little more than a month's supply, it is evident that consumption has
kept close pace with production.
The large demand for copper to be used in sheathing ships ceased on the
introduction of iron in shipbuilding because of the difficulty of
coating iron with an impervious layer of copper; but the consumption in
the manufacture of electric apparatus and for electric conductors has
far more than compensated.
_Alloys of Copper._--Copper unites with almost all other metals, and a
large number of its alloys are of importance in the arts. The
principal alloys in which it forms a leading ingredient are brass,
bronze, and German or nickel silver; under these several heads their
respective applications and qualities will be found.
Oxides and hydroxides.
_Compounds of Copper._--Copper probably forms six oxides, viz. Cu4O,
Cu3O, Cu2O, CuO, Cu2O3 and CuO2. The most important are cuprous oxide,
Cu2O, and cupric oxide, CuO, both of which give rise to well-defined
series of salts. The other oxides do not possess this property, as is
also the case of the hydrated oxides Cu3O22H2O and Cu4O35H2O,
described by M. Siewert.
Cuprous oxide, Cu2O, occurs in nature as the mineral cuprite (q.v.).
It may be prepared artificially by heating copper wire to a white
heat, and afterwards at a red heat, by the atmospheric oxidation of
copper reduced in hydrogen, or by the slow oxidation of the metal
under water. It is obtained as a fine red crystalline precipitate by
reducing an alkaline copper solution with sugar. When finely divided
it is of a fine red colour. It fuses at red heat, and colours glass a
ruby-red. The property was known to the ancients and during the middle
ages; it was then lost for several centuries, to be rediscovered in
about 1827. Cuprous oxide is reduced by hydrogen, carbon monoxide,
charcoal, or iron, to the metal; it dissolves in hydrochloric acid
forming cuprous chloride, and in other mineral acids to form cupric
salts, with the separation of copper. It dissolves in ammonia, forming
a colourless solution which rapidly oxidizes and turns blue. A
hydrated cuprous oxide, (4Cu2O, H2O), is obtained as a bright yellow
powder, when cuprous chloride is treated with potash or soda. It
rapidly absorbs oxygen, assuming a blue colour. Cuprous oxide
corresponds to the series of cuprous salts, which are mostly white in
colour, insoluble in water, and readily oxidized to cupric salts.
Cupric oxide, CuO, occurs in nature as the mineral melaconite (q.v.),
and can be obtained as a hygroscopic black powder by the gentle
ignition of copper nitrate, carbonate or hydroxide; also by heating
the hydroxide. It oxidizes carbon compounds to carbon dioxide and
water, and therefore finds extensive application in analytical organic
chemistry. It is also employed to colour glass, to which it imparts a
light green colour. Cupric hydroxide, Cu(OH)2, is obtained as a
greenish-blue flocculent precipitate by mixing cold solutions of
potash and a cupric salt. This precipitate always contains more or
less potash, which cannot be entirely removed by washing. A purer
product is obtained by adding ammonium chloride, filtering, and
washing with hot water. Several hydrated oxides, e.g. Cu(OH)2.3CuO,
Cu(OH)2.6H2O, 6CuO.H2O, have been described. Both the oxide
and hydroxide dissolve in ammonia to form a beautiful azure-blue
solution (Schweizer's reagent), which dissolves cellulose, or perhaps,
holds it in suspension as water does starch; accordingly, the solution
rapidly perforates paper or calico. The salts derived from cupric
oxide are generally white when anhydrous, but blue or green when
hydrated.
Copper quadrantoxide, Cu4O, is an olive-green powder formed by mixing
well-cooled solutions of copper sulphate and alkaline stannous
chloride. The trientoxide, Cu3O, is obtained when cupric oxide is
heated to 1500 deg.-2000 deg. C. It forms yellowish-red crystals,
which scratch glass, and are unaffected by all acids except
hydrofluoric; it also dissolves in molten potash. Copper dioxide,
CuO2H2O, is obtained as a yellowish-brown powder, by treating cupric
hydrate with hydrogen peroxide. When moist, it decomposes at about 6
deg. C., but the dry substance must be heated to about 180 deg.,
before decomposition sets in (see L. Moser, _Abst. J.C.S._, 1907, ii.
p. 549).
Cuprous hydride, (CuH)n, was first obtained by Wurtz in 1844, who
treated a solution of copper sulphate with hypophosphorous acid, at a
temperature not exceeding 70 deg. C. According to E. J. Bartlett and
W. H. Merrill, it decomposes when heated, and gives cupric hydride,
CuH2, as a reddish-brown spongy mass, which turns to a chocolate
colour on exposure. It is a strong reducing agent.
Cuprous fluoride, CuF, is a ruby-red crystalline mass, formed by
heating cuprous chloride in an atmosphere of hydrofluoric acid at 1100
deg.-1200 deg. C. It is soluble in boiling hydrochloric acid, but it
is not reprecipitated by water, as is the case with cuprous chloride.
Cupric fluoride, CuF2, is obtained by dissolving cupric oxide in
hydrofluoric acid. The hydrated form, (CuF2, 2H2O, 5HF), is obtained
as blue crystals, sparingly soluble in cold water; when heated to 100
deg. C. it gives the compound CuF(OH), which, when heated with
ammonium fluoride in a current of carbon dioxide, gives anhydrous
copper fluoride as a white powder.
Cuprous chloride, CuCl or Cu2Cl2, was obtained by Robert Boyle by
heating copper with mercuric chloride. It is also obtained by burning
the metal in chlorine, by heating copper and cupric oxide with
hydrochloric acid, or copper and cupric chloride with hydrochloric
acid. It dissolves in the excess of acid, and is precipitated as a
white crystalline powder on the addition of water. It melts at below
red heat to a brown mass, and its vapour density at both red and white
heat corresponds to the formula Cu2Cl2. It turns dirty violet on
exposure to air and light; in moist air it absorbs oxygen and forms an
oxychloride. Its solution in hydrochloric acid readily absorbs carbon
monoxide and acetylene; hence it finds application in gas analysis.
Its solution in ammonia is at first colourless, but rapidly turns
blue, owing to oxidation. This solution absorbs acetylene with the
precipitation of red cuprous acetylide, Cu2C2, a very explosive
compound. Cupric chloride, CuCl2, is obtained by burning copper in an
excess of chlorine, or by heating the hydrated chloride, obtained by
dissolving the metal or cupric oxide in an excess of hydrochloric
acid. It is a brown deliquescent powder, which rapidly forms the green
hydrated salt CuCl2, 2H2O on exposure. The oxychloride Cu3O2Cl2.4H2O
is obtained as a pale blue precipitate when potash is added to an
excess of cupric chloride. The oxychloride Cu4O3Cl2, 4H2O occurs in
nature as the mineral atacamite. It may be artificially prepared by
heating salt with ammonium copper sulphate to 100 deg.. Other
naturally occurring oxychlorides are botallackite and tallingite.
"Brunswick green," a light green pigment, is obtained from copper
sulphate and bleaching powder.
The bromides closely resemble the chlorides and fluorides.
Cuprous iodide, Cu2I2, is obtained as a white powder, which suffers
little alteration on exposure, by the direct union of its components
or by mixing solutions of cuprous chloride in hydrochloric acid and
potassium iodide; or, with liberation of iodine, by adding potassium
iodide to a cupric salt. It absorbs ammonia, forming the compound
Cu2I2, 4NH3. Cupric iodide is only known in combination, as in CuI2,
4NH3, H2O, which is obtained by exposing Cu2I2, 4NH3 to moist air.
Cuprous sulphide, Cu2S, occurs in nature as the mineral chalcocite or
copper-glance (q.v.), and may be obtained as a black brittle mass by
the direct combination of its constituents. (See above, METALLURGY.)
Cupric sulphide, CuS, occurs in nature as the mineral covellite. It
may be prepared by heating cuprous sulphide with sulphur, or
triturating cuprous sulphide with cold strong nitric acid, or as a
dark brown precipitate by treating a copper solution with sulphuretted
hydrogen. Several polysulphides, e.g. Cu2S5, Cu2S6, Cu4S6, Cu2S3, have
been described; they are all unstable, decomposing into cupric
sulphide and sulphur. Cuprous sulphite, CuSO3.H2O, is obtained as a
brownish-red crystalline powder by treating cuprous hydrate with
sulphurous acid. A cuproso-cupric sulphite, Cu2SO3, CuSO3,2H2O, is
obtained by mixing solutions of cupric sulphate and acid sodium
sulphite.
Cupric sulphate or "Blue Vitriol," CuSO4, is one of the most important
salts of copper. It occurs in cupriferous mine waters and as the
minerals chalcanthite or cyanosite, CuSO4.5H2O, and boothite,
CuSO4.7H2O. Cupric sulphate is obtained commercially by the oxidation
of sulphuretted copper ores (see above, METALLURGY; wet methods), or
by dissolving cupric oxide in sulphuric acid. It was obtained in 1644
by Van Helmont, who heated copper with sulphur and moistened the
residue, and in 1648 by Glauber, who dissolved copper in strong
sulphuric acid. (For the mechanism of this reaction see C. H. Sluiter,
_Chem. Weekblad_, 1906, 3, p. 63, and C. M. van Deventer, ibid., 1906,
3, p. 515.) It crystallizes with five molecules of water as large blue
triclinic prisms. When heated to 100 deg., it loses four molecules of
water and forms the bluish-white monohydrate, which, on further
heating to 25O deg.-260 deg., is converted into the white CuSO4. The
anhydrous salt is very hygroscopic, and hence finds application as a
desiccating agent. It also absorbs gaseous hydrochloric acid. Copper
sulphate is readily soluble in water, but insoluble in alcohol; it
dissolves in hydrochloric acid with a considerable fall in
temperature, cupric chloride being formed. The copper is readily
replaced by iron, a knife-blade placed in an aqueous solution being
covered immediately with a bright red deposit of copper. At one time
this was regarded as a transmutation of iron into copper. Several
basic salts are known, some of which occur as minerals; of these, we
may mention brochantite (q.v.), CuSO4, 3Cu(OH2), langite, CuSO4,
3Cu(OH)2, H2O, lyellite (or devilline), warringtonite; woodwardite and
enysite are hydrated copper-aluminium sulphates, connellite is a basic
copper chlorosulphate, and spangolite is a basic copper aluminium
chlorosulphate. Copper sulphate finds application in calico printing
and in the preparation of the pigment Scheele's green.
