CONCORDIA, the goddess of concord, a Roman divinity, in whose honour several temples were erected at Rome. The most ancient of these was that built on the declivity of the Capitol by Camillus, 367 B.C. In this temple the senate sometimes assembled. It was restored by Livia, the wife of Augustus, and consecrated by Tiberius, 9 A.D. In the time of Constantino and Maxentius it was destroyed by fire, but was again restored. The second temple was erected close to that of Vulcan by Cn. Flavius ; and there was a third built by L. Manlius, on the Capitoline Hill. Concordia was represented as a matron holding in her right hand a patera, or an olive branch, and in her left a cornucopia. Her symbols were two hands joined together, and two serpents entwined about a caduceus, or herald s staff.
CONCORDIA, a village of Italy in the province of Venice, 35 miles N.E. of the city of that name, and in the immediate neighbourhood of the town of Portogruaro, of importance as preserving the name and marking the site of a famous Roman city of the later empire. It was pro bably founded by Augustus, on the pacification of his dominions, and consequently bears the full title of Colonia Julia Concordia. Its rapidly growing prosperity, well attested even by the fragmentary remains of its buildings, was suddenly crushed by Attila in 452 A.D. ; but its con tinued existence throughout the Middle Ages is proved both by history and by archaeology. The baptistry still ex tant is in the style of the 9th century, and an inscription preserves the memory of a bishop Regimpotus of the 10th. The place has been brought again into notice by the dis covery, in 1873, of the old Christian cemetery which has furnished upwards of 160 stone coffins, in several cases distinguished by inscriptions of considerable import to the historian. See Bullettino dell Institute di Corr. Arch. 1874.
CONCRETE, an artificial conglomerate or rubble masonry, consisting of a mixture of coarse pieces of stone, gravel, shingle, broken brick, or crushed slag with sand and Portland or other cement. It is employed for laying the foundations of bridges and of buildings on soft or wet ground, as also in the construction of moles and break waters, and of houses and churches ; for the backing of wharves, of the abutments of arches, and of masonry generally where heavy walls are required ; for the substance of fire-proof doors; for the making of sewer-pipes; and as a paving for streets and floors. It soon hardens after use, becoming a stony mass little permeated by moisture. In the shape of blocks, sometimes weighing very many tons, it has been found of great value for the formation of harbours and sea-walls in places to which stone could not have been transported. The foundations of the breakwater pier at Douglas, Isle of Man, were made by laying down concrete within frames resting on sub marine rock. The quay walls of Stobcross Docks, Glasgow, are supported on triple groups of concrete cylinders, 27^ feet in length and resting on iron shoes. Each cylinder is formed by sinking in the soil a column of eleven rings of concrete ; this, after being cleared of the sand and gravel it contains, is filled with Portland cement con crete. Walls are made of concrete either by allow ing it to harden in mass between two faces of boarding, or by making it into blocks and building as with bricks. Concrete was employed by the Romans, by whom the term signinum was applied to a kind of plaster com posed of powdered tiles and mortar ; and Smeaton gained the idea of applying it to the construction of river- works from an inspection of the ruins of Corfe Castle in Dorset shire, a Saxon structure. In the Middle Ages it was much used in the making of fortifications.
The composition of concrete necessarily depends to some extent upon the nature and qualities of the materials most available for making it. The beton agglome re of M. F. Coignet is composed of about 180 parts of sand, 44 of slaked lime, 33 of Portland cement, and 20 of water. A mixture of the cement with the sand and lime is first made, with the addition of small quantities of water ; the mass is then incorporated with the requisite amount of water in a cylindrical machine, from the bottom of which it is delivered ready for compression in moulds. This composition can be formed into blocks of any desired bulk ; and these, after exposure to the weather for a few weeks, acquire a hardness equal to that of good building stone. A good concrete can be made from 60 parts of coarse pebbles, 25 of rough sand, and 15 of lime. Semple recommends a mixture of 8 parts of pebbles, 4 of sharp river sand, and 1 of lime. The proportions given by Treussart are un slaked hydraulic lime 30 parts by measure, trass of Andernach 30, sand 30, gravel 20, broken stone or hard limestone 40 parts ; and for another concrete, hydraulic lime 33 parts, pozzuolana 45, sand 22, broken stone and gravel 60 parts; the former is used as soon as made, the latter should be exposed about 1 2 hours after preparation. Burnt clay and pounded brick may be used in the same propor tions as the trass, but are best not employed in sea-water. The quantity of natural or artificial pozzuolanas is increased, and that of the gravel or stone decreased, if rich limes are used (Burnell, Limes, &c}. Excellent concrete is made from Thames or other river ballast mingled with ^th or
Austin's artificial stone is a concrete of sand and other materials cemented by lime. Ransome's concrete stone is made by subjecting a mixture of sodium silicate and clean pit sand, to which between 5 and 10 percent, of chalk has been added, to the action of a solution of calcium chloride, whereby insoluble calcium silicate and soluble sodium chloride, or common salt, are produced, the former acting as a cementing material for the particles of sand. The stone is made non-absorbent by giving the face of it a wash with sodium silicate, and then a second application of the calcium chloride. (See H. Reid, A Practical Treatise on Concrete, London, 1869.)
with a wife of second rank, who enjoyed no other conjugal right but that of cohabitation, and whom the husband could repudiate and dismiss with a small present (Gen. xxi.) In like manner he could, by means of presents, exclude his children by her from the heritage (Gen. xxv.) To judge from the conjugal histories of Abraham and Jacob, the immediate cause of concubinage was the barrenness of the
lawful wife, who in that case introduced her maid-servant