noun
definition
A small circular receptacle used in assaying gold or silver with lead.
verb
definition
To refine by means of a cupel.
Examples of cupel in a Sentence
The resulting lead button hammered P into shape and carefully cleansed from slag is ready for the cupel.
Under the most favourable conditions there is a slight loss of gold and silver in the fusion, the scorification and the cupellation, both by absorption in the slag and by actual volatilization and absorption in the cupel.
The resulting alloy, which is called the lead button, is then submitted to fusion on a very porous support, made of bone-ash, and called a cupel.
The heat is sufficient to keep the resulting lead oxide fused, and the porous cupel has the property of absorbing melted lead oxide without taking up any of the metallic globule, exactly in the same way that blottingpaper will absorb water whilst it will not touch a globule of mercury.
The heat being continued, and the current of air always passing over the surface of the melted lead button, and the lead oxide being sucked up by the cupel as fast as it is formed, the metallic globule rapidly diminishes in size until at last all the lead has been got rid of.
Other metals, except the silver and gold, also oxidize, and are carried by the melted litharge into the cupel.
The operation by which the alloy is brought to this standard is termed quartation or inquartation, and consists in fusing the alloy in a cupel with lead and the quantity of fine silver or fine gold necessary to bring it to the desired composition.
The remaining litharge was absorbed by the porous cupel, leaving a globule of metallic silver about 99.9% pure.
The rest of the litharge was absorbed in the porous cupel, leaving a shining globule of metallic silver about 99.95% pure.