[Orders in Council] are issued by the British Sovereign, with the advice of the Privy Council, and within limits defined by Parliament. In cases of emergency these limits have been disregarded, and Parliament subsequently asked to homologate the action by granting an indemnity to those concerned.
[Oreades] in the Greek mythology nymphs of the mountains, with special names appropriate to the district they severally inhabit.
[Oregon] (314), one of the United States, on the Pacific seaboard, with Washington, Idaho, Nevada, and California on its inland borders, nearly twice the size of England, has the Coast Mountains along the W., the Cascade range parallel 60 m. E., and 70 farther E. the Blue Mountains. The centre and E. is hilly, and affords excellent grazing and dairy-farming ground; the western or Willamette Valley is arable, producing cereals, potatoes, tobacco, hops, and fruit. Between the Coast Mountains and the sea excessive rains fall. The State is rich in timber, coal, iron, gold, and silver; and the rivers (of which the Columbia on the N. border is the chief) abound in salmon. Owing to the mountain shelter and the Japanese ocean currents the climate is mild. The capital is Salem (4), the largest city Portland (46), both on the Willamette River. The State offers excellent educational facilities; it has 17 libraries, many schools and colleges, and the Blue Mountain University. The State (constituted in 1859) forms part of the territory long in dispute between Great Britain and the United States. It was occupied jointly from 1818 to 1846, when a compromise fixed the present boundary of British Columbia.
[Orelli, Conrad von], theologian, born at Zurich; professor at Basel; has written commentaries on Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the minor prophets; b. 1846.
[Orelli, Johann Kaspar von], a Swiss scholar, born at Zurich, where he was professor of Classical Philology; edited editions of the classics, particularly Horace, Tacitus, and Cicero, highly esteemed for the scholarship they show and the critical judgment (1787-1849).
[Orestes], the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, and brother of Electra and Iphigenia, who killed his mother to avenge the murder by her of his father and went mad afterwards, but was acquitted by the Areopagus and became king of Argos and Lacedæmon; his friendship for Pylades, who married his sister Electra, has passed into a proverb; the tragic story is a favourite theme of the Greek tragedians.
[Orfila, M. J. Bonaventure], French chemist and physician, born in Minorca; mainly distinguished for his works on toxicology (1787-1853).
[Organism], a structure instinct with life, and possessed of organs that discharge functions subordinate and ministrative to the life of the whole.
[Organon], a term adopted by Bacon to denote a system of rules for the regulation of scientific inquiry.
[Orgies], festivals among the Greeks and Orientals generally connected with the worship of nature divinities, in particular [Demeter] (q. v.), [Dionysos] (q. v.), and the Cabiri, celebrated with mystic rites and much licentious behaviour.