Rachelle Huhra, age 8, of Donors, Pennsylvania, for her question:

What sort of paper is used to make money?

Only the government is allowed to mint our coins and print our paper money. It is against the law to create our own, and homemade money is called "counterfeit." Federal agents are always on the lookout for phoney money of this sort. Often they can tell it from the sort of paper used to make it. There are hundreds of recipes for making paper    and the kind used to print our honest money is very special.

It is very strong and sturdy, so that it can pass from hand to hand and pocket¬to pocket for a long time. If a dollar bill is new, you can see very tiny red and blue threads in the paper. Naturally the Government does not make it easy for people to copy this special paper. So the recipe is a deep secret. The precious paper is even made in secret. The Government also keeps a few secrets about the ink used to print on the paper money. We are not supposed to know the recipe for the ink or where they make it.