Chapter VI: Part 6

A Latin inscription of the 4th century identifies Coimbra with the ancient Aeminium; while Condeixa (3623), 8 m. S.S.W., represents the ancient Conimbriga or Conembrica,. In the 9th century, however, when the bishopric of Conimbriga was removed hither, its old title was transferred to the new see, and hence arose the modern name Coimbra. The city was for a long time a Moorish stronghold, but in 1064 it was captured by Ferdinand I. of Castile and the Cid. Until 1260 it was the capital of the country, and no fewer than six kings--Sancho I. and II., Alphonso II. and III., Pedro and Ferdinand--were born within its walls. It was also the birthplace of the poet Francisco Sa de Miranda (1495-1558), and, according to one tradition, of the more famous Luiz de Camoens (1524-1580), who was a student at the university between 1537 and 1542. In 1755 Coimbra suffered considerably from the earthquake. In 1810 it was sacked by the French under Marshal Massena. In 1834 Dom Miguel made the city his headquarters; and in 1846 it was the scene of a Miguelist insurrection.

The administrative district of Coimbra coincides with the south-western part of Beira; pop. (1900) 332,168; area 1508 sq. m.

COIN, a town of southern Spain in the province of Malaga; 18 m. W.S.W. of the city of Malaga. Pop. (1900) 12,326. Coin is finely situated on the northern slope of the Sierra de Mijas, overlooking the small river Seco and surrounded by vineyards and plantations of oranges and lemons. There are marble quarries in the neighbourhood, and, despite the lack of a railway, Coin has a thriving agricultural trade. The population increased by more than half between 1880 and 1900.

COIN (older forms of the word are _coyne_, _quoin_ and _coign_, all derived through the O. Fr. _coing_, and _cuigne_ from Lat. _cuneus_, a wedge), properly the term for a wedge-shaped die used for stamping money, and so transferred to the money so stamped; hence a piece of money. The form "quoin" is used for the external angle of a building (see QUOINS), and "coign," also a projecting angle, survives in the Shakespearean phrase "a coign of vantage."

COINAGE OFFENCES. The coinage of money is in all states a prerogative of the sovereign power; consequently any infringement of that prerogative is always severely punished, as being an offence likely to interfere with the well-being of the state.

In the United Kingdom the statute law against offences relating to the coin was codified by an act of 1861. The statute provides that whoever falsely makes or counterfeits any coin resembling or apparently intended to resemble or pass for any current gold or silver coin of the realm (s. 2), or gilds, silvers, washes, cases over or colours with materials capable of producing the appearance of gold or silver a coin or a piece of any metal or mixture of metals, or files or alters it, with intent to make it resemble or pass for any current gold or silver coin (s. 3), or who buys, sells, receives or pays a false gold or silver coin at a lower rate than its denomination imports, or who receives into the United Kingdom any false coin knowing it to be counterfeit (ss. 6, 7), or who, without lawful authority or excuse, knowingly makes or mends, buys or sells, or has in his custody or possession, or conveys out of the Royal Mint any coining moulds, machines or tools, is guilty of felony (ss. 24, 25). The punishment for such offences is either penal servitude for life or for not less than three years, or imprisonment for not more than two years, with or without hard labour. Whoever impairs, diminishes or lightens current gold or silver coin, with intent to pass same, is liable to penal servitude for from three to fourteen years (s. 4), and whoever has in his possession filings or clippings obtained by impairing or lightening current coin is liable to the same punishment, or to penal servitude for from three to seven years. The statute also makes provision against tendering or uttering false gold or silver coin, which is a misdemeanour, punishable by imprisonment with or without hard labour. Provision is also made with respect to falsely making, counterfeiting, tendering or uttering copper coin, exporting false coin, or defacing current coin by stamping names or words on it, and counterfeiting, tendering or uttering coin resembling or meant to pass as that of some foreign state. The act of 1861 applies to offences with respect to colonial coins as well as to those of the United Kingdom.

By the constitution of the United States, Congress has the power of coining money, regulating the value thereof and of foreign coin (Art. i. s. viii.), and the states are prohibited from coining money, or making anything but gold and silver money a tender in payment of debts (Art. i. s. x.). The counterfeiting coin or money, uttering the same, or mutilating or defacing it, is an offence against the United States, and is punishable by fine and imprisonment with hard labour for from two to ten years. It has also been made punishable by state legislation.

COIR (from Malay _K[=a]yar_, cord, _K[=a]yaru_, to be twisted), a rough, strong, fibrous substance obtained from the outer husk of the coco-nut. (See COCO-NUT PALM.)

