ORDEES IN COUNCIL 39 ORDNANCE lar orders, according to the rules of St. Augustine. Suborders of the Francis- cans are the Minorites, Conventuals, Ob- servatines, Fraticelli, Cordeliers, Capu- chins, Minims, etc. As the secluded life of the monks, soon after the origin of monasteries, had given rise to similar as- sociations of pious females, so nuns com- monly banded together as new orders of monks arose, and formed societies under similar names and regulations. Thus there were Benedictine, Camaldulian, Carthusian, Cistercian, Augustine, Prae- monstratensian, Carmelite, Trinitarian, Dominican, Franciscan nuns, and many other orders of regular canonesses. There were also congregations of nuns who united with certain orders of monks without adopting their names. The Ursuline and Hospitaller nuns, or Sisters of Mercy, are female orders existing in- dependently of any male orders, and living according to the rules of St. Augustine. The orders first established governed themselves in an aristocratico- republican manner. The Benedictine monasteries were long independent of one another. The Cistercians obeyed a high council made up of the superior, and other abbots and counsellors, and these were again responsible to the general chapters. The four mendicant orders, the Dominicans, Franciscans, Augus- tines, and Carmelites, at their very com- mencement placed themselves in a much more intimate connection with the Popes. ORDERS IN COUNCIL, orders by the ruling sovereign with the advice of the privy council. See Privy Council. ORDINATE, in analytical geometi-y, the ordinate of a point is one of the elements of reference, by means of which the position of a point is determined with respect to fixed straight lines, taken as co-ordinate axes. The ordinate of a point to a diameter of a conic section is the distance of the point from that diameter, measured on a line parallel to a tangent drawn at the vertex of the diameter. The ordinate to a diameter is equal to half the chord through the point which is bisected by the diameter. ORDINATION, the act of conferring the sacrament of order in the Roman Catholic Church. Women are incapable of being validly ordained (I Cor. xiv: 34; I Tim. ii: 11, 12). Ordination is, in the normal course of things, conferred^ by bishops, but abbots may confer minor orders on their subjects. Dismissory let- ters are necessary if a man is to be ordained for a diocese other than that in which he was born, and he must have legitimate and sufficient title. Ordina- tion to sacred orders, according to the general law of the Church, can only take place on the Saturdays in the four Em- ber weeks, on the fifth Saturday in Lent, or on Holy Saturday, and always during mass. Minor orders can be conferred at general ordinations, and also on any Sunday or holiday, not necessarily dur- ing mass. In the United States Protestant churches have each their own method of ordination, which is rather a service of consecration than a sacrament impart- ing special power. The ordination in the Episcopal Church is patterned largely after that of the English Episcopal Church. ORDNANCE. Although artillery weapons, equipment, such as wagons, caissons, and limbers, machine guns, rifles, small arms, hand grenades, har- ness and ammunition of all kinds are in- cluded in the general class of military supplies known as ordnance, this article will consider only the features of con- struction of the artillery weapon and its mount. Artillery weapons are of three types, guns, mortars and howitzers. Of each type there are various models, the style, size and power of which are de- termined by the use for which the weapon is intended. Guns are of three main classes, field, siege and coast defense weapons. In the United States Army field guns are again classified. Those under six inches in diameter are known as light artillery and are operated by the field artillery, while every gun of more than six tnches is classed as heavy artillery, and is operated by the coast artillery corps. A gun is fired from a low angular muzzle compared to that of a mortar, the elevation frequently being as low as 15°, and seldom exceeding 40°, while a mortar is designed to fire with a muzzle elevation of 65° to 70°. The barrel of a gun is usually longer than that of a mortar of the same cali- ber, and because of that fact, the ex- panding gases from the explosion have a longer time to act and a higher muzzle velocity results from a charge of power of the same power. A siege weapon is either a large gun or mortar placed on, some sort of a mobile mount such as a caterpillar platform or a special railway mount. A howitzer is a short weapon usually of comparatively light weight, and so designed that its projectile will have an abrupt fall. It is a long step from the catapult of ancient days to the gun with which the Germans bombarded Paris from a dis- tance of over seventy miles, but as a
