Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 03.djvu/143

LEFT CONmBR-ffl 109 CONJUNCTION in the hackney-coach office, from the Earl of Halifax, who afterward still fur- ther patronized and favored him. lie wrote also "Love for Love," "The Double Dealer," "The Mouniing Bride," "The Way of the World," an opera, and some poerns. He died in London, Jan. 19, 1729. CONIFER-ffi, an order of plants, one of those recognized in 1751, in the in- fancy of botany, by Linnaeus. They be- long to the class or sub-class of G^fm- nospentis. They are fine trees or shrubs abounding in resin. Lindley divides it into two sub-orders, (1) Aoietese, with the ovules inverted and the pollen oval, curved; and (2) Cupressesc, with the ovules erect and the pollen spheroidal. Sometimes the Toxinese (Yews) figure as a third, but Lindley makes them a distinct order, and calls them Taxacess (Taxads). Nearly 200 species are known. They are most useful to man, supplying timber, with oil, resin, and turpentine. They are diffused over the world. The wood of the coniferas may be dis- tinguished from those of ordinary dicot- yledons by the absence of proper ducts in the woody layers, and by the pres- ence of large areolar disks on the walls of the wood cells. The wood of the Yew (Taxus baccata), and the Douglas Fir (Abies Douglasii), are exceptions to this rule. On the other hand, the Win- terer, which are not coniferous, but be- long to the Magnoliads, have similar circular disks. The coniferae commence at least as early as the Devonian. They are well represented in the Carbonifer- ous rocks, Deing associated there with the higher Acrogens. They flourished through the Secondary period, and on to present times. The Carboniferous Coni- fers may have been taxoid (Yew-like), though the genus Pinites also occurs. The species in the Secondary rocks were more akin to the Araucaria of our gardens than to ordinary pines. CONINGTON, JOHN, an English classical scholar; born in Boston, Aug. 10, 1825. He was educated at Beverley and at Magdalen College, Oxford. In 1854 he was appointed to the newly founded chair of Latin Language and Literature at Oxford, which he filled un- til his death, Oct. 23, 1869. His greatest work is his edition of "Vergil" (3 vols., 1861-1868). His edition of the "Aga- memnon" (1848), and "Choephori" (1857), of iEschylus are of less moment. In his last years he gave himself much to translation; a metrical version of the "Odes" of Horace (1863), the ".Eneid" (1866), in Scott's ballad-meter; the "Iliad" (1868), and the "Satires and Epistles" of Horace (1869). CONISrON LAKE, in the English Lake district, in N. Lancashire; at the E. foot of the Conistcn Fells, 9 miles W. of Bowness on Windermere. It is 5 miles long, V2 mile broad, 147 feet fibove the ,:ea, and its greatest depth is 200 feet. Its waiers abound with trout and per;h. On tlie E. shore .stand Ruskin's ho.oie, Brantv/od. and Tent House, once Tennyson's rtsider.ce. The Old Man of Conistcn, to the N. W., is 2,633 feet high. CONJUNCTION, in astronomy, one of the aspects of the planets. Two heav- enly bodies are in conjunction when they have the same longitude — that is, when the same perpendicular to the ecliptic passes through both. If they have, at the same time, the same latitude — that is, if they are both equally far north or south of the ecliptic — they appear from the earth to be in the same spot of the heavens, and to cover one another. The sun and moon ar'? in conjunction at the period of new moon. In the case of the inferior planets Mercury and Venus, there is an inferior conjunction when the planet is between the earth and the sun, and a superior when the sun is between the eai-th and the planet. In general, a heavenly body is in conjunction with the sun when it is on the same side of the earth, and in a line with him; and it is in opposition to the sun when it is on the opposite side of the earth, the earth being in a line between it and the sun. Planets are invisible when in con- junction with the sun, except in rare cases when an inferior planet passes over the sun's disk, and may be seen as a speck on his surface. Conjunctions are either geocentric or heliocentric, accord- ing as they are actually witnessed from the earth, or as they would be witnessed if observed from the sun. In observing a conjunction from the earth's surface it is usual to reduce the observation to what it would be if made from the earth's cen- ter; by this means the exact times of con- junction are more accui'ately fixed, and the observations of an astronomer made available to every other, wherever he may be on the earth's surface. Grand conjunctions are those where several stars or planets are found together. Chi- nese history records one in the reign of the Emperor Tehuen-hiu (2514-2436 B. c), which astronomers calculate to have actually taken place. CONJUNCTION, in grammar, a con- nective indeclinable particle serving to unite words, sentences, or clauses of a sentence, and indicating their relation to one another. They are classifiable into 8— Vol. Ill— Cyc