COIRE (Ger. _Chur_ or _Cur_, Ital. _Coira_, Lat. _Curia Raetorum_, Romonsch _Cuera_), the capital of the Swiss canton of the Grisons. It is built, at a height of 1949 ft. above the sea-level, on the right bank of the Plessur torrent, just as it issues from the Schanfigg valley, and about a mile above its junction with the Rhine. It is overshadowed by the Mittenberg (east) and Pizokel (south), hills that guard the entrance to the deep-cut Schanfigg valley. In 1900 it contained 11,532 inhabitants, of whom 9288 were German-speaking, 1466 Romonsch-speaking, and 677 Italian-speaking; while 7561 were Protestants, 3962 Romanists and one a Jew. The modern part of the city is to the west, but the old portion, with all the historical buildings, is to the east. Here is the cathedral church of St Lucius (who is the patron of Coire, and is supposed to be a 2nd-century British king, though really the name has probably arisen from a confusion between Lucius of Cyrene--miswritten "_curiensis_"--with the Roman general Lucius Munatius Plancus, who conquered Raetia). Built between 1178 and 1282, on the site of an older church, it contains many curious medieval antiquities (especially in the sacristy), as well as a picture by Angelica Kaufmann, and the tomb of the great Grisons political leader (d. 1637) Jenatsch (q.v.). Opposite is the Bishop's Palace, and not far off is the Episcopal Seminary (built on the ruins of a 6th-century monastic foundation). Not far from these ancient monuments is the new Raetian Museum, which contains a great collection of objects relating to Raetia (including the geological collections of the Benedictine monk of Disentis, Placidus a Spescha (1752-1833), who explored the high snowy regions around the sources of the Rhine). One of the hospitals was founded by the famous Capuchin philanthropist, Father Theodosius Florentini (1808-1865), who was long the Romanist cure of Coire, and whose remains were in 1906 transferred from the cathedral here to Ingenbohl (near Schwyz), his chief foundation. Coire is 74 m. by rail from Zurich, and is the meeting-point of the routes from Italy over many Alpine passes (the Lukmanier, the Splugen, the San Bernardino) as well as from the Engadine (Albula, Julier), so that it is the centre of an active trade (particularly in wine from the Valtelline), though it possesses also a few local factories.

The episcopal see is first mentioned in 452, but probably existed a century earlier. The bishop soon acquired great temporal powers, especially after his dominions were made, in 831, dependent on the Empire alone, of which he became a prince in 1170. In 1392 he became head of the league of God's House (originally formed against him in 1367), one of the three Raetian leagues, but, in 1526, after the Reformation, lost his temporal powers, having fulfilled his historical mission (see GRISONS). The bishopric still exists, with jurisdiction over the Cantons of the Grisons, Glarus, Zurich, and the three Forest Cantons, as well as the Austrian principality of Liechtenstein. The gild constitution of the city of Chur lasted from 1465 to 1839, while in 1874 the _Burgergemeinde_ was replaced by an _Einwohnergemeinde_.

AUTHORITIES.--A. Eichhorn, _Episcopatus Curiensis_ (St Blasien, 1797);
W. von Juvalt, _Forschungen uber die Feudalzeit im Curischen Raetien_,
2 parts (Zurich, 1871); C. Kind, _Die Reformation in den Bisthumern
Chur und Como_ (Coire, 1858); Conradin von Moor, Geschichte von
Curraetien (2 vols., Coire, 1870-1874); P. C. von Planta, _Das alte
Raetien_ (Berlin, 1872); _Idem, Die Curraetischen Herrschaften in der
Feudalzeit_ (Bern, 1881); _Idem, Verfassungsgeschichte der Stadt Cur
im Mittelalter_ (Coire, 1879); _Idem, Geschichte von Graubunden_
(Bern, 1892). (W. A. B. C.)

COKE, SIR EDWARD (1552-1634), English lawyer, was born at Mileham, in Norfolk, on the 1st of February 1552. From the grammar school of Norwich he passed to Trinity College, Cambridge; and in 1572 he entered Lincoln's Inn. In 1578 he was called to the bar, and in the next year he was chosen reader at Lyon's Inn. His extensive and exact legal erudition, and the skill with which he argued the intricate libel case of Lord Cromwell (4 Rep. 13), and the celebrated real property case of Shelley (1 Rep. 94, 104), soon brought him a practice never before equalled, and caused him to be universally recognized as the greatest lawyer of his day. In 1586 he was made recorder of Norwich, and in 1592 recorder of London, solicitor-general, and reader in the Inner Temple. In 1593 he was returned as member of parliament for his native county, and also chosen speaker of the House of Commons. In 1594 he was promoted to the office of attorney-general, despite the claims of Bacon, who was warmly supported by the earl of Essex. As crown lawyer his treatment of the accused was marked by more than the harshness and violence common in his time; and the fame of the victim has caused his behaviour in the trial of Raleigh to be lastingly remembered against him. While the prisoner defended himself with the calmest dignity and self-possession, Coke burst into the bitterest invective, brutally addressing the great courtier as if he had been a servant, in the phrase, long remembered for its insolence and its utter injustice--"Thou hast an English face, but a Spanish heart!"

In 1582 Coke married the daughter of John Paston, a gentleman of Suffolk, receiving with her a fortune of L30,000; but in six months he was left a widower. Shortly after he sought the hand of Lady Elizabeth Hatton, daughter of Thomas, second Lord Burghley, and granddaughter of the great Cecil. Bacon was again his rival, and again unsuccessfully; the wealthy young widow became--not, it is said, to his future comfort--Coke's second wife.

