804 
CONFECTION. 
is not great. As lightning rods cannot be pro- 
cured of sufficient length in one piece, the separ- 
ate rods ought to be welded together if of iron, 
or one length may be screwed into another, 
which method is usually adopted with copper 
rods: and when they are made of iron, (that 
metal being usually selected on account of its 
cheapness,) the lower termination, and about 
three or four feet above the ground should. be 
made of copper, to prevent the decay and danger- 
ous consequences that might attend the lower 
end being rusted away and deficient. Perfect 
continuity of the metallic rod is of the highest 
| importance; for lightning never does damage, 
except when it strikes an imperfect conductor, 
or has to jump or pass from one conducting sub- 
stance to another. If a building is unprotected 
by a metal rod, and happens to be struck by a 
flash, it is generally found that the lightning first 
strikes and melts any lead, copper, iron, or other 
metal that is in the roof, even to the nails; from 
| thence it finds its way to bell-wires, the silvering 
of looking-glasses, fire-grates, locks, bolts, hinges, 
or other articles of metal that may be distributed 
about the place, and if these are separated by 
dry timber, brick or stone work, through which 
the lightning must force its way, it never fails to 
break them asunder or shatter them to pieces, 
because it is in the effort to get from one con- 
ductor to another that it exerts its violence.” 
CONFECTION. A preparation of fresh vege- 
table matter with refined sugar. In the sense of 
a condiment, prepared either by the domestic 
cook or the professional confectioner, it must be 
understood to have wide limits; but in the sense 
of a pharmaceutical preparation, manufactured 
by druggists or by similar parties, it must be 
understood as synonymous with a conserve, or as 
an. uniform, beaten-up mass of sugar and such 
fine portions of plants as petals, fruits, and juices. 
A pharmaceutical confection possesses little me- 
dicinal power, yet is an easy, agreeable, and use- 
ful medium of the exhibition of more active sub- 
stances. About a dozen different kinds of con- 
fections are ordered by the pharmacopeias. 
CONFERV Ad. A large, curious, and exten- 
sively diffused group of cryptogamous plants, of 
the alge order. The proper conferve are simple, 
tubular, jointed alge, floating on the water of 
ditches, pools, bogs, springs, rivers, salt marshes, 
and the borders of the sea. About 60 species are 
enumerated as inhabiting Britain; and about 80 
other species have been described. See the ar- 
ticle ALGZ. 
CONGLOMERATH. A kind of rock consist- 
ing of water-worn stones and fragments of prior 
rocks held together by a cement. It is popularly 
called pudding-stone. It belongs geognostically 
to any kind of sandstone formation, but is parti- 
cularly abundant in the old red sandstone forma- 
tion; and it may be regarded as holding the same 
relation to ordinary sandstones which gravel 
holds to ordinary sands. Its embedded stones and 
CONIFER. 
rounded fragments may be of any size, from the 
largest masses which are transportable by the 
streams of rivers to the smallest pieces which 
can be pronounced distinct from the granules of 
sandstone; and its cementing matter may bear 
any proportion to the embedded stones and frag- 
ments, from a quantity composing much the 
larger part of the whole rock, to a quantity barely 
sufficient to hold the stones and fragments to- 
gether. Rock whose embedded stones are all 
truly water-worn constitutes true conglomerate ; 
and rocks whose embedded fragments are angular 
and edgy, and afford indications rather of the 
violent explosive action of a volcano than of the 
gentle wearing action of an aqueous current, 
constitute breccia. Conglomerate, on a large 
scale, is at present in the course of formation at 
the mouths of some of the rivers which drain the 
Italian side of the Alps. 
CONIFERA. A large and most important na- 
tural order of dendritic plants. The name coniferze 
means cone-bearing, and alludes to the general 
conical form of their gymnospermous fruit. This 
fruit or “ cone,” encloses the naked seed, and ex- 
hibits a number of scales, collected into a conical 
outline. The scales, in some instances, as in the 
pine, are hard and long; in others, as in the 
larch, are thin; and in others, as in the juniper, 
are so succulent and compressed as to give the 
cone the appearance and the popular reputation | 
ofa berry. All the conifers secrete a terebinta- 
ceous sap; and they collectively sustain the same 
kind of relation to all the resinous trees of the 
world, which the amentaceee bear to the non- 
resinous trees. Their wood consists of tubular 
vessels of nearly uniform diameter, with occa- 
sional fistular cavities, for receiving and contain- 
ing the resinous secretions. ‘Their branches are | 
produced from numerous buds on all sides of | 
the stem. ‘Their leaves, in many instances, are 
strictly needle-shaped, and, in most, are linear, | 
veinless, and sharp-pointed; but, in some in- 
stances, as in Salisburca adiantifolia and Podo- 
carpus aspleniifolia, they are broad and curiously | 
shaped, and have the same kind of veining as 
the fronds of ferns. | 
Coniferee, in the present state of our knowledge 
and classification of them, comprise 18 genera, 
and have, within Great Britain, about 112 hardy 
species, about 30 half-tender or doubtfully hardy 
species, and 6 or 7 decidedly tender species. All 
are trees or shrubs; most are extensively diffused 
dnd exceedingly important forest trees ; and some 
are among the tallest and most voluminous trees 
in the world. Three of the genera, the yew, the 
cypress, and the spruce fir, have been selected as 
types of subdivisions of the order,—hence called 
Taxine, Cupressinee, and Abietinee. The genera 
of the taxine are taxus, podocarpus, schubertia, 
and ephedra; those of the cupressine are cupres- 
sus, thuja, juniperus, callitris, and dacrydium ; 
and those of the abietinge are abies, picea, larix, 
cedrus, pinus, auracaria, altingia, cunninghamia, 