A copper nitride, Cu3N, is obtained by heating precipitated cuprous
oxide in ammonia gas (A. Guntz and H. Bassett, _Bull. Soc. Chim._,
1906, 35, p. 201). A maroon-coloured powder, of composition CuNO2, is
formed when pure dry nitrogen dioxide is passed over finely-divided
copper at 25 deg.-30 deg.. It decomposes when heated to 90 deg.; with
water it gives nitric oxide and cupric nitrate and nitrite. Cupric
nitrate, Cu(NO3)2, is obtained by dissolving the metal or oxide in
nitric acid. It forms dark blue prismatic crystals containing 3, 4, or
6 molecules of water according to the temperature of crystallization.
The trihydrate melts at 114.5 deg., and boils at 170 deg., giving off
nitric acid, and leaving the basic salt Cu(NO3)2.3Cu(OH)2. The mineral
gerhardtite is the basic nitrate Cu2(OH)3NO3.
Copper combines directly with phosphorus to form several compounds.
The phosphide obtained by heating cupric phosphate, Cu2H2P2O8, in
hydrogen, when mixed with potassium and cuprous sulphides or levigated
coke, constitutes "Abel's fuse," which is used as a primer. A
phosphide, Cu3P2, is formed by passing phosphoretted hydrogen over
heated cuprous chloride. (For other phosphides see E. Heyn and O.
Bauer, _Rep. Chem. Soc._, 1906, 3, p. 39.) Cupric phosphate,
Cu3(PO4)2, may be obtained by precipitating a copper solution with
sodium phosphate. Basic copper phosphates are of frequent occurrence
in the mineral kingdom. Of these we may notice libethenite,
Cu2(OH)PO4; chalcosiderite, a basic copper iron phosphate; torbernite,
a copper uranyl phosphate; andrewsite, a hydrated copper iron
phosphate; and henwoodite, a hydrated copper aluminium phosphate.
Copper combines directly with arsenic to form several arsenides, some
of which occur in the mineral kingdom. Of these we may mention
whitneyite, Cu9As, algodonite, Cu6As, and domeykite, Cu3As. Copper
arsenate is similar to cupric phosphate, and the resemblance is to be
observed in the naturally occurring copper arsenates, which are
generally isomorphous with the corresponding phosphates. Olivenite
corresponds to libethenite; clinoclase, euchroite, cornwallite and
tyrolite are basic arsenates; zeunerite corresponds to torbernite;
chalcophyllite (tamarite or "copper-mica") is a basic copper aluminium
sulphato-arsenate, and bayldonite is a similar compound containing
lead instead of aluminium. Copper arsenite forms the basis of a number
of once valuable, but very poisonous, pigments. Scheele's green is a
basic copper arsenite; Schweinfurt green, an aceto-arsenite; and
Casselmann's green a compound of cupric sulphate with potassium or
sodium acetate.
Normal cupric carbonate, CuCO3, has not been definitely obtained,
basic hydrated forms being formed when an alkaline carbonate is added
to a cupric salt. Copper carbonates are of wide occurrence in the
mineral kingdom, and constitute the valuable ores malachite and
azurite. Copper rust has the same composition as malachite; it results
from the action of carbon dioxide and water on the metal. Copper
carbonate is also the basis of the valuable blue to green pigments
verditer, Bremen blue and Bremen green. Mountain or mineral green is a
naturally occurring carbonate.
By the direct union of copper and silicon, cuprosilicon, consisting
mainly of Cu4Si, is obtained (Lebeau, C.R., 1906; Vigouroux,
ibid.).
Copper silicates occur in the mineral kingdom, many minerals owing
their colour to the presence of a cupriferous element. Dioptase (q.v.)
and chrysocolla (q.v.) are the most important forms.
_Detection._--Compounds of copper impart a bright green coloration to
the flame of a Bunsen burner. Ammonia gives a characteristic blue
coloration when added to a solution of a copper salt; potassium
ferrocyanide gives a brown precipitate, and, if the solution be very
dilute, a brown colour is produced. This latter reaction will detect
one part of copper in 500,000 of water. For the borax beads and the
qualitative separation of copper from other metals, see CHEMISTRY:
ANALYTICAL. For the quantitative estimation, see ASSAYING: COPPER.
_Medicine._--In medicine copper sulphate was employed as an emetic,
but its employment for this purpose is now very rare, as it is
exceedingly depressant, and if it fails to act, may seriously damage
the gastric mucous membrane. It is, however, a useful superficial
caustic and antiseptic. All copper compounds are poisonous, but not so
harmful as the copper arsenical pigments.
REFERENCES.--See generally H. J. Steven's _Copper Handbook_ (annual),
W. H. Weld, _The Copper Mines of the World_ (1907), _The Mineral
Industry_ (annual), and _Mineral Resources of the United States_
(annual). For the dry metallurgy, see E. D. Peters, _Principles of
Copper Smelting_ (New York, 1907); for pyritic smelting, see T. A.
Rickard, _Pyrite Smelting_ (1905); for wet methods, see Eissler,
_Hydrometallurgy of Copper_ (London, 1902); and for electrolytic
methods, see T. Ulke, _Die electrolytische Raffination des Kupfers_
(Halle, 1904). Reference should also be made to the articles
METALLURGY and ELECTRO-METALLURGY. For the chemistry of copper and its
compounds see the references in the article CHEMISTRY: Inorganic.
Toxicologic and hygienic aspects are treated in Tschirsch's _Das
Kupfer vom Standpunkt der gerichtlichen Chemie, Toxikologie und
Hygiene_ (Stuttgart, 1893).
COPPERAS (Fr. _couperose_; Lat. _cupri rosa_. the flower of copper),
green vitriol, or ferrous sulphate, FeSO4.7H2O, having a
bluish-green colour and an astringent, inky and somewhat sweetish taste.
It is used in dyeing and tanning, and in the manufacture of ink and of
Nordhausen sulphuric acid or fuming oil of vitriol (see IRON).
COPPER-GLANCE, a mineral consisting of cuprous sulphide, Cu2S, and
crystallizing in the orthorhombic system. It is known also as
chalcocite, redruthite and vitreous copper (German, _Kupferglaserz_ of
G. Agricola, 1546). The crystals have the form of six-sided tables or
prisms; the angle between the prism faces (lettered o in the figure)
being 60 deg. 25'. When twinned on the prism planes o, as is frequently
the case, the crystals simulate hexagonal symmetry still more closely,
as in the minerals aragonite and chrysoberyl. Twinning also takes place
according to two other laws, giving rise to interpenetrating crystals
with the basal planes (s) of the two individuals inclined at angles of
69 deg. or 87 deg. 56' respectively. The mineral also occurs as compact
masses of considerable extent. The colour is dark lead-grey with a
metallic lustre, but this is never very bright, since the material is
readily altered, becoming black and dull on exposure to light. The
mineral is soft (H.=2-1/2) and sectile, and can be readily cut with a
knife, like argentite; sp. gr. 5.7. Analyses agree closely with the
formula Cu2S, which corresponds to 79.8% of copper; small quantities of
iron and silver are sometimes present.
[Illustration]
Next to chalcopyrite, copper-glance is the most important ore of copper.
It usually occurs in the upper part of the copper-bearing lodes, and is
a secondary sulphide derived from the chalcopyrite met with at greater
depths; sometimes, however, the two minerals are found together in the
same part of the lodes. The best crystals are from St Just, St Ives, and
Redruth in Cornwall, and from Bristol in Connecticut. Small crystals of
recent formation are found on Roman bronze coins in the thermal springs
at Bourbonne-les-Bains.
Copper-glance readily alters to other minerals, such as malachite,
covellite, melaconite and chalcopyrite. On the other hand, it is found
as pseudomorphs after chalcopyrite, galena, and organic structures such
as wood; copper-glance pseudomorphous after galena preserves the
cleavage of the original mineral and is known as harrisite.
Isomorphous with copper-glance is the orthorhombic mineral stromeyerite,
a double copper and silver sulphide, CuAgS, which occurs in abundance in
the Altai Mountains. (L. J. S.)
COPPERHEADS, an American political epithet, applied by Union men during
the Civil War to those men in the North who, deeming it impossible to
conquer the Confederacy, were earnestly in favour of peace and therefore
opposed to the war policy of the president and of Congress. Such men
were not necessarily friends of the Confederate cause. The term
originated in the autumn of 1862, and its use quickly spread throughout
the North. In the Western states early in 1863 the terms "Copperhead"
and "Democrat" had become practically synonymous. The name was adopted
because of the fancied resemblance of the peace party to the venomous
copperhead snake, and, though applied as a term of opprobrium, it was
willingly assumed by those upon whom it was bestowed.
COPPERMINE, a river of Mackenzie district, Canada, about 475 m. long,
rising in a small lake in approximately 110 deg. 20' W. and 65 deg. 50'
N., and flowing south to Lake Gras and then north-westward to Coronation
Gulf in the Arctic Ocean. Like Back's river, the only other large river
of this part of Canada, it is unnavigable, being a succession of lakes
and violent rapids. The country through which it flows is a mass of low
hills and morasses. The river was discovered by Samuel Hearne in 1771,
and was explored from Point Lake to the sea by Captain (afterwards Sir
John) Franklin in 1821.
COPPER-PYRITES, or CHALCOPYRITE, a copper iron sulphide (CUFeS2), an
important ore of copper. The name copper-pyrites is from the Ger.