In 1606 Coke was made chief justice of the common pleas, but in 1613 he was removed to the office of chief justice of the king's bench, which gave him less opportunity of interfering with the court. The change, though it brought promotion in dignity, caused a diminution of income as well as of power; but Coke received some compensation in being appointed a member of the privy council. The independence of his conduct as a judge, though not unmixed with the baser elements of prejudice and vulgar love of authority, has partly earned forgiveness for the harshness which was so prominent in his sturdy character. Full of an extreme reverence for the common law which he knew so well, he defended it alike against the court of chancery, the ecclesiastical courts, and the royal prerogative. In a narrow spirit, and strongly influenced, no doubt, by his enmity to the chancellor, Thomas Egerton (Lord Brackley), he sought to prevent the interference of the court of chancery with even the unjust decisions of the other courts. In the case of an appeal from a sentence given in the king's bench, he advised the victorious, but guilty, party to bring an action of praemunire against all those who had been concerned in the appeal, and his authority was stretched to the utmost to obtain the verdict he desired. On the other hand, Coke has the credit of having repeatedly braved the anger of the king. He freely gave his opinion that the royal proclamation cannot make that an offence which was not an offence before. An equally famous but less satisfactory instance occurred during the trial of Edmund Peacham, a divine in whose study a sermon had been found containing libellous accusations against the king and the government. There was nothing to give colour to the charge of high treason with which he was charged, and the sermon had never been preached or published; yet Peacham was put to the torture, and Bacon was ordered to confer with the judges individually concerning the matter. Coke declared such conference to be illegal, and refused to give an opinion, except in writing, and even then he seems to have said nothing decided. But the most remarkable case of all occurred in the next year (1616). A trial was held before Coke in which one of the counsel denied the validity of a grant made by the king to the bishop of Lichfield of a benefice to be held _in commendam_. James, through Bacon, who was then attorney-general, commanded the chief justice to delay judgment till he himself should discuss the question with the judges. At Coke's request Bacon sent a letter containing the same command to each of the judges, and Coke then obtained their signatures to a paper declaring that the attorney-general's instructions were illegal, and that they were bound to proceed with the case. His Majesty expressed his displeasure, and summoned them before him in the council-chamber, where he insisted on his supreme prerogative, which, he said, ought not to be discussed in ordinary argument. Upon this all the judges fell on their knees, seeking pardon for the form of their letter; but Coke ventured to declare his continued belief in the loyalty of its substance, and when asked if he would in the future delay a case at the king's order, the only reply he would vouchsafe was that he would do what became him as a judge. Soon after he was dismissed from all his offices on the following charges,--the concealment, as attorney-general, of a bond belonging to the king, a charge which could not be proved, illegal interference with the court of chancery and disrespect to the king in the case of commendams. He was also ordered by the council to revise his book of reports, which was said to contain many extravagant opinions (June 1616).

Coke did not suffer these losses with patience. He offered his daughter Frances, then little more than a child, in marriage to Sir John Villiers, brother of the favourite Buckingham. Her mother, supported at first by her husband's great rival and her own former suitor, Bacon, objected to the match, and placed her in concealment. But Coke discovered her hiding-place; and she was forced to wed the man whom she declared that of all others she abhorred. The result was the desertion of the husband and the fall of the wife. It is said, however, that after his daughter's public penance in the Savoy church, Coke had heart enough to receive her back to the home which he had forced her to leave. Almost all that he gained by his heartless diplomacy was a seat in the council and in the star-chamber.

In 1620 a new and more honourable career opened for him. He was elected member of parliament for Liskeard; and henceforth he was one of the most prominent of the constitutional party. It was he who proposed a remonstrance against the growth of popery and the marriage of Prince Charles to the infanta of Spain, and who led the Commons in the decisive step of entering on the journal of the House the famous petition of the 18th of December 1621, insisting on the freedom of parliamentary discussion, and the liberty of speech of every individual member. In consequence, together with Pym and Sir Robert Philips, he was thrown into confinement; and, when in the August of the next year he was released, he was commanded to remain in his house at Stoke Poges during his Majesty's pleasure. Of the first and second parliaments of Charles I. Coke was again a member. From the second he was excluded by being appointed sheriff of Buckinghamshire. In 1628 he was at once returned for both Buckinghamshire and Suffolk, and he took his seat for the former county. After rendering other valuable support to the popular cause, he took a most important part in drawing up the great Petition of Right. The last act of his public career was to bewail with tears the ruin which he declared the duke of Buckingham was bringing upon the country. At the close of the session he retired into private life; and the six years that remained to him were spent in revising and improving the works upon which, at least as much as upon his public career, his fame now rests. He died at Stoke Poges on the 3rd of September 1634.

Coke published _Institutes_ (1628), of which the first is also known as _Coke upon Littleton_; _Reports_ (1600-1615), in thirteen parts; _A Treatise of Bail and Mainprize_ (1635); _The Complete Copyholder_ (1630); _A Reading on Fines and Recoveries_ (1684).

See Johnson, _Life of Sir Edward Coke_ (1837); H. W. Woolrych, _The
Life of Sir Edward Coke_ (1826); Foss, _Lives of the Judges_;
Campbell, _Lives of the Chief Justices_; also ENGLISH LAW.

COKE, SIR JOHN (1563-1644), English politician, was born on the 5th of March 1563, and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. After leaving the university he entered public life as a servant of William Cecil, Lord Burghley, afterwards becoming deputy-treasurer of the navy and then a commissioner of the navy, and being specially commended for his labours on behalf of naval administration. He became member of parliament for Warwick in 1621 and was knighted in 1624, afterwards representing the university of Cambridge. In the parliament of 1625 Coke acted as a secretary of state; in this and later parliaments he introduced the royal requests for money, and defended the foreign policy of Charles I. and Buckingham, and afterwards the actions of the king. His actual appointment as secretary dates from September 1625. Disliked by the leaders of the popular party, his speeches in the House of Commons did not improve the king's position, but when Charles ruled without a parliament he found Coke's industry very useful to him. The secretary retained his post until 1639, when a scapegoat was required to expiate the humiliating treaty of Berwick with the Scots, and the scapegoat was Coke. Dismissed from office, he retired to his estate at Melbourne in Derbyshire, and then resided in London, dying at Tottenham on the 8th of September 1644. Coke's son, Sir John Coke, sided with the parliament in its struggle with the king, and it is possible that in later life Coke's own sympathies were with this party, although in his earlier years he had been a defender of absolute monarchy. Coke, who greatly disliked the papacy, is described by Clarendon as "a man of very narrow education and a narrower mind"; and again he says, "his cardinal perfection was industry and his most eminent infirmity covetousness."

