represent a train of thought. If we connect the idea "a" with "e" through the steps b, c and d, the tendency of the mind ever afterward will be to get to e from a that way, or from any of the intermediates that way. It seems as though a channel were cut in our mindstuff along which the memory flows. How to make it flow this way will be seen later on. Loisette, in common with all mnemonic teachers, uses the old devise of representing numbers by letter—and as this is the first and easiest step in the art, this seems to be the most logical place to introduce the accepted equivalents of the Arabic numerals:

0 is always represented by s, z or c soft.

1 is always represented by t, th or d.

2 is always represented by n.

3 is always represented by m.

4 is always represented by r.

5 is always represented by l.

6 is always represented by sh, j, ch soft or g soft.

7 is always represented by g hard, kc hard, q or final ng.

8 is always represented by f or v.

9 is always represented by p or b.

All the other letters are used simply to fill up. Double letters in a word count only as one. In fact, the system goes by sound, not by spelling—for instance, "this" or "dizzy" would stand for ten; "catch" or "gush" would stand for 76, and the only difficulty is to make some word or phrase which will contain only the significant letters in the proper order, filled out with non-significants into some guise of meaning or intelligibility.² Suppose you wish to get some phrase or word that would express the number 3,685, you arrange the letters this way:

You can make out "image of law," "my shuffle," "matchville," etc., etc., as far as you like to work it out.

Now, suppose you wish to memorize the fact that $1,000,000 in gold weighs 3,685 pounds, you go about it in this way, and here is the kernel and crux of Loisette's system:

"How much does $1,000,000 in gold weigh?"

"Weigh—scales."

"Scales—statue of Justice."

"Statue of Justice—image of law."

The process is simplicity itself. The thing you wish to recall, and that you fear to forget, is the weight; consequently you cement your chain of suggestion to the idea which is most prominent to your mental question. What do you weigh with? Scales. What does the mental picture of scales suggest? The statue of Justice, blindfolded and weighing out award and punishment to man. Finally, what is this statue of Justice but the image of law? And the words "image of law," translated back from the significant letters m, g soft, f and l, give you 3—6—8—5, the number of pounds in $1,000,000 in gold. You bind together in your mind each separate step in the journey, the one suggests the other, and you will find a year from now that the fact will be as fresh in your memory as it is to-day. You cannot lose it. It is chained to you by an unbreakable mnemonic tie. Mark, that it is not claimed that "weight" will of itself suggest "scales" and "scales" "statue of Justice," etc., but that, once having passed your attention up and down the ladder of ideas, your mental tendency will be to take the same route, and get to the same goal again and again. Indeed, beginning with the weight of $1,000,000, "image of law" will turn up in your mind without your consciousness of any intermediate station on the way, after some iteration and reiteration of the original chain.

Again, so as to fasten the process in the reader's mind even more firmly, suppose that it were desired to fix the date of the battle of Hastings (A.D. 1066) in the memory; 1066 may be represented by the words "the wise judge" (th equals 1, s equals 0, j equals 6, dg equals 6; the others are non-significants); a chain might be made thus:

Battle of Hastings—arbitrament of war.

Arbitrament of war—arbitration.

Arbitration—judgment.

Judgment—the wise judge.

Make mental pictures, connect ideas, repeat words and sounds, go about it in any way you please, so that you will form a mental habit of connecting the "battle of Hastings" with the idea of "arbitrament of war," and so on for the other links in the chain, and the work is done.

Loisette makes the beginning of his system unnecessarily difficult, to say nothing of his illogical arrangement in the grammar of the art of memory, which he makes the first of his lessons. He analyzes suggestion thus:

All of which looks very scientific and orderly, but is really misleading and badly named. The truth is that one idea will suggest another.

1. By likeness or opposition of meaning, as "house" suggests "room" or "door," etc., or "white" suggests "blacks," "cruel," "kind," etc.

2. By likeness of sound, as "harrow" and "barrow;" "Henry" and "Hennepin."

3. By mental juxtaposition, a peculiarity different in each person and depending upon each one's own experiences. Thus "St. Charles" suggests "railway bridge" to me, because I was vividly impressed by the breaking of the Wabash bridge at that point. "Stable" and "broken leg" come near each other in my experience, so do "cow" and "shot-gun" and "licking."

Out of these three sorts of suggestions it is possible to get from any one fact to any other in a chain certain and safe, along which the mind may be depended upon afterward always to follow.

The chain is, of course, by no means all. Its making and its binding must be accompanied by a vivid, methodically directed attention, which turns all the mental light gettable in a focus upon the subject passing across the mind's screen. Before Loisette was thought of this was known. In the old times in England, in order to impress upon the minds of the rising generation the parish boundaries in the rural districts, the boys were taken to each of the landmarks in succession, the position and bearings of each pointed out carefully, and, in order to deepen the impression, the young people were then and there vigorously thrashed, a mechanical method of attracting the attention which was said never to have failed. This system has had its supporters in many of the old-fashioned schools, and there are men who will read these lines who can recall, with an itching sense of vivid expression, the 144 lickings which were said to go with the multiplication table.

