steel viaduct 6000 ft. long on 62 skeleton piers; and a short line of
10 m. runs northward to Penco. The Bio-Bio is navigable above the city
for 100 m. and considerable traffic comes through this channel. The
districts tributary to Concepcion produce wheat, wine, wool, cattle,
coal and timber, and among the industrial establishments of the city are
flour mills, furniture and carriage factories, distilleries and
breweries. The city is built on a level plain but little above the
sea-level, and is laid out in regular squares with broad streets. It is
an episcopal see with a cathedral and several fine churches, and is the
seat of a court of appeal. The city was founded by Pedro de Valdivia in
1550, and received the singular title of "La Concepcion del Nuevo
Extremo." It was located on the bay of Talcahuano where the town of
Penco now stands, about 9 m. from its present site, but was destroyed by
earthquakes in 1570, 1730 and 1751, and was then (1755) removed to the
margin of the Bio-Bio. In 1835 it was again laid in ruins, a graphic
description of which is given by Charles Darwin in _The Voyage of H.M.S.
Beagle_. The city was twice burned by the Araucanians during their long
struggle against the Spanish colonists.

CONCEPCION, or VILLA CONCEPCION, the principal town and a river port of
northern Paraguay, on the Paraguay river, 138 m. (234 m. by river) N. of
Asuncion, and about 345 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1895, estimate)
10,000, largely Indians and mestizos. It is an important commercial
centre, and a port of call for the river steamers trading with the
Brazilian town of Corumba, Matto Grosso. It is the principal point for
the exportation of Paraguay tea, or "yerba mate" (_Ilex paraguayensis_).
The town has a street railway and telephone service, a national college,
a public school, a market, and some important commercial establishments.
The neighbouring country is sparsely settled and produces little except
forest products. Across the river, in the Paraguayan Chaco, is an
English missionary station, whose territory extends inland among the
Indians for many miles.

CONCEPT[1] (Lat. _conceptus_, a thought, from _concipere_, to take
together, combine in thought; Ger. _Begriff_), in philosophy, a term
applied to a general idea derived from and considered apart from the
particulars observed by the senses. The mental process by which this
idea is obtained is called abstraction (q.v.). By the comparison, for
instan