COKE, THOMAS (1747-1814), English divine, the first Methodist bishop, was born at Brecon, where his father was a well-to-do apothecary. He was educated at Jesus College, Oxford, taking the degree of M.A. in 1770 and that of D.C.L. in 1775. From 1772 to 1776 he was curate at South Petherton in Somerset, whence his rector dismissed him for adopting the open-air and cottage services introduced by John Wesley, with whom he had become acquainted. After serving on the London Wesleyan circuit he was in 1782 appointed president of the conference in Ireland, a position which he frequently held, in the intervals of his many voyages to America. He first visited that country in 1784, going to Baltimore as "superintendent" of the Methodist societies in the new world and, in 1787 the American conference changed his title to "bishop," a nomenclature which he tried in vain to introduce into the English conference, of which he was president in 1797 and 1805. Failing this, he asked Lord Liverpool to make him a bishop in India, and he was voyaging to Ceylon when he died on the 3rd of May 1814. Coke had always been a missionary enthusiast, and was the pioneer of such enterprise in his connexion. He was an ardent opponent of slavery, and endeavoured also to heal the breach between the Methodist and Anglican communions. He published a _History of the West Indies_ (3 vols., 1808-1811), several volumes of sermons, and, with Henry Moore, a _Life of Wesley_ (1792).

COKE (a northern English word, possibly connected with "colk," core), the product obtained by strongly heating coal out of contact with the air until the volatile constituents are driven off; it consists essentially of carbon, the so-called "fixed carbon," together with the incombustible matters or ash contained in the coal from which it is derived. In addition to these it almost invariably contains small quantities of hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, the whole, however, not exceeding 2 or 3%. It also contains water, the amount of which may vary considerably according to the method of manufacture. When produced rapidly and at a low heat, as in gas-making, it is of a dull black colour, and a loose spongy or pumice-like texture, and ignites with comparative ease, though less readily than bituminous coal, so that it may be burnt in open fire-places; but when a long-continued heat is used, as in the preparation of coke for iron and steel melting, the product is hard and dense, is often prismatic in structure, has a brilliant semi-metallic lustre and silvery-grey colour, is a conductor of heat and electricity, and can only be burnt in furnaces provided with a strong chimney draught or an artificial blast. The strength and cohesive properties are also intimately related to the nature and composition of the coals employed, which are said to be caking or non-caking according to the compact or fragmentary character of the coke produced.

Formerly coke was made from large coal piled in heaps with central chimneys like those of the charcoal burner, or in open rectangular clamps or kilns with air flues in the enclosing walls; but these methods are now practically obsolete, closed chambers or ovens being generally used. These vary considerably in construction, but may be classified into three principal types:--(1) direct heated ovens, (2) flue-heated ovens, (3) condensing ovens. In the first class the heating is done by direct contact or by burning the gases given off in coking within the oven, while in the other two the heating is indirect, the gas being burned in cellular passages or flues provided in the walls dividing the coking chambers, and the heat transmitted through the sides of the latter which are comparatively thin. The arrangement is somewhat similar to that of a gas-works retort, whence the name of "retort ovens" is sometimes applied to them. The difference between the second and third classes is founded on the treatment of the gases. In the former the gas is fired in the side flues immediately upon issuing from the oven, while in the latter the gases are first subjected to a systematic treatment in condensers, similar to those used in gas-works, to remove tar, ammonia and condensable hydrocarbons, the incondensable gases being returned to the oven and burned in the heating flues. These are generally known as "by-product ovens."

Beehive oven.

The simplest form of coke oven, and probably that still most largely
used, is the so-called "beehive oven." This is circular in plan, from
7 to 12 ft. in diameter, with a cylindrical wall about 2-1/2 ft. high
and a nearly hemispherical roof with a circular hole at the top. The
floor, made of refractory bricks or slabs, is laid with a slight slope
towards an arched opening in the ring wall, which is stopped with
brickwork during the coking but opened for drawing the finished
charge. The ovens are usually arranged in rows or banks of 20 to 30 or
more, with their doors outwards, two rows being often placed with a
longitudinal flue between them connected by uptakes with the
individual ovens on either side. A railway along the top of the bank
brings the coal from the screens or washery. The largest ovens take a
charge of about 5 tons, which is introduced through the hole in the
roof, the brickwork of the empty oven being still red hot from the
preceding charge, and when levelled fills the cylindrical part nearly
to the springing of the roof. The gas fires as it is given off and
fills the dome with flame, and the burning is regulated by air
admitted through holes in the upper part of the door stopping. The
temperature being very high, a proportion of the volatile hydrocarbons
is decomposed, and a film of graphitic carbon is deposited on the
coke, giving it a semi-metallic lustre and silvery grey colour. When
the gas is burned off, the upper part of the door is opened and the
glowing charge cooled by jets of water thrown directly upon it from a
hose, and it is subsequently drawn out through the open door. The
charge breaks up into prisms or columns whose length corresponds to
the depth of the charge, and as a rule is uniform in character and
free from dull black patches or "black ends." The time of burning is
either 48 or 72 hours, the turns being so arranged as to avoid the
necessity of drawing the ovens on Sunday. The longer the heat is
continued the denser the product becomes, but the yield also
diminishes, as a portion of the finished coke necessarily burns to
waste when the gas is exhausted. For this reason the yield on the coal
charged is usually less than that obtained in retort ovens, although
the quality may be better. Coals containing at most about 35% of
volatile matter are best suited for the beehive oven. With less than
25% the gas is not sufficient to effect the coking completely, and
when there is a higher percentage the coke is brittle and spongy and
unsuited for blast furnace or foundry use. The spent flame from the
ovens passes to a range of steam boilers before escaping by the
chimney.

