been held that an assault with a knife is not necessarily an aggravated assault (Warren v. State, 3 S.W. 240), and an axe is not necessarily a “deadly weapon” with which to assault (Gladney v. State, 12 S.W. 868), and the State must prove that it would be likely to produce death or serious bodily injury (Melton v. State, 17 S.W. 257). Neither a pistol nor brass knuckles are necessarily deadly weapons; the State must show their size or manner of use in making the assault (Ballard v. State, 13 S.W. 674; Miles v. State, 5 S.W. 250). But in 1903 a pistol was held by the Texas Supreme Court to be a deadly weapon if not used simply as a club (Lockland v. State, 73 S.W. 1054), and the same court held in 1904 that a pistol is a deadly weapon (Pace v. State, 79 S.W. 531), and so the assault was an aggravated assault. In North Carolina it has been held that an axe is ex vi termini a “deadly weapon” (State v. Shields, 110 N.C. 49).
ASSAYE, a village of Hyderabad or the Nizam’s Dominions, in southern India, just beyond the Berar frontier. The place is celebrated as the site of a battle fought on the 23rd of September 1803 between the combined Mahratta forces Under Sindhia and the rajah of Berar and the British under Major-General Wellesley, afterwards the duke of Wellington. The Mahratta force consisted of 50,000 men, supported by 100 pieces of cannon served by French artillerymen, and entrenched in a strong position. Against this the English had but a force of 4500 men, which, however, after a severe struggle, gained the most complete victory that ever crowned British valour in India. Of the enemy 12,000 were killed and wounded; and General Wellesley lost 1657—one-third of his little force—killed and wounded. Assaye is 261 m. north-west of Hyderabad.
ASSAYING. To “assay” (or “essay”; Fr. essayer) is in general to try, or attempt, so to make trial or test. In a restricted sense the term assaying is applied in metallurgy to the determination of the amount of gold or silver in ores or alloys; in this article, however, it will be used in a wider technical signification, and will include a description of the methods for the quantitative determination of those elements in ores which affect their value in metallurgical operations. It would be impossible to give in detail here all the precautions necessary for the successful use of the methods, and the descriptions will therefore be confined to the principles involved and the general manner in which they are applied to secure the desired results.
Gold and Silver.—Ores containing gold or silver are almost invariably assayed in the dry way; that is, by fusion with appropriate fluxes and ultimate separation of the elements in the metallic form. One of the customs which has grown out of our peculiar system of weights is the form of statement of the results of such an assay. Instead of expressing the amounts of gold and silver in percentages of the weight of ore, they are expressed in ounces to the ton, the ounce being the troy ounce and the ton that of 2000 avoirdupois pounds. To simplify calculation and to enable the assayer to use the metric system of weights employed in all chemical calculations, the “assay ton” (“A.T.” = 29·166 grammes) has been devised, which bears the same relation to the ton of 2000 ℔ avoirdupois that one milligram does to the troy ounce; when one assay ton of ore is used, each milligram of gold or silver found represents one ounce to the ton.
The assay of an ore for gold or silver consists of two operations. In the first the gold or silver is made to combine or alloy with metallic lead, the other constituents of the ore being separated from the lead as slag. In the second, the lead button containing the gold or silver is cupelled and the resulting gold or silver button is weighed. The first is conducted in one of two ways, known respectively as the crucible method and the scorification method. The crucible method is generally used for ores containing gold in small amounts and for certain classes of silver ores. The amount of ore taken for assay is generally one-half “A.T.,” but in very low-grade ores one, two, and sometimes even four “A.T.s” are used. In the scorification method one-tenth of an “A.T.” is the amount commonly taken. While in both methods the same result is sought, the means employed are quite different. In the scorification method the ore is mixed in the scorifier (a shallow dish of burned clay) with from ten to twenty times its weight of granulated metallic lead (test lead) and a little borax glass, and heated in a muffle, the front of which is at first closed. When the lead melts and begins to oxidize, the lead oxide, or so-called litharge, combines with or dissolves the non-metallic and readily oxidizable constituents of the ore, while the gold and silver alloy with the lead. As the slag thus formed flows off to the sides of the scorifier, the assay clears and the melted metallic lead forms an “eye” in the middle. The door of the muffle is then opened and the current of air which is drawn over the scorifier rapidly oxidizes the lead, while the melted litharge gradually closes over the metal. When the “eye” has quite disappeared the door is closed and the temperature raised to make the slag very liquid. The scorifier is taken from the muffle in a pair of tongs and the contents poured into a mould, the lead forming a button in the bottom while the slag floats on top. When cold, the contents of the mould are taken out and the lead button hammered into the form of a cube, the slag, which is glassy and brittle, separating readily from the metal, which is then ready for cupellation. In the crucible method the ore is mixed with from once to twice its weight of flux, which varies in composition, but of which the following may be taken as a type:—
| Sodium bicarbonate | 8 parts. |
| Potassium carbonate | 3 ” |
| Powdered borax | 4 ” |
| Flour | 1 ” |
| Litharge | 9 ” |
The mixture is charged into a round clay crucible from 100 mm. to 125 mm. high, and heated either in a muffle or in a crucible furnace at a gradually increasing heat for forty or fifty minutes. At the expiration of this time, when the charge should be perfectly liquid and in a tranquil state of fusion, the crucible is removed from the furnace and the contents are poured into a mould. The resulting lead button hammered into shape and carefully cleansed from slag is ready for the cupel. If the button is too large for cupellation, or if it is hard, it may be scorified either alone or mixed with test lead before cupellation. The character and amount of the flux necessarily depend upon the character of the ore, the object being to concentrate in the lead button all the gold and silver while dissolving and carrying off in the slag the other constituents of the ore. 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. In ores containing much copper, this metal is largely concentrated in the lead button, making it hard, and necessitating repeated scorifications and, in some cases, a preliminary removal of the copper by solution of the ore in nitric acid. This leaves the gold in the insoluble residue, which is filtered off, and the silver in the solution is thrown down by hydrochloric acid. The resulting precipitate of silver chloride is filtered, and the residue and the precipitate are scorified together. Ores containing much arsenic or sulphur are generally roasted at a low heat and the assay is made on the roasted material.
The process of cupellation is briefly as follows:—The gold alloy is fused with a quantity of lead, and a little silver if silver is already present. 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 fusion being effected in a current of air, the lead oxidizes. 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 blotting-paper 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. Now, if this were the only action, little good would have been gained, for we should simply have put lead into the gold alloy, and then taken it out again; but another action goes on whilst the lead is oxidizing in the current