_Kupferkies_, which was used as far back as 1546 by G. Agricola;
chalcopyrite (from [Greek: chalkos], "copper," and pyrites) was proposed
by J. F. Henckel in his _Pyritologia, oder Kiess-Historie_ (1725). By
the ancients copper-pyrites was included with other minerals under the
term pyrites, though the copper-ore from Cyprus referred to by Aristotle
as chalcites may possibly have been identical with this mineral.
Chalcopyrite crystallizes in the tetragonal system with inclined
hemihedrism, but the form is so nearly cubic that it was not recognized
as tetragonal until accurate measurements were made in 1822. Crystals
are usually tetrahedral in aspect, owing to the large development of the
sphenoid P {111}. The faces of this form are dull and striated, whilst
the smaller faces of the complementary sphenoid P' {111} (fig. 1) are
bright and smooth. The combination of these two forms produces a figure
resembling an octahedron, the angle between P and P' being 70 deg.
7-1/2', corresponding to the angle 70 deg. 32' of the regular
octahedron. The other faces shown in fig. 1 are the basal pinacoid, a
{001}, and two square pyramids, b {101} and c {201}. Crystals are
usually twinned, and are often complex and difficult to decipher. There
are three twin-laws, the twin-planes being (111), (101) and (110)
respectively. Twinning according to the first law is effected by
rotation about an axis normal to the sphenoidal face (111), the
resulting form resembling the twins of blende and spinel. Twinning
according to the second law can only be explained by reflection across
the plane (101), not by rotation about an axis; chalcopyrite affords an
excellent example of this comparatively rare type of symmetric twinning.
Interpenetration twins (fig. 2) with (110) as twin-plane are of very
rare occurrence.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
Crystals have imperfect cleavages parallel to the eight faces of the
pyramid c {201}. The fracture is conchoidal, and the material is
brittle. Hardness 4; specific gravity 4.2. The colour is brass-yellow,
and the lustre metallic; the streak, or colour of the powder, is
greenish-black. The mineral is especially liable to surface alteration,
tarnishing with beautiful iridescent colours; a blue colour usually
predominates, owing probably to the alteration of the chalcopyrite to
covellite (CuS). The massive and compact mineral frequently exhibits
this iridescent tarnish, and is consequently known to miners as "peacock
ore" or "peacock copper." The massive mineral sometimes occurs in
mammillary and botryoidal forms with a smooth brassy surface, and is
then known to Cornish miners as "blister-copper-ore."
Chalcopyrite or copper-pyrites may be readily distinguished from
iron-pyrites (or pyrites), which it somewhat resembles in appearance,
by its deeper colour and lower degree of hardness: the former is easily
scratched by a knife, whilst the latter can only be scratched with
difficulty or not at all. Chalcopyrite is decomposed by nitric acid with
separation of sulphur and formation of a green solution; ammonia added
in excess to this solution changes the green colour to deep blue and
precipitates red ferric hydroxide.
The chemical formula CuFeS2 corresponds with the percentage
composition Cu=34.5, Fe=30.5, S=35.0. Analyses usually, however, show
the presence of more iron, owing to the intimate admixture of
iron-pyrites. Traces of gold, silver, selenium or thallium are sometimes
present, and the mineral is sometimes worked as an ore of gold or
silver.
Chalcopyrite is of wide distribution and is the commonest of the ores of
copper. It occurs in metalliferous veins, often in association with
iron-pyrites, chalybite, blende, &c., and in Cornwall and Devon, where
it is abundant, with cassiterite. The large deposits at Falun in Sweden
occur with serpentine in gneiss, and those at Montecatini, near Volterra
in the province of Pisa, serpentine and gabbro. At Rammelsberg in the
Harz it forms a bed in argillaceous schist, and at Mansfield in
Thuringia it occurs in the Kupferschiefer with ores of nickel and
cobalt. Extensive deposits are mined in the United States, particularly
at Butte in Montana, and in Namaqualand, South Africa. Well-crystallized
specimens are met with at many localities; for example, formerly at
Wheal Towan (hence the name towanite, which has been applied to the
species) in the St Agnes district of Cornwall, at Freiberg in Saxony,
and Joplin, Missouri. (L. J. S.)
COPPICE, or COPSE (from an O. Fr. _copeis_ or _coupeis_, from Late Lat.
_colpare_, to cut with a blow; _colpas_, the Late Lat. for "blow," is a
shortened form of _colapus_ or _colaphus_, adapted from the Gr. [Greek:
kolaphos]), a small plantation or thicket of planted or self-sown trees,
which are cut periodically for use or sale, before the trees grow into
large timber. Whether naturally or artificially grown the produce is
looked on by the English law as _fructus industrialis_. The tenant for
life or years may appropriate this produce (see _Dashwood_ v. _Magniac_,
1891, 3 Ch. 306).
COPRA (a Spanish and Portuguese adaptation of the Malay _kopperah_, and
Hindustani _khopra_, the coco-nut), the dried broken kernel of the
coco-nut from which coco-nut oil is extracted by boiling and pressing.
Copra is the form in which the product of the coco-nut is exported for
commercial purposes (see COCONUT PALM).
COPROLITES (from Gr. [Greek: kopros], dung, and [Greek: lithos], stone),
the fossilized excrements of extinct animals. The discovery of their
true nature was made by Dr William Buckland, who observed that certain
convoluted bodies occurring in the Lias of Gloucestershire had the form
which would have been produced by their passage in the soft state
through the intestines of reptiles or fishes. These bodies had long been
known as "fossil fir cones" and "bezoar stones." Buckland's conjecture
that they were of faecal origin, and similar to the _album grecum_ or
excrement of hyaenas, was confirmed by Dr W. Prout, who on analysis
found they consisted essentially of calcium phosphate and carbonate, and
not infrequently contained fragments of unaltered bone. The name
"coprolites" was accordingly given to them by Buckland, who subsequently
expressed his belief that they might be found useful in agriculture on
account of the calcium phosphate they contained. The Liassic coprolites
are described by Buckland as resembling oblong pebbles, or
kidney-potatoes; they are mostly 2 to 4 in. long, and from 1 to 2 in. in
diameter, but those of the larger ichthyosauri are of much greater
dimensions. In colour they vary from ash-grey to black, and their
fracture is conchoidal. Internally they are found to consist of a lamina
twisted upon itself, and externally they generally exhibit a tortuous
structure, produced, before the cloaca was reached, by the spiral valve
of a compressed small intestine (as in skates, sharks and dog-fishes);
the surface shows also vascular impressions and corrugations due to the
same cause. Often the bones, teeth and scales of fishes are to be found
dispersed through the coprolites, and sometimes the bones of small
ichthyosauri, which were apparently a prey to the larger marine
saurians. Coprolites have been found at Lyme Regis, enclosed by the ribs
of ichthyosauri, and in the remains of several species of fish; also in
the abdominal cavities of a species of fossil fish, _Macropoma
Mantelli_, from the chalk of Lewes. Professor T. Jager has described
coprolites from the alum-slate of Gaildorf in Wurttemberg; the
fish-coprolites of Burdiehouse and of Newcastle-under-Lyme are of
Carboniferous age. The so-called "beetle-stones" of the coal-formation
of Newhaven, near Leith, which have mostly a coprolite nucleus, have
been applied to various ornamental purposes by lapidaries. The name
"cololites" (from the Greek [Greek: kolon], the large intestine, [Greek:
lithos], stone) was given by Agassiz to fossil wormlike bodies, found in
the lithographic slate of Solenhofen, which he determined to be either
the petrified intestines or contents of the intestines of fishes. The
bone-bed of Axmouth in Devonshire and Westbury and Aust in
Gloucestershire, in the Penarth or Rhaetic series of strata, contains
the scales, teeth and bones of saurians and fishes, together with
abundance of coprolites; but neither there nor at Lyme Regis is there a
sufficient quantity of phosphatic material to render the working of it
for agricultural purposes remunerative.
The term coprolites has been made to include all kinds of phosphatic
nodules employed as manures, such, for example, as those obtained from
the Coralline and the Red Crag of Suffolk. At the base of the Red Crag
in that county is a bed, 3 to 18 in. thick, containing rolled fossil
bones, cetacean and fish teeth, and shells of the Crag period, with
nodules or pebbles of phosphatic matter derived from the London Clay,
and often investing fossils from that formation. These are
distinguishable from the grey Chalk coprolites by their brownish
ferruginous colour and smooth appearance. When ground they give a
yellowish-red powder. These nodules were at first taken by Professor J.
S. Henslow for coprolites; they were afterwards termed by Buckland
"pseudo-coprolites." "The nodules, having been imbued with phosphatic
matter from their matrix in the London Clay, were dislodged," says
Buckland, "by the waters of the seas of the first period, and
accumulated by myriads at the bottom of those shallow seas where is now
the coast of Suffolk. Here they were long rolled together with the bones
of large mammalia, fishes, and with the shells of molluscous creatures
that lived in shells. From the bottom of this sea they have been raised
to form the dry lands along the shores of Suffolk, whence they are now
extracted as articles of commercial value, being ground to powder in the
mills of Mr [afterwards Sir John] Lawes, at Deptford, to supply our
farms with a valuable substitute for guano, under the accepted name of
coprolite manure." The phosphatic nodules occurring throughout the Red
Crag of Suffolk are regarded as derived from the Coralline Crag. The
Suffolk beds have been worked since 1846; and immense quantities of
coprolite have also been obtained from Essex, Norfolk and
Cambridgeshire. The Cambridgeshire coprolites are believed to be derived
from deposits of Gault age; they are obtained by washing from a stratum
about a foot thick, resting on the Gault, at the base of the Chalk Marl,
and probably homotaxeous with the Chloritic Marl. An acre used to yield
on an average 300 tons of phosphatic nodules, value L750. About L140 per
acre was paid for the lease of the land, which after two years was
restored to its owners re-soiled and levelled. Plicatulae have been
found attached to these coprolites, showing that they were already hard
bodies when lying at the bottom of the Chalk ocean. The Cambridgeshire
coprolites are either amorphous or finger-shaped; the coprolites from
the Greensand are of a black or dark-brown colour; while those from the
Gault are greenish-white on the surface, brownish-black internally.
