conservancy

[ Lat.conservans, pr. par. of conservo.] A commi ion or court having jurisdiction over rivers, to regulate the fisheries, navigation, . Thus there is a Conservancy of the Thames. ( Eng. ) *con-ser-vant, a . [Lat. conservans, pr. par. of conservo.] Preserving, maintaining, or supporting. căn-ser-va-tion, s. [Lat. conservatio, from con ser vatus, pa. par. of conservo=to preserve, to maintain.] 1. The act of preserving, maintaining, supporting, or protecting; protection, preservation. 2. Preservation or protection from decay ( lit. & fig.). "In addition to this power of propagation, organized bodies enjoy one of conservation and reproduction." Todd & Bowman: Physiol. Anat ., vol. i., introd., p. 10. Conservation of energy, force , or vis viva . Nat. Phil.: The general principle that energy communicated to a body or system of bodies is never lost; it is merely distributed and continues to exist as potential energy, as motion or as heat. Faraday directed attention to the subject, Grove elaborately treated it, and it now stands as one of the axioms of physics. It is sometimes called correlation of forces. [CORRELATION.] "We, moreover, speak of the conservation of energy instead of the conservation of force ." -Tyndall: Frag. of Science (3d ed.), i. 23. con-ser-va-tion-al, a. [Eng. conservation; al.] Tending to conserve. ( Nuttall.)