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COPPER

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COPTS

1755, and later, in London, he painted the king and queen (George III and his consort). Here, also, he became the friend of such men as West and Reynolds. Some of his best works are Death of Lord Chatham, Death of Major Pier son, Charles I Demanding the Surrender of the Five Members and the Assassination of Buckingham. His historical paintings are perhaps superior to those of West, and his portraits rank with those of Reynolds and Gainsborough. He died at London, Sept. 9, 1815.

Cop'per. This appears to have been the first metal used by man, both in war and in the peaceful arts. Like gold and silver, it is found native, sometimes in great masses, as on the south shore of Lake Superior, where blocks of many tons' weight have been obtained. The use of copper by ancient nations is well-known, through the many collections in museums of weapons and other objects of bronze, that is, copper mixed with a small quantity of tin. The ancients obtained most of their copper from Cyprus; hence the name. ^ Copper has a fine red color, takes a brilliant polish^ and is nine times heavier than water. Next to silver it is the best conductor of heat and electricity. It is moderately hard and highly tenacious, though not so strong as iron. The largest masses of native copper are found in the mines of Russia and in our own Lake Superior region. Copper is used in many ways. With other metals it makes brass, bronze and gun-metal; alone, it is used for boilers, cooking-vessels, pipes, wire, nails, spikes; in thin plates it is used for engraving and etching, and in strong rollers for calico-printing; as an electro-deposit it is used in copying engravings and pages of type for the printing-press. Copper is usually employed for lightning-conductors. Yellow metal, an alloy of copper, is used in sheathing the bottom of vessels. The United States is now the largest producer of copper. The richest mine in the world is at Calumet, Michigan, on Lake Superior. Arizona, Montana, Utah and other parts of the Union also produce copper. The world's production of copper, in 1906, was 715,268 tons, the chief countries producing the metal, besides the United States, being1 Chile, Japan, Mexico, Australasia, Spain, Portugal, Germany and South Africa.

Copperfield, David, published in 1850, is perhaps the greatest of the works that have come from the pen of Charles Dickens. This book gives a picture, on the one hand, of a charming candor and honesty and, on the other hand, of the misery and desolation that may be wrought by evil. In many ways David Copperfield is an account of the experience of Dickens himself, at least as regards his childhood and youth. The.hardships, the loneliness, the uninviting tasks and even the debtor's prison were his

own. John Dickens and Mrs. Dickens seem to have furnished him with models for the Micawbers; and their house in Gower Street, London, was too often the scene of real sieges by angry "duns." But the book itself has all the interest of a great novel. Readers of David Copperfield never utterly forget the impression of the happy home at Norfolk, the second marriage of David's mother and the difference which it makes for the child, the steady toil in the London warehouse, the loves of David with Dora and Agnes and the darker pictures of the betrayal of Emily and the villainy of Uriah Heep, whose schemes are in the end defeated by Micawber.

Copperhead. (Ancistrodon Contortrix) This venomous snake belongs to the rattlesnake family, but it has no rattle and gives no warning of its attack. Its head is the color of burnished copper, its body is brown or sometimes golden, with darK blotches, Y-shaped on the sides and round on the belly. It grows to over four feet in length, and is as venomous as any of our snakes. But the stories told of its ferocity in attack are probably untrue. It is sluggish, and the chief danger is lest, in picking up some object on the ground or in putting one's hand in the brush, one should touch it. In winter it sleeps in a ground-hole or den; from spring to autumn it seeks damp places, especially among rocky hills. In midsummer the young are born, alive. Its favorite food is field-mice. It is common among the hills that border the Hudson and Connecticut valleys; but it is also found from Massachusetts to Texas, though frequently called by such names as pilot, red-eye, red adder and copper-belly.

Copts, the Christian descendants of the old Egyptians. There were 609,511 of them in 1897, forming one twelfth of the population of Egypt. Most of them live in Cairo, but there are a number in Upper Egypt. They make good clerks and handicraftsmen. They are of middle height, with black eyes and curly hair. They dress like the Mohammedans; but can be told by their black or blue turbans. They are, as a rule, a morose people, but are the best educated and most intelligent of the native Egyptians. St. Mark is said to have made them Christians. The head of the church is the patriarch of Alexandria; they have bishops, monks and priests, the priests being allowed to marry before they take their vows; the patriarch does not marry, and when he sleeps he must be awakened every quarter of an hour. Wednesday and Friday are fast days, and the fast of Nineveh lasts nearly two months. The Coptic language goes back to the old Egyptian; the boys learn to read it at school, but Arabic is everywhere spoken. The United Presbyterians from the United