Samples of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk coprolite have been found by A.
Voelcker to give on analysis phosphoric acid equivalent to about 55 and
52.5% of tribasic calcium phosphate respectively (_Journ. R. Agric. Soc.
Eng._, 1860, xxi. 358). The following analysis of a saurio-coprolite
from Lyme Regis is given by T. J. Herapath (ibid. xii. 91):--
Water 3.976
Organic matter 2.001
Calcium sulphate 2.026
Calcium carbonate 28.121
Calcium fluoride not determined
Calcium and magnesium phosphate 53.996
Magnesium carbonate 0.423
Aluminic phosphate 1.276
Ferric phosphate 6.182
Silica 0.773
------
98.734
An ichthyo-coprolite from Tenby was found to contain 15.4% of phosphoric
anhydride. The pseudo-coprolites of the Suffolk Crag have been estimated
by Herapath to be as rich in phosphates as the true ichthyo-coprolites
and saurio-coprolites of other formations, the proportion of P2O5
contained varying between 12.5 and 37.25%, the average proportion,
however, being 32 or 33%.
Coprolite is reduced to powder by powerful mills of peculiar
construction, furnished with granite and buhrstones, before being
treated with concentrated sulphuric acid. The acid renders it available
as a manure by converting the calcium phosphate, Ca3P2O8, that
it contains into the soluble monocalcium salt, CaH4P2O8, or
"superphosphate." The phosphate thus produced forms an efficacious
turnip manure, and is quite equal in value to that produced from any
other source. The Chloritic Marl in the Wealden district furnishes much
phosphatic material, which has been extensively worked at Froyle. In the
vicinity of Farnham it contains a bed of "coprolites" of considerable
extent and 2 to 15 ft. in thickness. Specimens of these from the Dippen
Hall pits, analysed by Messrs J. M. Paine and J. T. Way, showed the
presence of phosphates equivalent to 55.96 of bone-earth (_Journ. R.
Agric. Soc. Eng._ ix. 56). Phosphatic nodules occur also in the
Chloritic Marl of the Isle of Wight and Dorsetshire, and at Wroughton,
near Swindon. They are found in the Lower Greensand, or Upper Neocomian
series, in the Atherfield Clay at Stopham, near Pulborough; occasionally
at the junction of the Hythe and Sandgate beds; and in the Folkeston
beds, at Farnham. At Woburn, Leighton, Ampthill, Sandy, Upware, Wicken
and Potton, near the base of Upper Neocomian iron-sands, there is a band
between 6 in. and 2 ft. in thickness containing "coprolites"; these
consist of phosphatized wood, bones, casts of shells, and shapeless
lumps. The coprolitic stratum of the Speeton Clay, on the coast to the
north of Flamborough Head, is included by Professor Judd with the
Portland beds of that formation. In 1864 two phosphatic deposits, a
limestone 3 ft. thick, with beds of calcium phosphate, and a shale of
half that thickness, were discovered by Hope Jones in the neighbourhood
of Cwmgynen, about 16 m. from Oswestry. They are at a depth of about 12
ft., in slaty shale containing Llandeilo fossils and contemporaneous
felspathic ash and scoriae. A specimen of the phosphatic limestone
analysed by A. Voelcker yielded 34.92% tricalcium phosphate, a specimen
of the shale 52.15% (_Report of Brit. Assoc._, 1865). Phosphatic beds,
supposed to have had a coprolitic origin, are found in the Lower
Silurian rocks of Canada.
See T. J. Herapath, _Chem. Gaz._, 1849, p. 449; W. Buckland, _Geology
and Mineralogy_ (4th ed., 1869); O. Fisher, _Quart. Journ. Geol.
Soc._, 1873, p. 52; J. J. H. Teall, _On the Potton and Wicken
Phosphatic Deposits_ (Sedgwick Prize Essay for 1873) (1875) and "The
Natural History of Phosphatic Deposits," _Proc. Geol. Assoc._ xvi.
(1900); L. W. Collet, _Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin._ xxv. pt. 10, p. 862; T.
G. Bonney, _Cambridgeshire Geology_ (1875); L. Gruner, _Bull. soc.
geol. franc._ xxviii. (2nd series), p. 62; J. Martin, ibid. iii. (3rd
series), p. 273.
COPTOS (Egyptian _Keft_, _Kebto_), the modern KUFT (a village with
railway station a short distance from the west bank of the Nile about 25
m. north-east of Thebes), an ancient city, capital of the fifth nome of
Upper Egypt, and the starting-point of several roads to the Red Sea, of
which that which passes along the valley running due east to Kosseir
past the ancient quarries of Hamm[=a]m[=a]t was the most frequented,
until the foundation of Berenice (q.v.) by Ptolemy Philadelphus made an
even more important line of traffic to the south-west. The growth of
trade with Arabia and India thereafter raised Coptos to great
commercial prosperity; but in A.D. 292 its share in the rebellion
against Diocletian led to an almost total devastation. It again appears,
however, as a place of importance, and as the seat of a considerable
Christian community, though the stream of traffic turned aside to the
neighbouring K[=u]s. During part of the 7th century it was called
Justinianopolis in honour of the emperor Justinian.
The local god of Coptos, as of Khemmis (Akhm[=i]m, q.v.), was the
ithyphallic Min; but in late times Isis was of equal importance in the
city. Min was especially the god of the desert routes. Petrie's
excavations on the site of the temple brought to light remains of all
periods, the most remarkable objects being three very primitive
limestone statues of the god with figures of an elephant, swords of
sword-fish, sea-shells, &c., engraved upon them: there were also found
some very peculiar terra-cottas of the Old Kingdom, and the decree of an
Antef belonging to the latter part of the Middle Kingdom, deposing the
monarch for siding with the king's enemy.
COPTS, the early native Christians of Egypt and their successors of the
Monophysite sect, now racially the purest representatives of the ancient
Egyptians. The name is a Europeanized form, dating perhaps from the 14th
century, of the Arabic Kibt (or Kubt), which, in turn, is derived from
the Greek [Greek: Aiguptioi], "Egyptians" (the Copts in the Coptic
language likewise style themselves [grahic], "people of Egypt,"
"Egyptians").
The limited application of the name is explained by the circumstances of
the time when Mahomet sent forth his challenge to the world and 'Amr
conquered Egypt (A.D. 627-641). At that time the population of Egypt was
wholly Christian (except for a sprinkling of Jews, &c.), divided into
two fiercely hostile sects, the Monophysites and the Melkites. The
division was in great measure racial. The Melkites, adherents of the
orthodox or court religion sanctioned by the council of Chalcedon, were
mainly of foreign extraction, from the various Hellenistic races which
peopled the Eastern Roman empire, while the bulk of the population, the
true Egyptians, were Monophysite. Amongst the latter political
aspirations, apart from religion, may be said not to have existed. It
has generally been held that the Copts invited and aided the Moslems to
seize the country in order that at all costs they might be freed from
the yoke of the state religion imposed by the Eastern Roman Empire; but
Dr A. J. Butler has shown this view to be untenable, while admitting
that the religious feuds of the Christians made the task of the Arabs
easy. The mysterious Mukaukis, who treacherously handed over Alexandria,
impregnable as it was for Arab warriors, and then capitulated, was none
other than Cyrus, the Melkite patriarch and governor of Egypt; the
native Monophysite party, however, smarting under the persecution of the
Emperor Heraclius, seemed to have most to gain by a change of masters.
The prophet Mahomet himself had prescribed indulgence to the Copts
before his death, and 'Amr was mercifully disposed to them. Although
they offered resistance in some places, after the Roman forces had been
destroyed or had abandoned Egypt they generally acquiesced in the
inevitable; and when in 646 a Roman fleet and army recaptured Alexandria
and harried the Delta, the Copts helped the Moslems to cast out the
Christian invaders. Some of the Copts embraced Islam at once, but as yet
they formed practically a solid Christian nation under the protection of
the conquering Arabs, and the religious and political distinction
between the "true believers" and the Christians was so sharp that a
native Christian turning Moslem was no longer a Copt, i.e. Egyptian; he
practically changed his nationality.
The beginnings of Christianity in Egypt are obscure; the existence of it
among the natives (as opposed to the mixed "Greek" population of Egypt
and Alexandria which produced so many leading figures and originated
leading doctrines in the early church) can be traced back as far as the
Decian persecution (A.D. 249-251) in the purely Egyptian names of
several martyrs. St Anthony (c. A.D. 270) was a Copt; so also was
Pachomius, the founder of Egyptian monasticism at the beginning of the
4th century. The scriptures were translated into Coptic not later than
the 4th century. A religion founded on morality and with a clear
doctrine of life after death was especially congenial to the Egyptians;
thus the lower orders in the country embraced Christianity fervently,
while the Alexandrian pagans were lost in philosophical speculation and
Neoplatonism was spread amongst the rich "Greek" landowners; these last,
partly out of religious enthusiasm, partly from greed, annoyed and
oppressed their Christian peasantry. Egypt was then terribly
impoverished; the upper country was constantly overrun by raiders from
Nubia and the desert; and the authority of the imperial government was
too weak to interfere actively on behalf of the Christians. The
monasteries, however, were refuges that could bid defiance to the most
powerful of the pagan aristocracy as well as to barbarian hordes, and
became centres of united action that, at the summons of Shenoute, the
organizer of the national church, swept away the idols of the oppressors
in riot and bloodshed. In the course of the 5th century the Christians
reached a position in which they were able to treat the pagans
mercifully as a feeble remnant.
