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LEFT CONDOTTIERI 102 CONE he enriched the "Transactions" of many learned societies; and took an active part in the "Cyclopedia." During the troubles of the first French Revolution his sym- pathies were strongly engaged on the side of the people. By the city of Paris he was elected deputy to the legislative as- sembly, of which he was soon appointed secretary, and in February, 1792, presi- dent. On the trial of Louis he was in favor of the severest sentence not capi- tal. The fall of the Girondist party, May 31, 1793, prevented the constitution which Condorcet had drawn up from being ac- cepted, and as he freely criticized the constitution which took its place, he was CONDOR denounced as being an accomplice of Brissot. He was forced to hide himself for 8 months, during which he wrote his "Sketch of an Historic Tableau of the Progress of the Human Mind." Fearing that Madame Verney, who sheltered him, would be punished for it, he fled Paris, was captured and imprisoned, and died March 28, 1794, probably of poison, self- administered. CONDOTTIERI (kon-dot-ya're), a class of mercenary adventurers in the 14th and 15th centuries, who commanded military bands, amounting to armies, on their own account, and sold their services for temporary engagements to sovereign princes and states. They took no inter- est in national contests, except to receive pecuniary advantages, the v/ars between them became a sort of bloodless contests, in which the only object of each party was to take as many prisoners as possi- ble for the sake of the ransom. Only one Condottieri attained to high rank and in- dependent power; this was Francesco Sforza, originally a peasant, who in 1451 made himself Duke of Milan, and trans- mitted that sovereignty to his descend- ants. CONDUIT (kun'dit or kon-dwe), a line of pipes or an underground channel of some kind for the conveyance of water. CONE, in geometry, a solid figure de- scribed by the revolution of a right- angled triangle about one of the sides con- taining the right angle, which side re- mains fixed. If the fixed side be equal to the other side containing the right angle, the cone is called a right-angled cone; if it be less than the other side, an obtuse- angled, and, if greater, an acute-angled cone. The axis of the cone is the fixed straight line about which the triangle revolves. The base of a cone is the circle described by that side containing the right angle which revolves. Similar cones are those which have their axes and the diameters of their bases proportion- als. (Euclid.) In optics, a pencil of rays of light ema- nating from a point and diverging as they proceed on their course. In astronomy, a conical-shaped shadow projected by a planet on the other side from that on which it is illuminated by the sun. In geology, a conical mound or hill pro- duced by the showering down around the orifice of eruption of scoriae, dust, and the various other materials ejected. In zoology (1) the English name of any shell of the large tropical molluscous genus Conus. The name also of any ani- mal of that genus. (2) PI. (cones), the English name of the Conidss, a family of Gasteropodous mollusks. See Cone-Shells. In botany, a kind of anthocarpous or collective fruit, called also Strobilus, shaped somewhat like a mathematical cone, and consisting of an ament, the car- pella of which are (scale-like) spread open, and bear naked seeds. CONE, HUTCHINSON INGHAM, an American naval officer, born in Brooklyn in 1873. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1894. During the war with Spain he served on the U. S. S. "Baltimore." He was commander of the flotilla of torpedo boats on the voyage from Hampton Roads to San