Coning and quartering

Coning and quartering is a method used by analytical chemists to reduce the sample size of a powder without creating a systematic bias. The technique involves pouring the sample so that it takes on a conical shape, and then flattening it out into a cake. The cake is then divided into quarters and two quarters which sit opposite one another are discarded, whilst the other two are combined and constitute the reduced sample.

=See also= Sub-sampling

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