The Copts had little interest in theology; they were content to take
their doctrine as prepared for them by the subtler minds of their Greek
leaders at Alexandria, choosing the simplest form when disputes arose.
In 325 their elected patriarch, Athanasius, and his following of Greeks
and Copts, triumphed at the council of Nicaea against Arius; but in 451
the banishment of Dioscorus, patriarch of Alexandria, by the council of
Chalcedon created a great schism, the Egyptian church holding to his
Monophysite tenets (see COPTIC CHURCH, below), while the Catholic and
imperial party at Constantinople ever sought to further the "Melkite"
cause in Egypt at the expense of the native church. Thenceforward there
were generally two patriarchs, belonging to the rival communities, and
the Copts were oppressed by the Melkites; Heraclius, in 638 after the
repulse of the Persians, endeavoured to unite the churches, but, failing
in that, he persecuted the Monophysites more severely than ever before,
until 'Amr brought Egypt under the Moslem rule of 'Omar, as has been
related above. Under the persecution many Copts had gone over to the
Melkites, but now it was the turn of the Melkites, as supporters of the
emperor of Constantinople, to suffer, and they almost entirely
disappeared from Egypt, though a remnant headed by a patriarch of
Alexandria of the Orthodox Christians has survived to this day.
But after a few years of the mild rule of 'Amr the Egyptians began to be
squeezed for the benefit of the Moslem exchequer and persecuted for
their religion. Many of the more thoughtful and sober Christians must
long have been disgusted with religious strife, and had already embraced
the simple and congenial doctrines of Islam; others went over for the
sake of material gain. Conflicts arose from time to time between the
Mahommedan minority and the Christians. The Copts were excellent scribes
and accountants and were continued in their posts under the Arab rule;
the government offices were full of them; sometimes even the wazirate
(vizierate) was held by a Copt, and that too in a time of persecution of
the Christians. The pride of the Copts, still seen in the objection
which the poorest among them have to engaging in any mean work or trade,
was a serious danger, perhaps even a chief source of their troubles, in
earlier days; devout Moslems on more than one occasion stirred the mob
to fury when they saw Christians lording it over "true believers." The
lower orders of the Copts were continually oppressed. Thus there was
every inducement amongst the Christians to turn Mahommedan. Arab tribes,
too, were encouraged to settle in Egypt until the Mahommedans exceeded
the Copts in numbers.
The history of the Copts consists on the one hand of the record of
religious strife, of growing scandals in the church, such as simony, and
attempted reforms; and on the other hand of persecutions at the hands of
the Moslems. As examples of the severity of the persecutions, it may be
noted that, in the 8th century, the monks not only were compelled to pay
a capitation tax, but were branded with name and number, civilians were
oppressed with heavy taxation, churches demolished, pictures and crosses
destroyed (722-723). Degrading dresses were imposed upon the Christians
(849-850); later, under Hakim (997), they were compelled to wear heavy
crosses and black turbans as an ignominious distinction. Salaheddin
(Saladin) in 1171 reenforced these statutes and defiled the churches. In
1301, the blue turban was introduced, but many Copts preferred a change
of religion to the adoption of this head-dress. In 1348 a religious war,
attended by the destruction of churches and mosques and great loss of
life, raged at Cairo between the Copts and Mahommedans, and large
numbers of the former embraced Islam. Their oppression practically
ceased under Mehemet Ali (1811).
There have been very few cases of conversion from Mahommedanism to
Christianity; and, as intermarriage of Christians with Mahommedans
implied conversion to Islam, the Copts have undoubtedly preserved the
race of the Egyptians as it existed at the time of the Arab conquest in
remarkable purity. The Coptic agricultural population (fellah[=i]n) in
the villages of Upper Egypt and elsewhere are not markedly different
from the Mahommedan fellah[=i]n, who, of course, are of the same stock,
but mixed with Arab blood. The Copts in the towns, who have always been
engaged in sedentary occupations, as scribes and handicraftsmen, have a
more delicate frame and complexion, and may have mingled with Syrian and
Armenian Christians.
According to the 1907 census, there were 667,036 orthodox Copts in
Egypt, or less than 1/14th of the total population, this being the
same proportion as in 1830, when, according to Lane, they numbered about
150,000. The number of churches and monasteries at the same time had
risen from 146 to 450, not including Protestant chapels nor Coptic
Catholic churches. At the 1907 census the total number of Christians in
Egypt described as Copts was 706,322; among them there were 24,710
Protestants and 14,576 Roman Catholics.
Monogamy is strict among the Copts, and divorce is granted only for
adultery. Circumcision of both sexes is common before baptism. In regard
to dress, at present only the clergy retain the old distinctive costume
and black turban. The rest of the Copts dress exactly like their Moslem
brethren, from whom they can be distinguished only by the cross which
many of them still have tattooed just below the palm of the right hand.
Since the British occupation of the country there has been a tendency
amongst the Coptic women to give up the veil, which they had borrowed
from the Mahommedans; this is especially noticeable at places like
Assiut, where, thanks to the efforts of American missionaries, female
education has made much progress.
In trades and professions, so long as the Copts had no foreign
competition to contend against, they maintained their supremacy over the
rest of the population. They filled government offices; in towns and
villages they monopolized trades and professions requiring care and
skill. They were the accountants, the architects, the goldsmiths, the
carpenters, the land-surveyors, the bonesetters, &c. But, with the
extension of railways and agricultural roads and the increased
facilities of communication and prosperity, there has been a great
influx of Italian, Greek, Armenian and other Levantine workmen, who,
with their better tools, are undoubtedly superior to the Copts, and have
proved most formidable rivals. Furthermore, the importation of cheap
European wares of every description is slowly killing all native
industry. Lastly, since the British, as the dominant race, have filled
most posts of responsibility in the government, the Moslems, in general,
are obliged to content themselves with the subordinate posts which in
the past they left to the Copts. Some Copts have attained high office,
and in 1908 a Copt became prime minister. Moreover, the Copts have to a
certain extent made up for the ground they lose elsewhere by engaging in
agriculture and banking, and there are now to be found many rich Coptic
landowners and farmers, especially in Upper Egypt.
_Language._--The language spoken by the Copts was of various dialects,
named Sahidic, Akhmimic, Fayumic, &c., descended from the ancient
Egyptian with more or less admixture of Greek (for the Coptic dialects
see EGYPT: Language). Coptic, however, has been entirely extinct as a
spoken language for over 200 years, having been supplanted by Arabic; in
the 13th century it was already so much decayed that Arabic translations
of the liturgies were necessary. The Gospels, however, are still read in
the churches in the Bohairic dialect. This dialect appears in
literature later than the others, having become of importance only with
the extinction of Greek in Lower Egypt; for a time it shared the field
with Sahidic, after the disappearance of Akhmimic and Fayumic, but
eventually displaced it in the churches, where it now survives alone.
Coptic literature is almost entirely religious, and consists mainly of
translations from the Greek. Such was the enthusiasm for Christianity
amongst the lower classes in Egypt that translations of the Bible were
made into three of the dialects of Coptic before the council of
Chalcedon; they probably date back at least as early as the middle of
the 4th century. For the dwellers in the Delta the Greek version was
probably sufficient, until the break with the Greek (Melkite) Church in
the 5th century induced them to make a separate translation in their own
native northern or Bohairic dialect. The Gnostic heresy, otherwise known
only through the works of its opponents, is illustrated in some Coptic
MSS. of the 4th century, the so-called _Pistis Sophia_ or Askew Codex,
and the Bruce Codex, respectively in the British Museum and Bodleian
Libraries. According to Schmidt and Harnack, they are translations
dating from the 3rd century and belong to an ascetic or encratitic sect
of the Gnostics which arose in Egypt itself. There is abundance of
apocryphal works, of apocalypses, of patristic writings from Athanasius
to the council of Chalcedon, homilies, lives of saints and anecdotes of
holy men, acts of martyrs extending from the persecution of Diocletian
to that of the Persians in the 7th century, and lives of later ascetics
and martyrs reaching down to the 14th century. Unless some of the
Egyptian _acta sanctorum et martyrum_ should prove to have been
originally written in Coptic, almost the only original works in that
language of any importance are the numerous sermons and letters of
Shenoute, a monk of Atr[=e]pe near Akhm[=i]m, written in the Sahidic
dialect in the 4th century. After the Arab conquest, as a defence to the
threatened church, language and nationality, versifications of the
Proverbs, of Solomon's Song and of various legends were composed, with
other religious songs. They are mostly antiphonal, a number of stresses
in a line marking the rhythm. There is no musical notation in the MSS.,
but traditional church tunes are generally referred to or prescribed for
the songs. Of secular literature strangely little existed or at least
has survived: only a few magical texts, fragments of a medical treatise,
of the story of Alexander, and of a story of the conquest of Egypt by
Cambyses, are known, apart from numerous legal and business documents.
Coptic was occasionally employed for literary purposes as late as the
14th century, but from the 10th century onward the Copts wrote mostly in
Arabic. Severus of Eshmunain (c. 950), who wrote a history of the
patriarchs of Alexandria, was one of the first to employ Arabic; Cyril
ibn Laklak and others in the 13th and 14th centuries translated much of
the older literature from Coptic into Arabic and Ethiopic for the use of
the Egyptian and Abyssinian churches. From this period also date the
native Coptic grammars and lexicons of Ibn 'Assal and others. At the
present time literature among the Copts is represented by Claudius
Lab[=i]b, an enthusiast for the revival of the Coptic tongue, Marcus
Simaika, a leader of the progressive movement, and others.
(F. LL. G.)
_The Coptic Church._--Up to the 5th century the church of Alexandria
played a part in the Christian world scarcely second to that of Rome:
the names of Origen, Athanasius and Cyril bear witness to her greatness.