In default of a thrashing, however, the student must cultivate as best he can an intense fixity of perception upon every fact or word or date that he wishes to make permanently his own. It is easy. It is a matter of habit. If you will you can photograph an idea upon your cerebral gelatine so that neither years nor events will blot it out or overlay it. You must be clearly and distinctly aware of the thing you are putting into your mental treasure-house, and drastically certain of the cord by which you have tied it to some other thing of which you are sure. Unless it is worth your while to do this, you might as well abandon any hopes of mnemonic improvement, which will not come without the hardest kind of hard work, although it is work that will grow constantly easier with practice and reiteration.

You need, then:

• 1. Methodic suggestion.
• 2. Methodic attention.
• 3. Methodic reiteration.

And this is all there is to Loisette, and a great deal it is. Two of them will not do without the third. You do not know how many steps there are from your hall-door to your bed-room, though you have attended to and often reiterated the journey. But if there are twenty of them, and you have once bound the word "nice," or "nose," or "news," or "hyenas," to the fact of the stairway, you could never forget it.

The Professor makes a point, and very wisely, of the importance of working through some established chain, so that the whole may be carried away in the mind—not alone for the value of the facts so bound together, but for the mental discipline so afforded.

Here, then, is the "President Series," which contains the name and the date of inauguration of each President from Washington to Cleveland. The manner in which it is to be mastered is this: Beginning at the top, try to find in your mind some connection between each word and the one following it. See how you can at some future time make one suggest the next, either by suggestion of sound or sense, or by mental juxtaposition. When you have found this dwell on it attentively for a moment or two. Pass it backward and forward before you, and then go on to the next step.

The chain runs thus, the names of the Presidents being in small caps, the date word in italics:

Now, follow out the rest for yourself, taking about ten at a time, and binding those you do last to those you have done before each time, before attacking the next bunch.

It will be noted that some of the date words, as "free will," only give three figures of the date, 845; but it is to be supposed that if the student knows that many figures in the date of Polk's inauguration he can guess the other one.

The curious thing about this system will now become apparent. If the reader has learned the series so that he can say it down from first President to Cleveland, he can with no effort, and without any further preparation, say it backward, from Cleveland up to the commencement. There could be no better proof that this is the natural mnemonic system. It proves itself by its works.

The series should be repeated backward and forward every day for a month, and should be supplemented by a series of the reader's own making, and by this one, which gives the numbers from 0 to 100, and which must be chained together before they can be learned.

By the use of this table, which should be committed as thoroughly as the President series, so that it can be repeated backwards and forwards, any date, figure or number can be at once constructed, and bound by the usual chain to the fact which you wish it to accompany.

When the student wishes to go farther and attack larger problems than the simple binding of two facts together, there is little in Loisette's system that is new, although there is much that is good. If it is a book that is to be learned, as one would prepare for an examination, each chapter is to be considered separately. Of each a precis is to be written in which the writer must exercise all of his ingenuity to reduce the matter in hand to its final skeleton of fact. This he is to commit to memory both by the use of the chain and the old system of interrogation. Suppose after much labor through a wide space of language one boils a chapter to an event down to the final irreducible sediment: "Magna Charta was exacted by the barons from King John at Runnymede."

You must now turn this statement this way and that way, asking yourself about it every possible and impossible question, gravely considering the answers, and, if you find any part of it especially difficult to remember, chaining it to the question which will bring it out. Thus, "What was exacted by the barons from King John at Runnymede?" "Magna Charta." "By whom was Magna Charta exacted from King John at Runnymede?" "By the barons." "From whom was," etc., etc.? "King John." "From what king," etc., etc.? "King John." "Where was Magna Charta," etc., etc.? "At Runnymede."

And so on and so on, as long as your ingenuity can suggest questions to ask, or points of view from which to consider the statement. Your mind will be finally saturated with the information and prepared to spill it out at the first squeeze of the examiner. This, however, is not new. It was taught in the schools hundreds of years before Loisette was born. Old newspaper men will recall in connection with it Horace Greeley's statement that the test of a news item was the clear and satisfactory manner in which a report answered the interrogatories, "What?" "When?" "Where?" "Who?" "Why?"

In the same way Loisette advises the learning of poetry, e.g.,

"The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold."

"Who came down?"

"How did the Assyrian come down?"

"Like what animal did?" etc.

And so on and so on, until the verses are exhausted of every scrap of information to be had out of them by the most assiduous cross-examination.

Whatever the reader may think of the availability or value of this part of the system, there are so many easily applicable tests of the worth of much that Loisette has done, that it may be taken with the rest.

Few people, to give an easy example, can remember the value of +— the ratio between the circumference and the diameter of the circle—beyond four places of decimals, or at most six—3,141,592+. Here is the value to 108 decimal places:

By a very simple application of the numerical letter values these 108 decimal places can be carried in the mind and recalled about as fast as you can write them down. All that is to be done is to memorize these nonsense lines: