his total, must ultimately, by those
ninety-eight clerks and their successors, be separated from the mass,
and assigned, under the proper description, with unerring precision,
each to the bank by which that particular unit of this vast volume was
emitted and must be redeemed.

The bulk of the currency sent in for redemption comes through the Adams
Express Company, who have a contract for making all shipments of money
for the Government, and who for convenience have an office in the
basement of the Treasury. The agency occupies four rooms on the main
floor along the west wall, and one on the opposite side of the passage.
Early visitors to that part of the building may have noticed a wooden
box, much resembling a carpenter's tool chest, trundled along upon a
cart by a porter, and followed by a man with a book under his arm. The
box contains the day's delivery of national bank currency for
redemption, ranging ordinarily from half a million to a million and a
half of dollars, and the book contains a receipt for the amount, to be
signed by the receiving clerk of the agency. The money comes in perhaps
a hundred or as high as two hundred and fifty packages, from as many
places throughout the country. On being opened these packages display a
miscellaneous aggregation, of which the following items may be
mentioned: Thousands of notes of all the denominations and all the
banks, perhaps a little soiled, but perfectly sound, and for all the
purposes of currency in as good a condition as when they left the
printers' hands; a somewhat smaller bulk of others in every state of
mutilation and uncleanliness; hundreds, clean, crisp, and unwrinkled,
that have not been counted three times outside of the division of
issues; scores torn, cut, ground, burned, charred, boiled, soaked,
chewed, and digested, until a skilful eye is required to recognize that
they have ever been intended for money; and scattered singly through
this mass, counterfeits, stolen notes, "split" notes, "raised" notes,
and now and then a stray greenback.

The packages, after an entry of them has been made on the books, are
distributed singly among women counters, each of whom gives her receipt.
A counter, upon receiving a package, takes it to her desk, breaks the
seals, and first takes an inventory of the money to see whether the
aggregate of the sums called for by the straps around the various
parcels of notes corresponds with the amount claimed for the whole.
Should s