Sometimes water and sky are done with the ruling engine, and when they are, no counterfeiter can successfully imitate them.  Fine vignettes are seldom seen on counterfeit notes.  If the lathe and ruling engine work be genuine, an ordinary vignette cannot make a note counterfeit, and if that be counterfeit, no vignette can make the note genuine.

The vignettes on genuine notes are executed by men at the head of their vocation, and are very life-like and beautiful.  Counterfeit vignettes usually have a sunken and lifeless appearance.  Genuine vignettes, as seen upon government issues, consist of out-door scenes, portraits, historical pictures, and allegorical figures.  They are all exceedingly beautiful, and it is not likely that such work will ever be successfully imitated.

SOLID PRINT.

The lettering, or solid print, in genuine work is done by a first-class artist, who makes that kind of work his exclusive concern.  The name of the engraving company is always engraved with great pains and is very accurate.  It will be seen on the upper and lower margin of the note.  This, in counterfeits, is not quite uniform or even.  The words “one dollar,” as on the one dollar greenbacks, are to be considered as a sample of solid print.

BANK-NOTE PAPER.

Bank-notes are printed upon paper composed of linen, the qualify of which is not always the same, and it varies in thickness.  Therefore, the paper is not always a sure test, but it is important.  The manufacture of this paper is a profound secret, as carefully kept as the combinations to the great vaults where the government’s millions lie awaiting further river and harbor bills.  It is made only at the Dalton mill, which dates back almost to colonial days.  What its combinations are nobody knows except those intimately connected with its manufacture.  The secret of the paper-making is jealously guarded, as is also the paper itself.  From the moment it is made until it gets into the treasury vaults it is carefully guarded.  It goes there in small iron safes, the sheets carefully counted, and all precautions against its loss being taken both by the government officials and by the express companies which carry it.

COUNTERFEIT SIGNATURES.

Sometimes genuine notes are stolen before they are signed; then the only thing about them made counterfeit is the signatures.  Those who are familiar with the signatures of the officers of the bank where notes are purloined, may not be lead into error, as such signatures usually appear more or less cramped or unsteady; but there is no sure protection against a counterfeit of this kind for those who do not have special knowledge of the signatures.

[Illustration:  UNITED STATES TREASURY BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.]

ALTERED BANK-NOTES.