Retort oven.

The retort oven, which is now generally displacing the beehive form in
new installations, is made in a great variety of forms, the
differences being mainly in the arrangement of the heating flues, but
all have the central feature, the coking chamber, in common. This is a
tubular chamber with vertical sides and cylindrical roof, about 30 ft.
long, from 17 to 20 in. wide, and 6 or 7 ft. high, and closed at both
ends by sliding doors which are raised by crab winches when the charge
is to be drawn. The general arrangements of such an oven are shown in
fig. 1, which represents one of the earliest and most popular forms,
that of Evence Coppee of Brussels. The coking chambers A B connect by
rectangular posts at the springing of the roof, where the gas given
off from the top of the charge is fired by air introduced through _c
c_. The flames pass downwards through the parallel flues _f f_ along
the bottom flue of one oven, and return in the opposite direction
under the next to the chimney flue, a further part of the heat being
intercepted by placing a range of steam boilers between the ovens and
the chimney stack. The charging of the oven is done through the
passages D D in the roof from small wagons on transverse lines of
rails, the surface being raked level before the doors are closed and
luted up. The time of coking is much less than in the beehive ovens
and may be from 24 to 36 hours, according to the proportion of
volatile matter present. When the gas is completely given off the
doors are lifted and the charge is pushed out by the ram--a cast-iron
plate of the shape of the cross section of the oven, at the end of a
long horizontal bar, which is driven by a rack and pinion movement and
pushes the block of coke out of the oven on to the wharf or bank in
front where it falls to pieces and is immediately quenched by jets of
water from a hose pipe. When sufficiently cooled it is loaded into
railway wagons or other conveyances for removal. The ram, together
with its motor, and boiler when steam is used, is mounted upon a
carriage running upon a line of rails of about 2 ft. gauge along the
back of the range of ovens, so that it can be brought up to any one of
them in succession.

In some cases, instead of the small coal being charged through the
roof of the oven and levelled by hand, it is formed into blocks by
being stamped in a slightly moistened condition in a mould consisting
of a bottom plate or peel on a racked rod like that of the ram, with
movable sides and ends. This, when the ends are removed, is pushed
forward into the oven, and the bottom plate is withdrawn by reversing
the rack motion. The moulding box is mounted on a carriage like that
of the ram, the two being sometimes carried on the same framing. The
moulding is done at a fixed station in the centre of the range of
ovens by a series of cast-iron stampers driven by an electric motor.
This system is useful for coals low in volatile matter, which do not
give a coherent coke under ordinary conditions.

Condensing ovens.

In the distilling or by-product ovens the gases, instead of being
burned at the point of origin, pass by an uptake pipe in the roof
about the centre of the oven into a water-sealed collecting trough or
hydraulic main, whence they are drawn by exhausters through a series
of air and water cooled condensers and scrubbers. In the first or
atmospheric condensers the tar is removed, and in the second
ammoniacal water, which is further enriched by a graduated system of
scrubbing with weak ammoniacal liquor until it is sufficiently
concentrated to be sent to the ammonia stills. The first treatment by
scrubbing with creosote or heavy tar oil removes benzene, after which
the permanent gaseous residue consisting chiefly of hydrogen and marsh
gas is returned to the ovens as fuel.

In the Otto-Hoffmann oven, one of the most generally used forms,
vertical side flues like those of Coppee are adopted. The returned gas
enters by a horizontal flue along the bottom of the coking chamber,
divided into two parts by a mid-feather wall, and is fired by heated
air from a Siemens regenerator on the substructure at one end, and the
flame rising through one half of the side flues to a parallel
collector at the top returns downwards through the flues of the other
half and passes out to the chimney through a similar regenerator at
the other end. The course of the gases is reversed at intervals of
about an hour, as in the ordinary Siemens furnace, each end of the
oven having its own gas supply. In the later modification known as the
Otto-Hilgenstock, the regenerators are abandoned, but provision is
made for more perfect distribution of the heat by a line of sixteen
Bunsen burners in each wall; each of these serves two flues, the
course of the flame being continuously upwards without reversal. In
the newest Otto ovens the same system of burners is combined with
regenerators. In the Bauer system, another vertical flue oven, each
flue has its own burner, which is of a simplified construction.

In the Carves oven, the earliest of the by-product ovens, the heating
flues are arranged horizontally in parallel series along the entire
length of the side walls, the gas being introduced from both ends but
at different levels. This system was further developed by H. Simon of
Manchester, who added a continuous air "recuperator" heated by the
spent flame; this Simon-Carves system has been extensively adopted in
Great Britain. Another horizontal flue oven, the Semet-Solvay, is
distinguished by the structure of the flues, which are independent of
the dividing walls of the ovens, so that the latter can be made with
thinner sides than those of the earlier systems, and are more readily
repaired. In the horizontal ovens it is sometimes difficult to
maintain the heat when the flues are continuous along the whole length
of the wall, especially when the heating value of the gas is reduced
by the removal of the heavy hydrocarbons. This difficulty is met by
dividing the flues in the middle so as to shorten the length of travel
of the flame, and working each end independently. The Hussener and
Koppers systems are two of the best-known examples of this
modification.

