rable area in its vicinity. Beyond the small
fertile valley in which it stands is the barren desert, on which rain
rarely falls and which has no economic value apart from its minerals
(especially saline compounds). Copiapo was founded in 1742 by Jose de
Manso (afterwards Conde de Superunda, viceroy of Peru) and took its name
from the Copayapu Indians who occupied that region. It was primarily a
military station and transport post on the road to Peru, but after the
discovery of the rich silver deposits near Chanarcillo by Juan Godoy in
1832 it became an important mining centre. It has a good mining school
and reduction works, and is the supply station for an extensive mining
district. For many years the Famatina mines of Argentina received
supplies from this point by way of the Come-Caballo pass.

COPING (from "cope," Lat. _capa_), in architecture, the capping or
covering of a wall. This may be made of stone, brick, tile, slate,
metal, wood or thatch. In all cases it should be weathered to throw off
the wet. In Romanesque work it was plain and flat, and projected over
the wall with a throating to form a drip. In later work a steep slope
was given to the weathering (mainly on the outer side), and began at the
top with an astragal; in the Decorated style there were two or three
sets off; and in the later Perpendicular period these assumed a wavy
section, and the coping mouldings were continued round the sides, as
well as at top and bottom, mitreing at the angles, as in many of the
colleges at Oxford. The cheapest type of coping is that which caps the
ordinary 9 in. brick wall, and consists of brick on edge above a double
tile creasing, all in cement; the creasing consisting of one or two rows
of tiles laid horizontally on the wall and projecting on each side about
2 in. to throw off the water (see also MASONRY).

COPLAND, ROBERT (fl. 1515), English printer and author, is said to have
been a servant of William Caxton, and certainly worked for Wynkyn de
Worde. The first book to which his name is affixed as a printer is _The
Boke of Justices of Peace_ (1515), at the sign of the Rose Garland, in
Fleet Street, London. Anthony a Wood supposed, on the ground that he was
more educated than was usual in his trade, that he had been a poor
scholar of Oxford. His best known works are _The hye way to the Spyttell
hous_, a dialogue in verse between Copland and the porter of St
Bartholomew's hospital, containing much informat