17,450 buildings, among which were 41 churches, 32 hotels, 10 theatres, 8 public schools, 5 elevators containing 1,642,000 bushels of grain, 3 railroad depots, 9 daily newspaper offices, the court house, custom house, post office, chamber of commerce, and gas works. It is estimated that 98,500 persons were rendered homeless, and 200 lost their lives. The total loss is put down at $198,000,000, of which $140,000,000 was in goods and merchandise, being 47 per cent. of the entire valuation of the property in the city. Contributions for the relief of the sufferers, amounting in all to not less than $7,000,000, were received from all parts of the country and from Europe. No city ever recovered so speedily from such a blow. Within a year nearly all the burnt district had been rebuilt; and within less than two years the business of the city was supposed to have become greater by a quarter than before the fire. -Boston was in November, 1872, visited by a conflagration second in extent, in the United States, only to that of Chicago. The fire was discovered early in the evening of the 9th, and spread with great rapidity; but it appeared to have been brought under control by noon of the 10th, when an explosion of gas took place, and the conflagration became more furious than before, lasting until the morning of the 11th. The space burned over was about 70 acres, only one thirtieth of that at Chicago; but this was almost entirely occupied for business and manufacturing purposes, and was the very centre of the wholesale trade in dry goods, clothing, boots and shoes, and wool. About 800 buildings were burned, many of them of granite, five or more stories high. There were few public buildings or private residences in this space, and so not many persons were rendered homeless, and not more than 15 lives were lost. The destruction of property was about $80,000,000.

CONFUCIUS, the Latinized name of the Chinese philosopher Kung-fu-tse (Reverend Master Kung), a man who stands in a relation to the civilization of China similar to that which Moses and Socrates combined hold to western civilization. He was born, according to the best Chinese authorities, June 19, 551 B. C., in the small kingdom of Loo, which now forms a portion of the province of Shantung. Having lost his father when only three years old, his education was left to his mother, who directed his studies, and seems to have cherished in him a strong sense of morality. In his 17th year he entered the public service, but quit it at the age of 24 in order to mourn the death of his mother for three years. During this time he devoted himself to a careful study of the ancient writings, the morality of which impressed him with the idea of restoring the former usages and the doctrines of the sages of old. Having prepared himself for this task, he set himself up as a teacher at the age of 30. His fame soon spread, and his scholars and admirers increased in numbers. In order

to propagate his doctrines still more extensively, he visited neighboring countries, preaching and teaching wherever he went. About 506 B. C. he returned to his native country, where he was once more called into public office and attained the high position of prime minister. But he remained in it only a short time, the intrigues of a neighboring prince having succeeded in compelling him to retire into private life. Accompanied by a number of his disciples, he moved into the dominions of the prince of Wei, and devoted the rest of his life to the dissemination of his ideas. His death occurred at the age of 72, in 479 B. C., about 10 years before Socrates was born. More fortunate than he, Confucius had during his lifetime already obtained an unbounded popularity, bordering almost on worship. Posthumous honors in great variety were conferred on him. He left a single descendant, his grandson, Tsetse, through whom the succession has been

Confucius.

(From the image in the temple of Confucius at Canton.)

transmitted to the present day. In A. D. 1671 there were 11,000 males alive bearing his name, most of them of the 74th generation. These descendants of Confucius constitute a distinct class in Chinese society. The city of Kiofoohien, which contains his tomb, is chiefly inhabited by his descendants, four fifths of its families bearing his surname. A magnificent temple, the most superb in China, occupies the site of his residence. In it is a statue of the sage, from which it appears that he was a tall man of imposing presence, with a large head and a red face. His tomb is a huge mound overgrown with trees and shrubs.-Considering the vast number of those by whom the doctrines of Confucius have been and are implicitly taken as the highest authority, and the influence they have exerted on the entire social and political edifice of a nation comprising fully one fourth of mankind, there is no founder of any religion who can boast of success

