the act of debauching, by an improper mixture, something that was pure and genuine.

The word is Latin, formed of the verb *adulterare*, "to corrupt," by mingling something foreign to any substance. We have laws against the adulteration of coffee, tea, tobacco, snuff, wine, beer, bread, wax, hair-powder, &c.

**ADULTERATION of Coin**, properly imports the making, or casting of a wrong metal, or with too base or too much alloy.

Adulterations of coins are effected divers ways; as, by forging another stamp or inscription; by mixing impure metals with the gold or silver; most properly, by making use of a wrong metal, or an undue alloy, or too great an admixture of the baser metals with gold or silver. Counterfeiting the stamp, or clipping and Adulterine, and lessening the weight, do not so properly come under the denomination of adulterating.—Evelyn gives rules and methods, both of adulterating and detecting adulterated metals, &c.—Adulterating is somewhat less extensive than debauching, which includes diminishing, clipping, &c.

To adulterate or debase the current coin, is a capital crime in all nations.—The ancients punished it with great severity; among the Egyptians both hands were cut off; and by the civil law, the offender was thrown to wild beasts. The emperor Tacitus enacted, that counterfeiting the coin should be capital; and under Constantine it was made treason, as it is also among us. The adulterating of gems is a curious art, and the methods of detecting it no less useful. Nichols Lapid, p. 18.