Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/37

Rh  The Roman pold coin, or aureus, weighed! s. d. generally double the denarius; its value, | according to the proportion of gold to silver mentioned by Pliny, was [1 4 8f According to the proportion that now obtains among us According to the decuple proportion mentioned by Livy and Julius Pollux According to the proportion mentioned by Tin-it us, by which the aureus exchanged for 26 denarii, its value was 109 1211 16 $ cts. 5 89-6 508 8 18-2 891-5

An English writer says of these tables of ancient coins that they " are constructed on the hypothesis that the consular denarii weighed by Greaves were of the same purity as English standard silver, and that no subsequent diminution was made either in their weight or fineness. The conclusion derived from such data, though differing in degree, are of the same character as those which we should arrive at if, in estimating the value of the pound sterling during the last 100 years, we took for granted that it contained a pound weight of standard silver, as in the period frpm the conquest to the reign of Edward I."

 COIRE, or Chnr (Romansch, Cuera; anc. Curia Rhatorum), a town of Switzerland, capital of the canton of Grisons, 59 m. S. E. of Zurich; pop. in 1870, 7,552. It occupies a picturesque site at the mouth of the defile of the Plessur, about a mile from the Rhine, and is the principal depot on the route from Italy into Switzerland and western Germany by the Splugen and Bernardino passes. The church of St. Lucius and the bishop's palace are curious old buildings, portions of which date back to the 8th century or earlier. There are also a town hall, public library, Catholic seminary, and cantonal schools. It is the seat of probably the oldest bishopric in Switzerland, dating from the 5th century. The Romansh, a corruption of Latin, is spoken here, and a newspaper is published in that tongue. It is the birthplace of the painter Angelica Kauffman.

 COIT, Thomas Winthrop, an American clergyman, born in New London, Conn., June 28, 1803. He graduated at Yale college in 1821, entered the ministry of the Episcopal church, and became rector of St. Peter's church, Salem, Mass., in 1827, and two years later rector of Christ's church, Cambridge. In 1834 he was elected president of Transylvania university, Lexington, Ky. This office he resigned in 1839, and became rector of Trinity church, New Rochelle, N. Y., which position he held for about ten years. In 1854 he was elected professor of ecclesiastical history in Berkeley divinity school, Middletown, Conn., the duties of which post he discharged in connection with the rectorship of St. Paul's church, Troy, N. Y. He resigned the rectorship in 1872, and has been since chiefly occupied in the duties of his professorship. Dr. Coit ranks among the foremost of living scholars in the Episcopal church, and is the author of several able works in defence of its doctrines and position. Besides a large number of occasional addresses and sermons, and contributions to the "Church Review," he has published "A Theological Commonplace Book; " " The Bible and Apocrypha in Paragraphs and Parallelisms" (2 vols., 1834); " Remarks on Mr. Norton's Statement of Reasons" (1834); "Townsend's Chronological Bible " (2 vols., 1837); " Puritanism, a Churchman's Defence against its Aspersions" (1844); " Lectures on the Early History of Christianity in England" (1859); and a report on the " Standard Prayer Book " (1868).

 COJUTEPEC, or Cojutepeqne, a town of San Salvador, Central America, in the department* of Cuscatlan, a few miles N. of a lake of the same name, and about 15 m. E. of San Salvador; pop. 15,000. It was the seat of government from 1854 to 1858, San Salvador, the capital, having been destroyed by an earthquake in the former year. The country around it is volcanic. Lake Cojutepec, sometimes called Ilopango, is 12 m. long and 5 m. broad. It is surrounded by high abrupt hills, and is probably the crater of an ancient volcano. It receives no tributary streams, but has a small outlet flowing through a deep ravine into the Rio Jiboa, near the base of the volcano of San Vicente. After a gale its waters assume a dark greenish hue and exhale a disagreeable sulphurous odor, and dead fish are cast ashore in large numbers.

 COKE, the solid product left behind when the volatile matters are expelled by distillation from bituminous coal. There are two kinds: gas coke, obtained from the retorts of gas works after the gases have been separated; and oven coke, which is made in ovens or pits, and which is considered by manufacturers as the only true coke, gas coke being merely cinder. Oven or pit coke is made upon a large scale at mines of bituminous coal, for the purpose in part of saving the fine refuse coal by conyerting it into a valuable fuel, and in part of converting the lump coal into a form better adapted for metallurgic operations, and for the use of locomotives when the flame and smoke of bituminous coal would be objectionable, as upon underground railways and in populous streets. It was formerly the opinion of some engineers that the calorific qualities of bituminous coal exist undiminished in the coke, notwithstanding that the gases expelled in the process of making the coke possess also a considerable heating power. Mr. Josiah Parker states, in vol. ii. of the "Transactions of the Institution of Civil Engineers," that he has "found that 75 Ibs. of coke, produced from 100 Ibs. of coal, evaporated as much water as 100 Ibs. of the self-same coal." He also cites the experience of Mr. Apsley Pellatt in his glass furnaces, which were especially well adapted for showing the relative calorific value of coke and coal, provision being made in them for the full combustion of the volatile products of the coal. Of late years, however, after much discussion upon the subject, bituminous coal has come into use in place of coke upon the 