cupel
Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
- noun A porous cup, often made of bone ash, used in assaying to separate precious metals from base elements such as lead.
- noun The bottom or receptacle in a silver-refining furnace.
- transitive verb To assay or separate from base metals in a cupel.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- noun In metallurgy, a small vessel made of pulverized bone-earth, in the form of a frustum of a cone, with a cavity in the larger end, in which lead containing gold and silver is cupeled.
Examples
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Then a little lead (also weighed) is rolled up with the flake of silver and the two are melted at a great heat in a small vessel called a cupel, made by compressing bone ashes into a cup-shape in a steel mold.
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Ordinary lead is calcined in a cupel made of cinders or powdered bones; the lead is changed to a cinder which disappears into the cupel, and a button of silver remains.
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His words had a passion in them not usual in the calm, pure flow most natural to his uttered thoughts; white-hot iron we are familiar with, but white-hot silver is what we do not often look upon, and his inspiring address glowed like silver fresh from the cupel.
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Molten gold, with little or no silver, has a peculiar colour which is easy to recognise; it is more globular than a button of silver of the same size would be, and it shows less adhesion to the cupel.
A Text-book of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines.
Note
The word 'cupel' comes from a Latin word meaning 'little cup'.