Coke from retort ovens is not so dense or brilliant as that made in
beehive ovens, but the waste being less there is a decided saving,
apart from the value of the condensed products. In one instance the
coke was found to be about 5% less efficient in the blast furnace,
while the yield on the coal charged was increased 10%. In the further
treatment of the condensed products by distillation the tar gives
burning oil and pitch, the benzene is separated from the creosote oil
by steam-heated stills, and the ammoniacal liquor, after some lime has
been added to decompose fixed ammonium compounds, is heated to
vaporize the ammonia, which is condensed in lead or copper-lined tanks
containing strong sulphuric acid to produce a crystalline powder of
ammonium sulphate, which accumulates in the receiver and is fished out
from time to time. The yield of by-products averages about 1% of
ammonium sulphate, about 3-1/2% of tar, and 0.6 to 0.9% of benzene, of
the weight of the coal carbonized. After the ovens have been heated
and steam supplied for the machinery of the condensing plant and the
coke ovens, there is usually a surplus of gas, which may be used for
lighting or driving gas-engines. For the latter purpose, however, it
is necessary to remove the last traces of tar, which acts very
prejudicially in fouling the valves when the gas is not completely
purified. The gas given off during the earlier part of the coking
process is richer in heavy hydrocarbons and of a higher illuminating
value than that of the later period when the temperature is higher.
This property is utilized in several large coking plants in America,
where the gas from the first ten hours' working is drawn off by a
second hydraulic main and sent directly to town gas-works, where it
passes through the ordinary purifying treatment, the gas from the
second period being alone used for heating the ovens.

Coke is essentially a partially graphitized carbon, its density being about midway between that of coal and graphite, and it should therefore occupy less space than the original coal; but owing to the softening of the charge a spongy structure is set up by the escaping gases, which acts in the other direction, so that for equal bulk coke is somewhat lighter than coal. It is this combination of properties that gives it its chief value in iron smelting, the substance being sufficiently dense to resist oxidation by carbon dioxide in the higher regions of the furnace, while the vesicular structure gives an extended surface for the action of heated air and facilitates rapid consumption at the tuyeres. Compact coke, such as that formed on the inner sides of gas retorts (retort carbon), can only be burned with great difficulty in small furnaces of special construction, but it gives out a great amount of heat.

The most deleterious constituents of coke are ash, sulphur and volatile constituents including water. As the coke yield is only from two-thirds to three-quarters of that of the coal, the original proportion of ash is augmented by one-third or one-half in the product. For this reason it is now customary to crush and wash the coal carefully to remove intermingled patches of shale and dirt before coking, so that the ash may not if possible exceed 10% in the coke. About one-half of the sulphur in the coal is eliminated in coking, so that the percentage in the coke is about the same. It should not be much above 1%. According to the researches of F. Wuest (_Journ. Iron and Steel Inst._, 1906) the sulphur is retained in a complex carbon compound which is not destroyed until the coke is actually consumed.

The older methods of coking and the earlier forms of retort ovens are
described in J. Percy, _Metallurgy_, Jordan, _Album du cours de
metallurgie_; Phillips and Bauerman, _Handbook of Metallurgy_, and
other text-books. A systematic series of articles on the newer forms
will be found in _The Engineer_, vol. 82, pp. 205-303 and vol. 83, pp.
207-231; see also Durre, _Die neuern Koksofen_ (Leipzig, 1892); D. A.
Louis, "Von Bauer and Brunck Ovens," _Journ. Iron and Steel Inst._,
1904, ii. p. 293; C. L. Bell, "Hussener Oven," _id._, 1904, i. p. 188;
Hurez, "A Comparison of Different Systems of Vertical and Horizontal
Flue Ovens," _Bull. soc. industrie minerale_, 1903, p. 777. A
well-illustrated description of the Otto system in its American
modification was issued by the United Gas & Coke Company of New York,
in 1906. (H. B.)

COL (Fr. for "neck," Lat. _collum_), in physical geography, generally any marked depression upon a high and rugged water-parting over which passage is easy from one valley to another. Such is the Col de Balme between the Trient and Chamounix valleys, where the great inaccessible wall crowned with aiguilles running to the massif of Mt. Blanc is broken by a gentle downward curve with smooth upland slopes, over which a footpath gives easy passage. The col is usually formed by the head-waters of a stream eating backward and lowering the water-parting at the head of its valley. In early military operations, the march of an army was always over a col, which has at all times considerable commercial importance in relation to roads in high mountain regions.

COLBERT, JEAN BAPTISTE (1619-1683), French statesman, was born at Reims, where his father and grandfather were merchants. He claimed to be the descendant of a noble Scottish family, but the evidence for this is lacking. His youth is said to have been spent in a Jesuit college, in the office of a Parisian banker, and in that of a Parisian notary, Chapelain, the father of the poet. But the first fact on which we can rely with confidence is that, when not yet twenty, he obtained a post in the war-office, by means of the influence that he possessed through the marriage of one of his uncles to the sister of Michel Le Tellier, the secretary of state for war. During some years he was employed in the inspection of troops and other work of the kind, but at length his ability, his extraordinary energy and his untiring laboriousness induced Le Tellier to make him his private secretary. These qualities, combined, it must be confessed, with a readiness to seize every opportunity of advancement, soon brought Colbert both wealth and influence. In 1647 we find him receiving the confiscated goods of his uncle Pussort, in 1648 obtaining 40,000 crowns with his wife Marie Charron, in 1649 appointed councillor of state.