But in the time of the patriarch Dioscorus the church, always fond of
speculation, was rent asunder by the controversy concerning the single
or twofold nature of our Lord, as stated by Eutyches. The Eutychian
doctrine, approved by the council of Ephesus, was condemned by that of
Chalcedon in 451. But to this decision, though given by 636 bishops, the
Copts refused assent--a refusal which profoundly affected both the
religious and the political history of their country. From that moment
they were treated as heretics. The emperor appointed a new bishop of
Alexandria, whose adherents the Copts styled Melkites or Imperialists,
while the Copts are distinguished as Monophysites and Jacobites. The
court party and the native party each maintained its own line of
patriarchs, and each treated the other with bitter hostility. For nearly
two centuries strife and persecution continued. The well-meant ecthesis
of Heraclius was a failure and was followed by repression, till in 640
the Copts were released from the Roman dominion by the Saracen invasion.
But it was only after prolonged resistance to the Arabs that the Copts
accepted a change of masters, which gave them for a while religious
freedom. The orthodox or Melkite party, consisting mostly of Byzantine
Greeks, was swept away, and the double succession of patriarchs
practically ceased. True, even now there is an orthodox patriarch of
Alexandria living in Cairo, but he has only a few Greeks for followers,
and scarcely a nominal succession has been maintained. But the Coptic
succession has been continuous and real.
Doctrine.
The distinctive Monophysite doctrine of the Copts is not easy to state
intelligibly, and yet they cling to it with something of the tenacity
which has marked their whole history. They repudiate the heresy of
Eutyches as strongly as that of Nestorius, and claim to stand between
the two doctrines teaching that Christ was one person with one nature
which was made up by the indissoluble union of a divine and a human
nature, but that notwithstanding this absolute union the two natures
remained after union distinct, unconfounded and uncommingled, separate
though inseparable. The creed thus savours of paradox, not to say
contradiction. It is set forth in the Liturgy and recited at every
Coptic mass in the following words:--"I believe that this is the
life-giving flesh which thine only Son took from the ... Holy Mary. He
united it with His Divinity without mingling and without confusion and
without alteration.... I believe that His Divinity was not separated
from His Manhood for one moment or for the twinkling of an eye." On all
other points of dogma, including the single procession of the Holy
Ghost, the Copts agree with the Greek Church.
Hierarchy.
"The most holy pope and patriarch of the great city of Alexandria and of
all the land of Egypt, of Jerusalem the holy city, of Nubia, Abyssinia
and Pentapolis, and all the preaching of St Mark," as he is still
called, had originally jurisdiction over all the places named.
Jurisdiction over Abyssinia remains, but from Nubia and Pentapolis
Christianity has disappeared. The ancient rule is that no bishop is
eligible for the patriarchate. The requirement of a period of desert
life has so far prevailed that no one but a monk from one of the desert
monasteries is now qualified. This rule, harmless perhaps when the
monasteries were the great schools of learning and devotion, now puts a
premium on ignorance, and is disastrous to the church; more particularly
as even bishops must be chosen from the monks. The patriarch is elected
by an assembly of bishops and elders. The candidate is brought in chains
from the desert, and, if only in monk's orders, is passed through the
higher grades except that of bishop. The patriarch's seat was
transferred some time after the Arab conquest from Alexandria to the
fortress town of Babylon (Old Cairo), and in modern times it was shifted
to Cairo proper. The other orders and offices in the church are
metropolitan, bishop, chief priest, priest, archdeacon, deacon, reader
and monk. The number of bishoprics in ancient times was very
large--Athanasius says nearly 100. At present there remain ten in Egypt,
one at Khartum and three in Abyssinia.
Buildings.
The numerous remaining churches in Egypt but faintly represent the vast
number standing in ancient times. Rufinus says that he found 10,000
monks in the one region of Arsinoe. Later, in 616, the Persians are
described as destroying 600 monasteries near Alexandria. Ab[=u] S[=a]lih
(12th century) gives a list of churches surviving in his day, and their
number is astonishing. The earliest were cut out of rocks and caverns.
In the days of Constantine and Justinian basilicas of great splendour
were built, such as the church of St Mark at Alexandria and the Red
Monastery in Upper Egypt. This type of architecture permanently
influenced Coptic builders, but there prevailed also a type, probably
native in origin, though possessing Byzantine features, such as the
domed roofing. There is no church now standing which bears any trace of
the fine glass mosaics which once adorned the basilicas, nor is there
any example of a well-defined cruciform ground-plan. But the use of the
dome by Coptic architects is almost universal, and nearly every church
has at least three domes overshadowing the three altars. The domes are
sometimes lighted by small windows; but the walls are windowless, and
the churches consequently gloomy. Among the most interesting churches
are those of Old Cairo, those in the Wadi Natron, and the Red and White
Monasteries (_Der el-Abiad_ and _Der el-Ahmar_) near Suhag in Upper
Egypt.
Church fittings.
Every church has three altars at the eastern end in three contiguous
chapels. The central division is called the _haikal_ or sanctuary, which
is always divided from the choir by a fixed partition or screen with a
small arched doorway closed by double doors. This resembles the Greek
iconostasis, the screen on which the "icons" or sacred pictures are
placed. _Haikal_ screen and choir screen are often sumptuously carved
and inlaid. A marble basin for the mandatum in the nave, and an epiphany
tank at the west are common features. The altar is usually built of
brick or stone, hollow within, and having an opening to the interior. A
wooden altar-slab covered with crosses, &c., lies in a rectangular
depression on the surface, and it is used in case of need as a portable
altar. Chalice and paten, ewer and basin, crewet and chrismatory, are
found as in the Western churches. The aster consists of two crossed
half-hoops of silver and is used to place over the wafer. The flabellum
is used, though now rarely made of precious metal. Some examples of
silver-cased textus now remaining are very fine. Every church possesses
thuribles--the use of incense being universal and frequent--and diadems
for the marriage service. The use of church bells is forbidden by the
Moslems, except in the desert, and church music consists merely of
cymbals and triangles which accompany the chanting.
Rites and ceremonies.
The sacramental wine is usually made from raisins, but the juice must be
fermented. Churches even in Cairo have a press for crushing the raisins.
The eucharistic bread is baked in an oven built near the sanctuary. The
wafer is a small loaf about 3 inches in diameter and 1 inch thick,
stamped with the trisagion and with crosses. Communion must be received
fasting. Confession is required, but has somewhat fallen into disuse.
Laymen receive in both kinds. The wafer being broken into the chalice,
crumbs or "pearls" are taken out in a spoon and so administered, as in
the Greek rite. Reservation is uncanonical. Renaudot states that it was
permitted in cases of great extremity, when the host remained upon the
altar with lamps burning and a priest watching, but it is not now
practised, and there is no evidence of any such vessel as a pyx in
Coptic ritual. Small benedictional crosses belong to each altar, and
processional crosses are common. The crucifix is unknown, for while
paintings and frescoes abound, graven images are absolutely forbidden.
The liturgy was read exclusively in the extinct Coptic language till the
end of the 19th century, but parts are now read in Arabic, while the
lessons have long been read in Arabic as well as in Coptic. The services
are still excessively long, that of Good Friday lasting eleven hours;
but benches are now provided in the newer churches. Seven sacraments are
recognized--baptism, confirmation, eucharist, penance, orders,
matrimony, and unction of the sick. The chief fasts are those of Advent,
of Nineveh, of Heraclius, Lent and Pentecost. Pilgrimage to Jerusalem is
a duty and sometimes a penance.
The Coptic ritual deserves much fuller study than it has received. Since
the 7th century the church has been so isolated as to be little
influenced by changes affecting other communions. Consequently it
remains in many respects the most ancient monument of primitive rites
and ceremonies in Christendom. But centuries of subjection to Moslem
rule have much weakened it. For the liturgical dress see VESTMENTS;
CHASUBLE, &c.
Present state of the church.
The British occupation of Egypt profoundly modified Coptic religious
life. Before it the Copts lived in their own semi-fortified quarters in
Cairo or Old Cairo or in country or desert Dairs (Ders). Walls and gates
were now thrown down or disused: the Copts began to mix and live freely
among the Moslems, their children to frequent the same schools, and the
people to abandon their distinctively Christian dress, names, customs
and even religion. Freedom and prosperity threatened to injure the
Church more than centuries of persecution. Many of the younger
generation of Copts began openly to boast their indifference and even
scepticism: in the large towns churches came to be too often frequented
only by the old or the uneducated, confession and fasts fell into
neglect and the number of communicants diminished; while the facility of
divorce granted by Islam occasioned many perversions from among the
Copts to that religion. On the other hand the necessity of resistance to
these tendencies and of reform from within was strongly realized.
Unfortunately, the institution of a lay council of eminent churchmen,
which has been formed for the patriarch and for every bishop in his own
diocese, has led to prolonged struggles and on one occasion to a serious
crisis, in which the patriarch and the metropolitan of Alexandria were
for a while banished to the desert. A principal object of these lay
councils is to control the financial and legal powers vested in
patriarch and bishops--powers which have often been greatly abused.
Other objects are (1) to provide Christian religious education in all
Coptic schools and to raise these schools to a high standard in secular
matters; (2) to promote the education of women; (3) to apply church
revenues to the maintenance of churches and schools and to the better
payment of the clergy, who are now often compelled to live on charity;
(4) to ensure prompt administration of justice in ecclesiastical causes
such as divorce, inheritance, &c.; and (5) to establish colleges for the
efficient training of the clergy. Educated Copts remember the time when
the church of Alexandria was as famous for learning as for zeal. They
desire also to resist the serious encroachments of Roman Catholic,
American Presbyterian, and other foreign missions upon their ancient
faith. (A. J. B.)
