remost among modern local medallists, is Mr. Joseph Moore, of Pitsford
Street, whose cabinet of specimens is most extensive. An effort is being
made to gather for the new Museum and Art Gallery a collection of all
coins, medals, and tokens struck in Birmingham, and if it can be
perfected it will necessarily be a very valuable one.

_Coal_.--Over half-a-million tons of coal are used in Birmingham
annually.

_Cocoa_.--The manufacture of cocoa cannot be classed among the staple
trades of the town, but one of the largest establishments of the kind in
the kingdom, if not in the world, is that of Messrs. Cadbury, at
Bournville, where nearly 400 persons are employed. The annual
consumption of cocoa in this country is estimated at 13,000,000 lbs.,
and the proportion manufactured by Messrs. Cadbury, who have houses in
Paris, Sydney, Melbourne, Montreal, &e., may be guessed at from the fact
that their works cover nearly four acres, and packing-boxes are required
at the rate of 12,000 per week.

_Copying Presses_ were invented by James Watt in, and patented in, May,
1780. His partner, Boulton, had a lot ready for the market, and sold 150
by the end of the year.

_Compressed Air Power_.--A hundred years ago every little brook and
streamlet was utilised for producing the power required by our local
mill-owners, gun-barrel rollers, &c. Then came the world's
revolutioniser, steam, and no place in the universe has profited more by
its introduction than this town. Gas engines are now popular, and even
water engines are not unknown, while the motive power derivable from
electricity is the next and greatest boon promised to us. Meanwhile, the
introduction of compressed air as a means of transmitting power for long
distances marks a new and important era, not only in engineering
science, but in furthering the extension of hundreds of those small
industries, which have made Birmingham so famous a workshop. In the
Birmingham Compressed Air Power Company's Bill (passed March 12, 1884),
the principle involved is the economic utility of centralising the
production of power, and many engineers are of opinion that no other
means can possibly be found so convenient as the use of compressed air
in transmitting motive power, or at so low a cost, the saving being
quite 20 per cent, compared with the use of steam for small engines. The
Birmingham Bill provides for the supply of compressed air within the
wards of St. Bartholomew, St. Martin, Derite