It was the period of the wars of the Fronde; and in 1651 the triumph of the Conde family drove Cardinal Mazarin from Paris. Colbert, now aged thirty-two, was engaged to keep him acquainted with what should happen in the capital during his absence. At first Colbert's position was far from satisfactory; for the close wary Italian treated him merely as an ordinary agent. On one occasion, for example, he offered him 1000 crowns. The gift was refused somewhat indignantly; and by giving proof of the immense value of his services, Colbert gained all that he desired. His demands were not small; for, with an ambition mingled, as his letters show, with strong family affection, he aimed at placing all his relatives in positions of affluence and dignity; and many a rich benefice and important public office was appropriated by him to that purpose. For these favours, conferred upon him by his patron with no stinted hand, his thanks were expressed in a most remarkable manner; he published a letter defending the cardinal from the charge of ingratitude which was often brought against him, by enumerating the benefits that he and his family had received from him (April 1655). Colbert obtained, besides, the higher object of his ambition; the confidence of Mazarin, so far as it was granted to any one, became his, and he was entrusted with matters of the gravest importance. In 1659 he was giving directions as to the suppression of the revolt of the gentry which threatened in Normandy, Anjou and Poitou, with characteristic decision arresting those whom he suspected, and arranging every detail of their trial, the immediate and arbitrary destruction of their castles and woods, and the execution of their chief, Bonnesson. In the same year we have evidence that he was already planning his great attempt at financial reform. His earliest tentative was the drawing up of a _memoire_ to Mazarin, showing that of the taxes paid by the people not one-half reached the king. The paper also contained an attack upon the superintendent Nicholas Fouquet (q.v.), and being opened by the postmaster of Paris, who happened to be a spy of Fouquet's, it gave rise to a bitter quarrel, which, however, Mazarin repressed during his lifetime.

In 1661 the death of Mazarin allowed Colbert to take the first place in the administration, and he made sure of the king's favour by revealing to him some of Mazarin's hidden wealth. It was some time before he assumed official dignities; but in January 1664 he obtained the post of superintendent of buildings; in 1665 he was made controller-general; in 1669 he became minister of the marine; and he was also appointed minister of commerce, the colonies and the king's palace. In short, he soon acquired power in every department except that of war.

A great financial and fiscal reform at once claimed all his energies. Not only the nobility, but many others who had no legal claim to exemption, paid no taxes; the weight of the burden fell on the wretched country-folk. Colbert sternly and fearlessly set about his task. Supported by the young king, Louis XIV., he aimed the first blow at the greatest of the extortioners--the bold and powerful superintendent, Fouquet; whose fall, in addition, secured his own advancement.

The office of superintendent and many others dependent upon it being abolished the supreme control of the finances was vested in a royal council. The sovereign was its president; but Colbert, though for four years he only possessed the title of intendant, was its ruling spirit, great personal authority being conferred upon him by the king. The career on which Colbert now entered must not be judged without constant remembrance of the utter rottenness of the previous financial administration. His ruthlessness in this case, dangerous precedent as it was, was perhaps necessary; individual interests could not be respected. Guilty officials having been severely punished, the fraudulent creditors of the government remained to be dealt with. Colbert's method was simple. Some of the public loans were totally repudiated, and from others a percentage was cut off, which varied, at first according to his own decision, and afterwards according to that of the council which he established to examine all claims against the state.

Much more serious difficulties met his attempts to introduce equality in the pressure of the taxes on the various classes. To diminish the number of the privileged was impossible, but false claims to exemption were firmly resisted, and the unjust direct taxation was lightened by an increase of the indirect taxes, from which the privileged could not escape. The mode of collection was at the same time immensely improved.

Order and economy being thus introduced into the working of the government, the country, according to Colbert's vast yet detailed plan, was to be enriched by commerce. Manufactures were fostered in every way he could devise. New industries were established, inventors protected, workmen invited from foreign countries, French workmen absolutely prohibited to emigrate. To maintain the character of French goods in foreign markets, as well as to afford a guarantee to the home consumer, the quality and measure of each article were fixed by law, breach of the regulations being punished by public exposure of the delinquent and destruction of the goods, and, on the third offence, by the pillory. But whatever advantage resulted from this rule was more than compensated by the disadvantages it entailed. The production of qualities which would have suited many purposes of consumption was prohibited, and the odious supervision which became necessary involved great waste of time and a stereotyped regularity which resisted all improvements. And other parts of Colbert's schemes deserve still less equivocal condemnation. By his firm maintenance of the corporation system, each industry remained in the hands of certain privileged bourgeois; in this way, too, improvement was greatly discouraged; while to the lower classes opportunities of advancement were closed. With regard to international commerce Colbert was equally unfortunate in not being in advance of his age; the tariffs he published were protective to an extreme. The interests of internal commerce were, however, wisely consulted. Unable to abolish the duties on the passage of goods from province to province, he did what he could to induce the provinces to equalize them. The roads and canals were improved. The great canal of Languedoc was planned and constructed by Pierre Paul Riquet (1604-1680) under his patronage. To encourage trade with the Levant, Senegal, Guinea and other places, privileges were granted to companies; but, like the more important East India Company, all were unsuccessful. The chief cause of this failure, as well as of the failure of the colonies, on which he bestowed so much watchful care, was the narrowness and rigidity of the government regulations.