AUTHORITIES.--(1) _History and Religion_: Johann Michael Wansleben
(Vansleb), a Dominican and learned orientalist (1635-1679), _Hist. de
l'eglise d'Alexandrie_ (Paris, 1677), written at Cairo in 1672 and
1673 mainly from original native sources, and _Nouvelle Relation ...
d'un voyage fait en Egypte, &c._ (Paris, 1677 and 1698, Eng. trans.,
London, 1678); Eusebe Renaudot the younger (1646-1720), _Historia
Patriarcharum Alexandrinorum_ (Paris, 1713); Ab[=u] Dakn (Josephus
Abudacnus), _Historia Jacobitarum_ (Oxford, 1675, Eng. trans. by Sir
E. Sadleir, London, 1693); S. C. Malan, _Original Documents of the
Coptic Church_ (London, 1874); Denzinger, _Ritus Orientalium_
(Wurzburg, 1863); Hon. Robert Curzon, _Visits to Monasteries in the
Levant_ (London, 1849); J. M. Neale, _Hist. of the Patriarchate of
Alexandria_ (2 vols., ib., 1847), in the _Hist. of the Holy Eastern
Church_, coloured by the writer's Anglo-Catholic point of view; A. J.
Butler, _Ancient Coptic Churches of Egypt_ (Oxford, 1884); B. T. A.
Evetts and Butler, _Churches and Monasteries of Egypt_, by Ab[=u]
S[=a]leh (Oxford, 1895); E. Amelineau, _Monuments pour servir a
l'histoire de l'Egypte chretienne aux IV^e et V^e siecles_, Coptic
and Arabic documents published and translated for the first time, in
_Mem. de la mission archeolog. franc. au Caire_, t. iv. (Paris, 1888),
and _Monuments ... au IV^e siecle_ in the _Annales du musee Guimet_,
t. xvii. (Paris, 1889); P. Rohrbach, _Die alexandrinischen
Patriarchen_ (Berlin, 1891); Jullien, _L'Egypte: souvenirs bibliques
et chretiens_ (Lille, 1891); Macaire, _Histoire de l'eglise
d'Alexandrie_ (Cairo, 1894); Porphyrius, _The Christian East:
Alexandrian Patriarchate_ (St Petersburg, 1898; in Russian);
Strzygowski, _Orient oder Rom?_ (Leipzig, 1901); De Bock, _Materiaux
pour servir a l'archeologie de l'Egypte chretienne_ (St Petersburg,
1901); Kitab al _Hul[=a]j[=i] al Mukaddas_ (Cairo, 1902); A.
Gayet, "Les Monuments coptes du musee de Boulaq," in the _Mem. miss.
archeolog. franc. au Caire_, t. iii. (Paris, 1889); id., L'Art copte
(Paris, 1902); Horner, _The Statutes of the Apostles_ (London, 1904);
_Egypt Exploration Fund Reports_, section "Christian Egypt"; W. E.
Crum, article "Koptische Kirche" in _Realencyklopadie fur
protestantische Theologie und Kirche_, 3. Aufl.; J. M. Fuller's
article "Coptic Church" in Smith's _Dictionary of Biography_; A. J.
Butler, _The Arab Conquest of Egypt_ (Oxford, 1902); J. Leipoldt,
_Schenute von Atripe und die Entstehung des national-agyptischen
Christentums_ (Leipzig, 1903), _Die Entstehung der koptischen Kirche_
(a valuable essay printed as the introduction to R. Haupt's _Katalog_
5, Halle, 1905); B. T. A. Evetts, "The Patriarchal History of Severus"
in Graffin's _Patrologia orientalis_ (Paris); J. Milne, _A History of
Egypt under Roman Rule_ (1898).
_Literature._--See Crum's article above referred to, his _Catalogue of
Coptic MSS. in the British Museum_, and his annual reviews in the
_Archaeological Report_ of the Egypt Exploration Fund; J. Leipoldt in
_Geschichte der christlichen Literaturen des Orients_ (Leipzig, 1907);
H. Junker, _Koptische Poesie des zehnten Jahrhunderts_, 1. Teil
(Berlin, 1908); Archdeacon Dowling, _The Egyptian Church_ (London,
1909).
_Modern People._--E. W. Lane's description of the Copts in his _Modern
Egyptians_ is interesting, but founded on imperfect information, and,
moreover, coloured by prejudices in favour of the Moslems whom he
studied with so much sympathy. See Klunzinger, _Upper Egypt_, pp. 61
et sqq.; also the last chapter of _The Story of the Church of Egypt_,
by Mrs E. L. Butcher (1897), on the social life and customs.
COPYHOLD, in English law, an ancient form of land tenure, legally
defined as a "holding at the will of the lord according to the custom of
the manor." Though nowadays of diminishing practical importance, its
incidents are historically interesting. Its origin is to be found in the
occupation by villani, or non-freemen, of portions of land belonging to
the manor of a feudal lord. In the time of the Domesday survey the manor
was in part granted to free tenants, in part reserved by the lord
himself for his own uses. The estate of the free tenants is the freehold
estate of English law; as tenants of the same manor they assembled
together in manorial court or court baron, of which they were the
judges. The portion of the manor reserved for the lord (the _demesne_,
or domain) was cultivated by labourers who were bound to the land
(_adscripti glebae_). They could not leave the manor, and their service
was obligatory. These villani, however, were allowed by the lord to
cultivate portions of land for their own use. It was a mere occupation
at the pleasure of the lord, but in course of time it grew into an
occupation by right, recognized first of all by custom and afterwards by
law. This kind of tenure is called by the lawyers _villenagium_, and it
probably marks a great advance in the general recognition of the right
when the name is applied to lands held on the same conditions not by
villeins but by free men. The tenants in villenage were not, like the
freeholders, members of the court baron, but they appear to have
attended in a humbler capacity, and to have solicited the succession to
the land occupied by a deceased father, or the admission of a new tenant
who had purchased the goodwill, as it might be called, of the holding,
paying for such favours certain customary fines or dues. In relation to
the tenants in villenage, the court baron was called the customary
court. The records of the court constituted the title of the villein
tenant, held by copy of the court roll (whence the term "copyhold"); and
the customs of the manor therein recorded formed the real property law
applicable to his case.
Copyhold had long been established in practice before it was formally
recognized by the law. At first it was in fact, as it is now in the
fictitious theory of the law, a tenancy at will, for which none of the
legal remedies of a freeholder were available. In the reign of Edward
IV., however, it was held that a tenant in villenage had an action of
trespass against the lord. In this way a species of tenant-right,
depending on and strongly supported by popular opinion, was changed into
a legal right. But it retained many incidents characteristic of its
historical origin. The life of copyhold assurance, it is said, is
custom. Copyhold is necessarily parcel of a manor, and the freehold is
said to be in the lord of the manor. The court roll of the manor is the
evidence of title and the record of the special laws as to fines, quit
rents, heriots, &c., prevailing in the manor. When copyhold land is
conveyed from one person to another, it is surrendered by the owner to
the lord, who by his payment of the customary fine makes a new grant of
it to the purchaser. The lord must admit the vendor's nominee, but the
form of the conveyance is still that of surrender and re-grant. The
lord, as legal owner of the fee-simple of the lands, has a right to all
the mines and minerals and to all the growing timber, although the
tenant may have planted it himself. Hence it appears that the existence
of copyhold tenures may sometimes be traced by the total absence of
timber from such lands, while on freehold lands it grows in abundance.
Hence also the popular saying that the "oak grows not except on free
land." The copyholder must not commit waste either by cutting down
timber, &c., or by neglecting to repair buildings. In such respects the
law treats him as a mere lessee,--the real owner being supposed to be
the lord. On the other hand, the lord may not enter the land to cut his
own timber or open his mines. The limitations of estates usual in
respect of other lands, as found in copyhold, become subject of course
to the operations of its peculiar conditions as to the relation of lord
and tenant. An estate for life, or _pour autre vie_ (i.e. for another's
life), an estate entail, or in fee-simple, may be carved out of
copyhold.
A species of tenure resembling copyhold is what is known as _customary
freehold_. The land is held by copy of court-roll, but not by will of
the lord. The question has been raised whether the freehold of such
lands is in the lord of the manor or in the tenant, and the courts of
law have decided in favour of the former. In some instances copyhold for
lives alone is recognized, and in such cases the lord of the manor may
ultimately, when all the lives have dropped, get back the land into his
own hands.
The feudal obligations attaching to copyhold tenure have been found to
cause much inconvenience to the tenants, while they are of no great
value to the lord. One of the most vexatious of these is the _heriot_,
under which name the lord is entitled to seize the tenant's best beast
or other chattel in the event of the tenant's death. The custom dates
from the time when all the copyholder's property, including the
copyholder himself, belonged to the lord, and is supposed to have been
fixed by way of analogy to the custom which gave a military tenant's
habiliments to his lord in order to equip his successor. Instances have
occurred of articles of great value being seized as heriots for the
copyhold tenements of their owners. A race horse worth L2000 or L3000
was thus seized. The fine payable on the admission of a new tenant,
whether by alienation or succession, is to a certain extent arbitrary,
but the courts long ago laid down the rule that it must be reasonable,
and anything beyond two years' improved value of the lands they
disallowed.
The inconvenience caused by these feudal incidents of the tenure led to
a series of statutes, having for their object the conversion of copyhold
into freehold. The first Copyhold Act, that of 1841, was consolidated by
the Copyhold Act 1894. Owing to the incidents attaching to land "holden
by copy of court roll according to the custom of the manor" in the shape
of fines and heriots, the inability to grant a lease for a term
exceeding a year, and to the peculiar rules as to descent, waste, dower,
curtesy, alienation, and other matters, varying often from manor to
manor and widely differing from the uniform law applicable to land in
general, enfranchisement, or the conversion of land held by copyhold
tenure into freehold, is often desired. This could and may still be
effected at common law, but only by agreement on the part of both the
lord and the tenant. Moreover, it was subject to other disadvantages.
The cost fell on the tenant, and the land when enfranchised was subject
to the encumbrances attaching to the manor, and so an investigation into
the lord's title was necessary. In 1841 an act was passed to provide a
statutory method of enfranchisement, removing some of the barriers
existing at common law; but the machinery created was only available
where both lord and tenant were in agreement. The Copyhold Act 1852 went
further, and for the first time introduced the principle of compulsory
enfranchisement on the part of either party. By the Copyhold Act 1894,
which now governs statutory enfranchisement, the former Copyhold Acts
1841-1887, were repealed, and the law was consolidated and improved.
