extraordinary, poverty extreme, herbs their food, skins their covering, and the ground their couch: regardless of man and of gods, they attained to a very difficult thing, not to have a single wish to form.'

FINNINGIA, or FENNINGIA, in ancient geography, the proper reading for Eningia in Pliny, which he makes an island, but is more truly a peninsula: now called Finland.

FI'NOCHIO, n. s. A species of fennel; a

plant.

FIONDA, or PHIONDA, anciently Phaselis, a decayed city of Asia Minor, on the west coast of the Gulf of Satalia. It is called Tekrova by the Turks, and is still the see of a Greek bishop. It is situated on a small peninsula, at the foot of the mountain Yakhtalu. Here are still three ports and a lake, as described by Strabo (though the last is now a mere swamp), together with the ruins of a theatre, 150 feet in diameter, which has had twenty-one rows of seats. Some large sarcophagi, of the finest marble, stand on the beach. Two bear a human figure, in low relief, on the lid, and are sculptured with various subjects; but the sea is making rapid and destructive encroachments here. Twenty-six miles south of Adalia.

FIORENZO (St.), a sea-port on the northern coast of the island of Corsica, with 1500 inhabitants; it is fortified, but the air is unwholesome from the vicinity of marshes. In 1783 the town was set on fire by lightning, and in great part consumed. It is six miles west of Bastia. Long. 9° 17′ 43′′ E., lat. 42° 41′ 2′′ N.

FI'PPLE, n. s. Lat. fibula. A stopper.

You must know, that in recorders, which go with a gentle breath, the concave of the pipe, were it not for the fipple that staiteneth the air, much more than the simple concave, would yield no sound. Bacon. FIR,

Sax. Finh; Swed. fur; Dan. FIR-TREE. fyr; Welsh fyur; all perhaps from fire, from its inflammable nature; or from Goth. thar; Sax. tær, a drop, as Mr. Thomson conjectures, which also signifies gum or tar.' A species of pinus.

He covered the floor of the house with planks of fir. 1 Kings. cedars of LeIsa. xiv.

The fir-trees rejoice at thee, and the banon.

Pope.

The spiring fir and stately box. FIR, in botany. See ABIES and PINUS. FIR PLANTATIONS. It has been stated by the author of the Essays on Rural Affairs that, in the vicinity of plantations of the fir kind, houses can be raised at so little expense, and the roofs are so much straighter and better than the ordinary ones, that settlers in such situations are induced to make their houses much neater and more commodious than in other places; and, besides, rails and other kinds of materials for dead fences, can be so easily procured, that the poor people are first enabled to have good well fenced gardens, and then commodious enclosures of larger extent; the branches likewise afford fuel to them, which adds greatly to the comforts of their situation. The cutting and manufacturing of the wood into various kinds of utensils furnish employment for a great many persons;

population is thereby increased; and, with an augmentation of population, its necessary conse quences, the desire for land to procure the necessaries of life, and of course an increase of rent to the proprietor. These new settlers in the desert wastes of Scotland, like those in America, cultivate and improve the soil in proportion as the trees are removed from it. At this moment, it is added, Mr. G. Dempster, who will be long respected by his countrymen, sees fields on his estate rapidly converting, in this way, into cultivated ground, and yielding him ten or twelve shillings per acre in rent, not only without any expense to himself, but after having derived a considerable profit from the sale of woods of his own planting, which grew upon land that twentyfive years ago was not worth to him above twopence the acre, and which might have remained in that state perhaps for ages to come, had it not been planted at all. It is contended by the same writer, that it is by a judicious management of this sort, that men of large landed estates, by a little fore-sight, find themselves enabled to provide both employment and subsistence, with much profit, to a numerous people, who must otherwise have either remained in a destitute condition, or have abandoned a country, which did not properly provide for their accommodation.

It may be remarked likewise that a plantation of Scotch firs may be made at much less expense than of any other sort of trees in those northern parts of the kingdom, as the young plants can be afforded at a lower price than any others. In Aberdeenshire, where planting is so general as to have become a sort of occupation, fir plants of two years growth, above which age no experienced planter will ever buy them, sometimes will be sold at the very low rate of fourpence the 1000, which consists of 1200 plants; and they formerly seldom exceeded eightpence; on the average about sixpence, or one halfpenny the 100; but they have lately been considerably higher. There are men who make a business of forming plantations, who will undertake to complete the whole, enclosing and planting, at the distance of one yard each way, and uphold them for five years, that is, supply any deficiencies that may take place, at the rate of from ten to fifteen or thirty shillings the Scotch acre, which is nearly equal to one and a quarter English, according to the size of the enclosure, and the nature of the fence. In all cases of this kind, it is supposed that the plantations are of the extent of thirty or forty acres or upwards; for, where the enclosures are smaller, the expense of enclosing is proportionably augmented. The charge is thus not only rendered moderate, but the whole of the expense that is to be incurred ascertained before the plantation is begun, by which the being involved in unforeseen difficulties is fully obviated.