greater than that of Confucius. He was not, however, the originator of a religious creed. While striving to introduce a ritual more minute than that of Moses, he rejected divine revelation, and erected a structure of moral philosophy founded upon the wants and tendencies of human nature. There was a time when European philosophers vied with one another in extolling the merits of Confucius as one of the sublimest teachers of truth among mankind. This was especially done by the French encyclopædist philosophers of the 18th century, who, in order to strengthen the position they had taken against divine revelation, proposed to prove by the examples of Confucius, Socrates and others, that the holiest truths had found their best interpreters among pagan philosophers. Certain it is that the doctrines of Confucius bear a strong resemblance to those of his Greek contemporaries, not merely in their ethical tendency, but also in the abstruse metaphysical reasoning upon which they are apparently founded. The books containing them, partly written by Confucius himself, partly by his disciples (see CHINA, LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF), bear almost the same relation to the Chinese world as the Bible does to the Christian. The knowledge of one's self is, according to Confucius, the basis of all real advance in morals and manners. The duties man owes to society and himself are minutely defined by him; and there are many passages in his writings closely approaching the Christian standard of morality. Having been asked whether any one sentence could express the conduct most fitting for one's whole life, he replied: "Do not unto others what you would not have them do to you." "It cannot be denied," says Dr. Williams, "that among much that is commendable, there are a few exceptionable dogmas among his tenets; but compared with the precepts of Grecian and Roman sages, the general tendency of his writings is good; while in their general adaptation to the society in which he lived and their eminently practical character, they exceed those of western philosophers."

CONGAREE, a river of South Carolina, formed by the union of the Broad and Saluda at Columbia, near the centre of the state. After a course of about 50 m. it receives the Wateree, below which it is called the Santee. The river is navigable by steamboats to Columbia.

CONGESTION, strictly speaking, an accumulation of any liquid in an organ or tissue, but generally limited in medical works to an abnormal amount of blood in the vessels of a part otherwise healthy, and in most cases from an enlargement of the minute arteries and capillary blood vessels. Congestion may also be passive from obstruction to the circulation from external or constitutional causes. Congestion, called hyperamia by Andral, may be entirely independent, as to its cause, of the organ or tissue in which it is seated. The highly vascular organs, and those which receive the blood

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most directly from the heart, as the brain, the lungs, the liver, and the spleen, are the most frequent seats of congestion, together with their capillaries. Congestion differs from inflammation, to which, however it may lead, in its anatomical characters: in the former the organization and vital characters are unaltered, and the post-mortem appearance of sanguineous accumulation may be removed by the action of water; but in the latter the redness is permanent, the consistence is changed, and various morbid products are effused; though congestion precedes inflammation, it does not necessarily proceed to it. There are certain conditions of the circulation in which congestion may be said to be normal and physiological; as, for example, in the erectile tissue of the nipple and other organs, and in the superficial coloration of the blushing cheek. Andral makes three degrees of congestion : 1, in which an increased amount of blood is sent to a part; 2, in which, in addition, the capillaries are dilated, with retardation of the circulation, a tendency to coagulation of the blood, and darker color of the tissues; this is the true type of congestion; 3, in which there is complete stagnation of the blood, with a darker coloration. As the first of these degrees is less than congestion, as ordinarily understood, so, the last is more than congestion, involving a new condition of the affected parts. As congestion is a commencement of disease in many organs, the functional disturbances arising from it are various. It is not always easy to ascertain the predisposing and exciting causes of congestion, though it may be stated as a general rule, that repeated stimulation of an organ or tissue predisposes it to congestion; inflammation in a neighboring part may induce congestion, as for instance in the brain during inflammation of the air passages; an unequal distribution of blood from cold or other causes may cause pulmonary or other visceral congestions. The redness and swelling are in proportion to the accumulation of blood; the heat and pain are trifling, unless the congestion be extreme; the distention of the vessels may end in their rupture, and in circumscribed or diffused hæmorrhage, though effusion of blood may also occur from a diseased state of the fluid, as in typhus, scurvy, and the cedematous congestions of chlorosis, without rupture of the vessels. It appears from the experiments of Magendie that a diminution in the proportion of fibrine in the blood, from any cause, predisposes to congestion; Andral noticed also a diminution of this element in many cases of cerebral congestion, beginning with headache, dizziness, and bleeding at the nose, and ending often in coma and apoplexy. Congestions of the brain and spinal cord, if of long duration, or ending in hæmorrhage, are highly dangerous and frequently fatal; the spleen is sometimes congested to the point of rupture, causing death, without any premonitory symptoms. Frequent congestions of an organ bring on hypertrophy, thickening,