Enfranchisement is now effected under this act, though in certain cases
it is also to be obtained under special acts, such as the Land Clauses
Consolidation Act 1848; and the old common law method with all its
disadvantages is still open. The Copyhold Act 1894 deals both with
compulsory and with voluntary enfranchisement. In either case the
sanction of the Board of Agriculture must be obtained; and powers are
bestowed on it to decide questions arising on enfranchisement, with an
appeal to the High Court. The actual enfranchisement, where it is
compelled by one of the parties, is effected by an award made by the
board; in the case of a voluntary enfranchisement it is completed by
deed. Under the act it is open to both lord and tenant to compel
enfranchisement, though the expenses are to be borne by the party
requiring it. The compensation to the lord, in the absence of an
agreement, is ascertained under the direction of the board on a
valuation made by a valuer or valuers appointed by the lord and tenant;
and may be paid either in a gross sum or by way of an annual rent charge
issuing out of the land enfranchised, and equivalent to interest at the
rate of 4% on the amount fixed upon as compensation. This rent charge is
redeemable on six months' notice at twenty-five times its annual amount.
The tenant, even if he is the compelling party, may elect either method;
but the lord has not the same option, and where the enfranchisement is
at his instance, unless there is either an agreement to the contrary or
a notice on the part of the tenant to exercise his option, the
compensation is a rent charge. Power is conferred on the lord to
purchase the tenant's interest where a change in the condition of the
land by enfranchisement would prejudice his mansion house, park or
gardens; while on the other hand, in the interest of the public or the
other tenants, the board is authorized to continue conditions of user
for their benefit.
So far the provisions relating to compulsory enfranchisement have been
dealt with; but even in the case of a voluntary agreement the lord and
tenant are only entitled to accept enfranchisement with the consent of
the Board of Agriculture. The consideration in addition to a gross sum
or a rent charge may consist of a conveyance of land, or of a right to
mines or minerals, or of a right to waste in lands belonging to the
manor, or partly in one way and partly in another. The effect of
enfranchisement, whether it be voluntary or compulsory, is that the land
becomes of freehold tenure subject to the same laws relating to descent,
dower and curtesy as are applicable to freeholds, and so freed from
Borough English, Gavelkind (save in Kent), and other customary modes of
descent, and from any custom relating to dower or free-bench or tenancy
by curtesy. Nevertheless, the lord is entitled to escheat in the event
of failure of heirs, just as if the land had not been enfranchised. The
land is held under the same title as that under which it was held at the
date at which the enfranchisement takes effect; but it is not subject to
any estate right, charge, or interest affecting the manor. Every
mortgage of copyhold estate in the land enfranchised becomes a mortgage
of the freehold, though subject to the priority of the rent charge paid
in compensation under the act. All rights and interests of any person in
the land and all leases remain binding in the same manner. On the other
hand the tenant's rights of common still continue attached to the
freehold; and, without express consent in writing of the lord or tenant
respectively, the right of either in mines or minerals shall not be
affected by the change. No creation of new copyholds by granting land
out of the waste is permissible, save with the consent of the Board of
Agriculture; and the act enacts that a valid admittance of a new
copyholder may be made without holding a court.
Under the earlier acts, machinery to free the land from the burden of
the old rents, fines and heriots was set up, commuting them into a rent
charge or a fine. Commutation, however, is never compulsory, and differs
from enfranchisement in that, whereas by enfranchisement the land in
question is converted into freehold, by commutation it still continued
parcel of the manor, though subject to a rent charge or a fine, as might
have been agreed. The ordinary laws of descent, dower, and curtesy were,
however, substituted for the customs in relation to these matters
incidental to the land in question before commutation, and the timber
became the tenant's.
AUTHORITIES.--C. I. Elton, _Law of Copyholds_ (1898); C. Watkins, _On
Copyholds_ (1825); _Scriven on Copyholds_, ed. A. Brown (1896); A.
Brown, _Copyhold Enfranchisement Acts_ (1895).
COPYING MACHINES. Appliances of various kinds have been devised for
producing copies of writings made by the pen or pencil. A simple method
commonly adopted when only a single copy is required is to write the
original with specially prepared copying ink (formed by adding some
thickening substance like sugar or gum to ordinary ink), to place upon
it a damped sheet of thin absorbent paper, and to press the two
together in some way, as in a copying press. The resulting impression,
being reversed, must be read from the back of the absorbent paper, which
is thin enough to be transparent. Another process, by which a
considerable number of copies can be made simultaneously, consists in
interleaving a number of sheets of thin white paper with sheets of paper
prepared with lampblack ("carbon paper") and writing on the top sheet
with a "style" or other sharp-pointed instrument. The hectograph may be
taken as typical of manifolding processes analogous to lithography. In
it the writing is in first instance done with aniline ink, and then a
transfer is made to a plate of a gelatinous composition, from which a
series of duplicates can be taken off. Another class of methods involves
the preparation of what are essentially stencils. In the cyclostyle,
paper of a special kind is stretched over a smooth metal plate, and the
writing instrument consists of a holder having at the end a small wheel
provided with a serrated edge on its periphery, which perforates the
paper with lines of minute cuts and thus forms a stencil. When ink is
passed over this stencil with a roller it goes through the perforations
and leaves an impression on a piece of paper placed underneath. In the
trypograph a similar result is attained by using a simple style for
writing, but stretching the paper over a metal plate having its surface
covered with fine sharp corrugations which pierce the paper as the style
is moved over them. In the Edison electric pen the stencil is formed by
the aid of a style containing a fine needle, which is rapidly moved up
and down by a small electric motor mounted at the top of the pen, and
thus a series of minute holes is punctured in the paper by the act of
writing. For copying plans and drawings, engineers, architects, &c., use
a "blue print" process which depends on the action of light on certain
salts of iron (see SUN-COPYING and PHOTOGRAPHY).
COPYRIGHT, in law, the right, belonging exclusively to the author or his
assignees, of multiplying for sale copies of an original work or
composition, in literature or art. As a recognized form of property it
is, compared with others, of recent origin, being in fact, in the use of
literary works, mainly the result of the facility for multiplying copies
created by the discovery of printing. It is with copyright in literary
compositions that we are here primarily concerned, as it was established
first, the analogous right as regards works of plastic art, &c.,
following in its train.
1. Whether copyright was recognized at all by the common law of England
was long a much debated legal question. Blackstone thinks that "this
species of property, being grounded on labour and invention, is more
properly reducible to the head of occupancy than any other, since the
right of occupancy itself is supposed by Mr Locke and many others to be
founded on the personal labour of the occupant." But he speaks
doubtfully of its existence--merely mentioning the opposing views, "that
on the one hand it hath been thought no other man can have a right to
exhibit the author's work without his consent, and that it is urged on
the other hand that the right is of too subtle and unsubstantial a
nature to become the subject of property at the common law, and only
capable of being guarded by positive statutes and special provisions of
the magistrate." He notices that the Roman law adjudged that if one man
wrote anything on the paper or parchment of another, the writing should
belong to the owner of the blank materials, but as to any other property
in the works of the understanding the law is silent, and he adds that
"neither with us in England hath there been (till very lately) any final
determination upon the rights of authors at the common law." The common
law undoubtedly gives a right to restrain the publication of
_unpublished_ compositions; but when a work is once published, its
protection depends on the statutes regulating copyright. The leading
case on the subject of unpublished works is _Prince Albert_ v. _Strange_
(1849), 2 De G. & Sm. 652. Copies of etchings by Queen Victoria and
Prince Albert, which had been lithographed for private circulation, fell
into the hands of the defendant, a London publisher, who proposed to
exhibit them, and issued a catalogue entitled _A Descriptive Catalogue
of the Royal Victoria and Albert Gallery of Etchings_. The court of
chancery restrained the publication of the catalogue, holding that
property in mechanical works, or works of art, does certainly subsist,
and is invaded, before publication, not only by copying but by
description or catalogue. This protection includes news (_Exchange
Telegraph Co._ v. _Central News_, 1897).
Nature of right.
As a matter of principle, the nature of copyright itself, and the
reasons why it should be recognized in law, have, as already stated,
been the subject of bitter dispute. It was attacked as constituting a
monopoly, and it has been argued that copyright should be looked upon as
a doubtful exception to the general law regulating trade, and should be
strictly limited in point of duration. On the other hand, it is claimed
that copyright, being in the nature of personal property, should be
perpetual. A man's own work, in this view, is as much _his_ as his house
or his money, and should be protected by the state. Historically, and in
legal definition, there would appear to be no doubt that copyright, as
regulated by statute, is strictly a monopoly. The parliamentary
protection of works of art for the period of fourteen years by an act of
1709 and later statutes appears, as Blackstone points out, to have been
suggested by the exception in the Statute of Monopolies 1623. The object
of that statute was to suppress the royal grants of exclusive right to
trade in certain articles, and to reassert in relation to all such
monopolies the common law of the land. Certain exceptions were made on
grounds of public policy, and among others it was allowed that a royal
patent of privilege might be granted for fourteen years "to any inventor
of a new manufacture for the sole working or making of the same."
Copyright, like patent right, would be covered by the legal definition
of a monopoly. It is a mere right to prevent other people from
manufacturing certain articles. But objections to monopolies in general
do not apply to this particular class of cases, in which the author of a
new work in literature or art has the right of preventing others from
manufacturing copies thereof and selling them to the public. The rights
of persons licensed to sell spirits, to hold theatrical exhibitions,
&c., are also of the nature of monopolies, and may be defended on
special grounds of public policy. The monopoly of authors and inventors
rests on the general sentiment underlying all civilized law, that a man
should be protected in the enjoyment of the fruits of his own labour.