CON 



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CON 



thered together in a round ball; 

 conglobate glands are such as are 

 smooth in their surface, and seem 

 to be made up of one continued 

 surface. 



CONGLOMERATE, (conglomeratus, Lat.) 

 This in geology has the same 

 meaning as breccia, and pudding- 

 stone. A mass of fragments united 

 by some cement. Geological 

 writers have chosen to define the 

 term variously, and oppositely, 

 to one another ; thus Lyell states a 

 conglomerate to be " rounded 

 water-worn fragments of rock or 

 pebbles, cemented together by 

 another mineral substance." Sim- 

 ply, gravel bound together by a 

 cement. Man tell defines it " frag- 

 ments cemented together." Bake- 

 well "large fragments of stone, 

 whether rounded or angular, and 

 imbedded in clay or sandstone." 

 Ure "a compound mineral mass, 

 in which angular fragments of rock 

 are imbedded. The Italian word 

 breccia has the same meaning." 

 Mantell in his " "Wonders of Geolo- 

 gy," p. 417, has " the most inter- 

 esting beds of these conglomerates, 

 or breccia, in this country." 



CONGLOMERATE GLAND. A gland 

 composed of several glomerate 

 glands, whose excretory ducts 

 unite into one common duct : the 

 liver, kidneys, pancreas, &c. are 

 all conglomerate glands. 



CONI'FERJE. (from comes and fero, 

 Lat.) An order of trees bearing 

 cones or tops, containing the seeds ; 

 the fifteenth order in Linnseus's 

 Fragmenta Methodi Naturalis, and 

 the fifty-first of his natural orders. 

 The Coniferee are plants whose 

 female flowers, placed at a distance 

 from the male, either on the same 

 or distinct roots, are formed into a 

 cone. 



" The Coniferae," says Professor 

 Buckland, " form a large and very 

 important tribe among living plants, 

 which are characterised not only 



by peculiarities in their fructifica- 

 tion, (having their seeds originally 

 naked, and not enclosed within an 

 ovary ; for which reason they have 

 been arranged in a distinct order, 

 as Gymnospermous Phanegoramise,) 

 but also by certain remarkable 

 arrangements in the structure of 

 their wood, whereby the smallest 

 fragment may be identified. The 

 recognition of these peculiar char- 

 acters in the structure of the stem, 

 is especially important to the geo- 

 logical botanist, because the stems 

 of plants are often the only parts 

 which are found preserved in a 

 fossil state. A transverse section 

 of any coniferous wood, in addition 

 to the radiating and concentric 

 lines, exhibits under the microscope 

 a system of reticulations by which 

 coniferse are distinguishable from 

 other plants. It appears that the 

 coniferae are common to all fossili- 

 ferous strata of all periods ; they 

 are least abundant in the transition 

 series, more numerous in the 

 secondary, and most frequent in 

 the tertiary series. All the trees of 

 this order secrete resin, have 

 branched trunks, and linear, rigid, 

 entire leaves : species are found in 

 the coldest as well as in the hottest 

 regions." 



CO'NILITE. A genus of molluscous 

 univalves, placed both by Lamarck 

 and De Blainville in the family 

 Orthocerata. It is conical, straight, 

 or slightly curved. 



"The difference between coni- 

 lites and baculites, is that the 

 external sheath of the latter is thin, 

 and not filled up with solid matter, 

 from the points of the alveole to the 

 apex, as in the former." Sowerly. 



CONI'STON FLAGSTONE. } The names 

 CONI'STON LIMESTONE, j assigned 

 to two divisions of the Upper Cam- 

 brian rocks. They answer to the 

 Upper Bala rocks, and Bala lime- 

 stone. 