and a disposition to inflammation; they are generally of short duration, and vary in severity from the apoplectic congestion of the brain to the simple swelling of a hæmorrhoidal tumor; their seat is very frequently changed in many hysterical females. The liver is almost always more or less congested at the moment of death; this condition may exist in its whole substance, the lobules presenting a nearly uniform dark color throughout; or the centres alone may be thus colored, the circumference being lighter; in this, the first stage of hepatic venous congestion, in which the hepatic veins are full and the portal plexus empty, the appearance is due to the continuance of capillary action after the general circulation has ceased; in the second stage, the portal as well as the hepatic venous system is congested, and the obstructing cause may be either in the liver, in the heart, or in the general venous system; occasionally the portal system is congested, the marginal portions of the lobules being darkest colored. A common form of venous congestion depends on deficiency of tone in the veins, which prevents the normal ascent of the blood from the lower parts of the body, thereby distending the vessels and causing an accumulation of blood; in this condition the serous parts of this fluid are prone to escape, forming dropsical effusions and anasarca. This inability of the blood to ascend against gravity is found in a great variety of chronic diseases, the consequences of improper food, unhealthy habitations, or even the natural results of old age; the want of tone in the system is aggravated by ulcers, gangrene, and effusions of blood and other fluids into the cavities and tissues.

CONGLETON, a market town and borough of Cheshire, England, 22 m. S. of Manchester; pop. in 1871, 11,344. It is situated in a deep valley on the river Dane. The principal street, a mile in length, is paved and lighted with gas, and has many old houses of timber framing and plaster. There is an Episcopal church, a Catholic and several dissenting chapels, a town hall, public assembly rooms, and a number of charitable institutions. Silk manufacture is the staple industry, but there are also manufactories of cotton and leather. Near it are lime quarries worked under a cliff 1,091 ft. high.

CONGLETON, Henry Brooke Parnell, lord, a British statesman and author, born July 3, 1776, died June 8, 1842. His father was Sir John Parnell, chancellor of the Irish exchequer, who was second in descent from the poet Parnell. He entered parliament at an early age, and for nearly 35 consecutive years represented the constituencies of Queens county, Ireland, and Dundee, Scotland, in the house of commons. In 1841 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Congleton. He belonged to the most liberal section of the whig party, and was a cabinet minister under the Grey and Melbourne administrations. He was one of the first to advocate the repeal of the corn laws. He is the author of treatises on "The Principles of

Currency and Exchange," "The Penal Laws against the Irish Catholics," "Paper Money, Banking, and Overtrading," "Financial Reform," &c. He suffered from alienation of mind in the latter part of his life, and died by his own hand.

CONGLOMERATE, in geology, a rock composed of rounded pebbles, such as are seen frequently forming a beach rolled by the waves. These fragments of older rocks, cemented together by a calcareous, silicious, or argillaceous paste, constitute a conglomerate, or, as it is sometimes called, a puddingstone. The pebbles may be of any size larger than sand; when composed of the latter, the rock is called a sandstone. Strata of this nature are found in all the geological formations of sedimentary origin. The most interesting example, perhaps, is the great conglomerate bed which forms the floor of the coal formation, and is composed of white quartz pebbles of all sizes, up to that of a man's head. The rock is traced beneath the coal formation of the middle states, and a similar one occupies the same relative position in England, where it is known by the name of the millstone grit.

CONGO, a country of Africa, extending from about lat. 4° 30' to 8° 30' S., bounded N. by the river Congo or Zaire, E. by a range of mountains parallel to the coast, S. by the river Dande, which separates it from Angola, and W. by the Atlantic ocean. Numerous rivers descend from the mountains on its frontier and flow through it to the sea. Of these, the Lilundo, Ambriz, and Onzo are the most considerable. The coast region of Congo is unhealthy because of its alluvial plains and forests, but the inland climate is comparatively salubrious. The soil produces in abundance an immense variety of tropical plants and fruits. Several species of grain unknown in Europe and America are raised on the banks of its rivers, the most valuable of which is the luko or luno, which yields a white and delicious bread. The principal products are, however, rice and maize, of which three crops are often raised annually. Of the forest trees, the most remarkable is the baobab. The oil palm is also common to this country with all the regions of western Africa. Prof. Smith, in the expedition of 1816 to Congo, brought home to Europe 620 species of plants and flowers, 250 of which are said to be altogether new. The elephant, lion, leopard, zebra, gazelle, and antelope are the principal animals. The rivers are frequented by hippopotami, turtles, and crocodiles, with excellent fish, one of which, the sparus, often weighs from 30 to 60 lbs., and is of very delicious flavor. No domestic animals are employed as beasts of burden or in the performance of agricultural labor. Sheep and horned cattle are scarce, but goats, hogs, and poultry are plentiful. Among the reptiles are the boa, the chameleon, and the flying lizard or palm rat, which is deified by the natives. Ostriches, peacocks, and parrots are abundant. Some of the insect