The greatest and most lasting of Colbert's achievements was the establishment of the French marine. The royal navy owed all to him, for the king thought only of military exploits. For its use, Colbert reconstructed the works and arsenal of Toulon, founded the port and arsenal of Rochefort, and the naval schools of Rochefort, Dieppe and Saint-Malo, and fortified, with some assistance from Vauban (who, however, belonged to the party of his rival Louvois), among other ports those of Calais, Dunkirk, Brest and Havre. To supply it with recruits he invented his famous system of classes, by which each seaman, according to the class in which he was placed, gave six months' service every three or four or five years. For three months after his term of service he was to receive half-pay; pensions were promised; and, in short, everything was done to make the navy popular. There was one department, however, that was supplied with men on a very different principle. Letters exist written by Colbert to the judges requiring them to sentence to the oar as many criminals as possible, including all those who had been condemned to death; and the convict once chained to the bench, the expiration of his sentence was seldom allowed to bring him release. Mendicants also, against whom no crime had been proved, contraband dealers, those who had been engaged in insurrections, and others immeasurably superior to the criminal class, nay, innocent men--Turkish, Russian and negro slaves, and poor Iroquois Indians, whom the Canadians were ordered to entrap--were pressed into that terrible service. By these means the benches of the galleys were filled, and Colbert took no thought of the long unrelieved agony borne by those who filled them.

Nor was the mercantile marine forgotten. Encouragement was given to the building of ships in France by allowing a premium on those built at home, and imposing a duty on those brought from abroad; and as French workmen were forbidden to emigrate, so French seamen were forbidden to serve foreigners on pain of death.

Even ecclesiastical affairs, though with these he had no official concern, did not altogether escape Colbert's attention. He took a subordinate part in the struggle between the king and Rome as to the royal rights over vacant bishoprics; and he seems to have sympathized with the proposal that was made to seize part of the wealth of the clergy. In his hatred of idleness, he ventured to suppress no less than seventeen fetes, and he had a project for lessening the number of those devoted to clerical and monastic life, by fixing the age for taking the vows some years later than was then customary. With heresy he was at first unwilling to interfere, for he was aware of the commercial value of the Huguenots; but when the king resolved to make all France Roman Catholic, he followed him and urged his subordinates to do all that they could to promote conversions.

In art and literature Colbert took much interest. He possessed a remarkably fine private library, which he delighted to fill with valuable manuscripts from every part of Europe where France had placed a consul. He has the honour of having founded the Academy of Sciences (now called the Institut de France), the Observatory, which he employed Claude Perrault to build and brought G. D. Cassini (1625-1712) from Italy to superintend, the Academies of Inscriptions and Medals, of Architecture and of Music, the French Academy at Rome, and Academies at Arles, Soissons, Nimes and many other towns, and he reorganized the Academy of Painting and Sculpture which Richelieu had established. He was a member of the French Academy; and one very characteristic rule, recorded to have been proposed by him with the intention of expediting the great Dictionary, in which he was much interested, was that no one should be accounted present at any meeting unless he arrived before the hour of commencement and remained till the hour for leaving. In 1673 he presided over the first exhibition of the works of living painters; and he enriched the Louvre with hundreds of pictures and statues. He gave many pensions to men of letters, among whom we find Moliere, Corneille, Racine, Boileau, P. D. Huet (1630-1721) and Antoine Varillas (1626-1696), and even foreigners, as Huyghens, Vossius the geographer, Carlo Dati the Dellacruscan, and Heinsius the great Dutch scholar. There is evidence to show that by this munificence he hoped to draw out praises of his sovereign and himself; but this motive certainly is far from accounting for all the splendid, if in some cases specious, services that he rendered to literature, science and art.

Indeed to everything that concerned the interests of France Colbert devoted unsparing thought and toil. Besides all that has been mentioned, he found time to do something for the better administration of justice (the codification of ordinances, the diminishing of the number of judges, the reduction of the expense and length of trials for the establishment of a superior system of police) and even for the improvement of the breed of horses and the increase of cattle. As superintendent of public buildings he enriched Paris with boulevards, quays and triumphal arches; he relaid the foundation-stone of the Louvre, and brought Bernin from Rome to be its architect; and he erected its splendid colonnade upon the plan of Claude Perrault, by whom Bernin had been replaced. He was not permitted, however, to complete the work, being compelled to yield to the king's preference for residences outside Paris, and to devote himself to Marly and Versailles.

Amid all these public labours his private fortune was never neglected. While he was reforming the finances of the nation, and organizing its navy, he always found time to direct the management of his smallest farm. He died extremely rich, and left fine estates all over France. He had been created marquis de Seignelay, and for his eldest son he obtained the reversion of the office of minister of marine; his second son became archbishop of Rouen; and a third son, the marquis d'Ormoy, became superintendent of buildings.

To carry out his reforms, Colbert needed peace; but the war department was in the hands of his great rival Louvois, whose influence gradually supplanted that of Colbert with the king. Louis decided on a policy of conquest. He was deaf also to all the appeals against the other forms of his boundless extravagance which Colbert, with all his deference towards his sovereign, bravely ventured to make.[1] Thus it came about that, only a few years after he had commenced to free the country from the weight of the loans and taxes which crushed her to the dust, Colbert was forced to heap upon her a new load of loans and taxes more heavy than the last. Henceforth his life was a hopeless struggle, and the financial and fiscal reform which, with the great exception of the establishment of the navy, was the most valuable service to France contemplated by him, came to nought.