Pyx, TRIAL OF THE, the annual trial by weight and assay of the gold and silver coins of the United Kingdom issued from the mint during the preceding year. It is so called from the Pyx—i.e. box or chest—in which are deposited specimen coins. Before the coins are weighed into bags at the mint for issue to the public, two pieces are taken out of each 'journey-weight' (180 oz. Troy in the case of gold, and 720 oz. in that of silver coin), one for assay within the mint, the other for the pyx. The latter are sealed up and deposited in the chest or pyx. The trials were formerly held at Westminster at uncertain intervals of several years, the jury being sworn before the Lord Chancellor or an archbishop, and the president once being Prince Rupert, another time Pitt. Now the trial takes place, to use the words of the Coinage Act, 1870, 'at least once in each year in which coins have been issued from the mint,' at Goldsmiths' Hall, and is made by a jury of goldsmiths presided over by the King's or Queen's Remembrancer, who from 1874 to 1886 was Sir Frederick Pollock (cf. his Remembrances, vol. ii. pp. 272-4). The pyx chest, having been brought to the Hall in the custody of officers of the mint, is opened in the presence of the jury, who proceed to examine the coins in regard to their number, weight, and fineness, in accordance with the provisions of an order in council dated the 29th June 1871. The standard weights used, as well as the trial-plates, are produced by an officer of the Board of Trade. The weight of the total bulk is ascertained, as well as that of selected specimen pieces, and assays are taken from a bar formed by melting a number of coins as well as from separate coins. The verdict recording the results of these several trials releases the officers of the mint from their responsibility in regard to the coinage, and affords a public guarantee that the standard of the currency is well maintained. See ASSAYING, MINT.

Q

is the seventeenth letter of our alphabet. The symbol was derived from the hieroglyphic picture of a knee (see ALPHABET); this was taken over by the Phœnicians as the letter qoph, which became koppa among the Greeks. Among the Ionian Greeks it was disused as a letter before the middle of the 5th century B.C., keeping its place only as a numeral. It was retained for a while in the Dorian alphabet, lingering longest on the coins of Corinth. On the coins of Syracuse it was replaced by k about 480 B.C. In the Italian alphabet, which was obtained from Greece before the letter was disused, the symbol was appropriated for the favourite Latin sound of the velar guttural kw. The letter q is absent from the Anglo-Saxon alphabet, in which the sound was expressed by cw, as in cwen for queen, and cwic for quick. It makes its appearance about 1160, and at first was only used for Latin or French words, such as quarter or quarrel. Before the close of the 13th century it was adopted in genuine English words, such as qualm, quell, quick, and queen. In Scotland it replaced hw, as in quhat for hwat (what). In English it is always followed by u.