tribes are very venomous. The sting of the banzo is said to be mortal; the proboscis of the insondi penetrates the trunk of the elephant and inflicts madness and death. The imports are chiefly cloths, stuffs, carpets, and hardware and earthenware from Europe, together with fruits, grain, and various other kinds of American produce from Brazil. The exports consist principally of ivory, furs, and slaves, who were formerly shipped annually in large numbers to the western world. Congo was once exceedingly populous, but the ravages of the slave trade for three centuries have so wasted and diminished the people that the statements of the early Portuguese missionaries relative to its ancient populousness are now often discredited. One of these relates that a king of Congo marched against the Portuguese at the head of 900,000 men; but Tuckey found no town with more than 600 inhabitants. The

natives of Congo are of ordinary stature. Their color and features are less strongly marked than those of most other negroes, but they are both more indolent and less intelligent than the generality of their race. Polygamy is tolerated among them, but adultery is severely punished. Slavery is the penalty for all crimes save murder, the perpetrator of which is put to death. When a chief dies, they kill a certain number of slaves proportioned to his rank, that he may have attendants in the other world. The people practise fetish worship. They are unacquainted with the plough, and prepare the ground for the seed by scratching it with a hoe. The rights of property are rigidly observed among them, and its subdivision is sometimes carried to such excess that three or four persons will own a fowl or a hog between them. Society in Con

go may be said to consist of the following classes: 1. The chenoos, or chiefs, and their families. The dignity of chenoo is hereditary in the female line; when a chief dies he is succeeded not by his son, but by a brother or maternal uncle. The chenoo is little distinguished from his subjects by his dress or dwelling. His sceptre is a small staff of black wood, inlaid with lead or copper. 2. The mafooks, who collect the revenue and carry on trade. 3. The foomoos, or farmers, who have houses and lands of their own, two or three wives, and a few slaves to work for them. 4. Fishermen and laborers, who have no property of their own. 5. Domestic slaves, who are said to be not transferable, except when guilty of some great crime. The kingdom of Congo is divided into several provinces, each of which has its banza or capital and chief, who owes feudal allegiance to a lord paramount at the capital, Congo-banza, or San Salvador, near the Lilundo, about 50 miles from the sea. potentate is styled the lindy of Congo; but, though once very formidable, he is now unable to check the encroachments of the provincial and village chenoos, most of whom are practically independent, and frequently at war with each other and the lindy.-Congo was discovered in 1484 by the Portuguese, under the command of Diogo Cam, who soon afterward made settlements and erected forts along its coast. The language is said to resemble that of the Caffres and Bechuanas.

This

CONGO, or Zaire, the largest river of western Africa S. of the Niger. It has also been called the Barbela, but the native appellation is Moienzi Enzaddi, "the great river," or "the river that absorbs all other rivers." Its source is unknown, but tradition among the natives places it in a marsh situated near the equator, about lon. 18° E. It flows into the Atlantic ocean near Point Padron, near lat. 6° S., lon. 13° 30' E., and is from 7 to 10 m. wide and more than 160 fathoms deep at its mouth, with a velocity of between 4 and 5 knots an hour. The Congo has been ascended by Europeans to a distance of 280 m. inland. In the lower part of its course it exceeds 5 m. in width, and, with the exception of a portion called the narrows, maintains a breadth varying from 1 to 4 m. throughout its whole known extent. The narrows extend some 40 m. above a point 140 m. from the coast, where the tide is still perceptible, causing a rise and fall of from 12 to 16 inches. Here the river flows turbulently between steep banks of rock not more than 500 yards apart, and is obstructed by rapids and the so-called Yellala, or cataract, of which the fall, however, is only 30 ft. in 1,500. Geographers estimate that the Congo drains an area of 800,000 sq. m. Regarding the depth of the river as 60 ft. and its breadth as 9,000 ft., which are believed to be fair approximations, the outflow of water is 1,800,000 cubic feet per second. This is greater than that of the Mississippi.