Experience has fully shown that there is scarcely any soil so bad, or any exposure so bleak, that the fir-tree will not live in, if the plantation be of sufficient extent, and not upon the very summits of high peaked hills. They do not indeed bear the sea air very well, where they are much exposed to the severity of its

blasts; nor is the wood ever of so good a quality, or the tree long-lived, upon soils of the clayey kind. It has been found that in the Jouthern parts of the kingdom, the pineaster rears the sea blast much better than any other of the fir tribe. This is a discovery of great importance, and which deserves the attention of improvers in the way of planting. The spruce fir will however bear a still more exposed situation than the Scotch fir; and after a few years from the time of planting it shoots up with still greater luxuriance. This is the case probably only in particular situations. But the cones are not to be had in equal abundance; and the plants being more difficult in the rearing, they are sold at a much higher price, usually at about six shillings the 1000, fit for being planted out. It is a native of Sweden and Norway. In a good soil the silver fir also prospers well, and is a beautiful tree on account of the depth of its shade. A silver fir at Panmuc measured in September 1810, at the surface of the earth, eight feet four inches; at four feet high, seven feet one inch; length of the stem to the fork, fortyone feet; total height, eighty feet. Several others in the same place are nearly as large. In the Ray Wood at Castle-Howard, there was at the same time a silver fir, in girth, at four feet high, eleven feet six inches, with a stem eighty feet high; total height, by estimate, 100 feet, and some others in the same wood nearly as large. The grand silver fir, as it is called, at Woburn, is in girth, at the same height, nine feet ten inches, with a stem of seventy-five feet; total height, by estimate, 110 feet. Both these trees were measured in the summer of 1810.

But the price of the plants is too great to admit of large plantations of silver fir being made with advantage. Wherever the situation is bleak, and much exposed to strong blasts of wind, the plantation, however, must not only be of considerable extent, if the trees be expected to thrive, but they must be planted very close together, so that each plant may stand at the distance of from two to three feet at most from each other. The more exposed the situation is, the closer they should be planted; as it may be observed that until the branches begin to intermix, and give a mutual support to each other, the trees never begin to advance with vigor. Where the plantations are thus thick, there is a necessity for beginning to thin them out at a pretty early period, so that after the tenth to the fifteenth year from the time of planting, persons must be constantly employed in thinning them: and there are very few situations, indeed, in which the thinnings cannot be disposed of to advantage, or in which such sorts of plantations cannot be made.

four feet in a season, and equal, if not surpass the abele in growth. In his plantations, though chiefly confined to chalky banks, in a north-west exposure, the trees evince, that, when once rooted, few obstacles will prevent their profitable progress. From observing the mistakes of others in endeavouring to ornament their naked downs too suddenly, he has learnt the necessity of planting firs when only a foot in height, and by opening the ground some time before, inverting the turf at the bottoms of the holes, and throwing the mould upon it in hillocks to meliorate, his plantations succeeded well: for though the soil is scarcely six inches in depth, the firs set in 1766 are now thirty feet in height, and from two feet six inches to two feet in circumference, at four feet from the ground; some few planted at the same time in a deeper soil, and warmer situation, are now about three feet round. And spruce firs, planted in 1776, likewise in a tolerably good soil, are now forty feet in height, and from two feet ten inches and a half to three feet round. But he has seen plantations that far surpassed either of these in growth; they, however, occupied ground which was infinitely more valuable. See PINUS. FIRE, n. s., v. a. & v. n. FIRE-ARMS, n. s. FIRE-BALL,

It has been remarked, by a writer in the transactions of the Bath Agricultural Society, that though he does not think that the Scotch fir can, in this country, ever equal the yellow deal from the Baltic, yet it may be worth propagating, as being useful in ordinary buildings. The drier the soil is on which this sort of timber grows, the slower is its progress; but the closer its pores, the more superior its quality. When planted in rich land these trees will shoot three or

FIRE-BRAND,

FIRE-BREATHING, adj.
FIRE-BRUSH, n. s.
FIRE-CROSS,
FIRE-DRAKE,
FIRE-ENGINE,
FIRE-FLAKE,

FIRE-LOCK,
FIRE-MAN,

FIRE-MOUTHED, adj.
FIRE'-NEW,
FIRE-OFFICE, N. s.
FIRE-PAN,
FIRE-PLUG,
FIRE'R,
FIRE'-SHIP,
FIRE-SHOVEL,
FIRE'-SIDE,
FIRE-STICK,

Sax. Fyn; Icel. and Swed. fyr; Belg. foir; Teut. feuer; Fr. feu; Ital. fuoco, fuogo; Span. huego, fuego; Portug. fogo. Vox antiquissima Scytho-Phrygica.' Serenius. Minsheu says, à Gr. πυρ; from Heb. 118, fire. Mr. Thomson conjectures that to this word, or the Coptic or, or Pers. ur, may have been prefixed the Coptic article pi or ph. Ignition; a supposed igneous element; any thing that burns, or the state of burning; hence flame; light; lustre; and, figuratively, that which provokes or inflames the temper; enlivens the fancy or imagination; the passion of love: to fire is to kindle; set on fire, or a-fire (see letter A); inflame (figuratively), animate; it is also used by Shakspeare for to drive away by fire: as a neuter verb it signifies to take fire; be kindled or inflamed; to discharge fire-arms: a fire-cross was once a Scottish or rather Highland signal to take arms, consisting of a wooden cross, having the ends burnt black, and in some parts smeared with blood, carried from one place to another. Upon refusal to send it forward, or to rise, the person who brought it would frequently shoot the other dead: firedrake is a fiery serpent: I suppose the prester, says Dr. Johnson: fireman, an incendiary; a person of fiery temper: firenew, new from the

FIRE-STOVE,

FIRE-WOOD,

FIRE-WORK, FIRING.

So inflamed by my desire, It may set her heart a-fire.

forge, or the melting-house: firer, an incendiary: firestick, a lighted stick or brand: fireworks, shows of fire; pyrotechnical performances: firing, fuel: the other compounds do not seem to require explanation.

and

And now an axe is sett to the roote of the tre, therefore every tre that makith not good fruyt schal be ki. doun, and schal be cast into the fier.

Wiclif. Luk. iii. His firepans, and all the vessels thereof, thou shalt make of brass. Exodus xxvii. 3. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? Isaiah xxxiii.

His eyes red sparcling as the fire glow His nose frounced full kirked stood He came criand as he were wood. Chaucer. Romaunt of the Rose, fol. 130. Is this the battaile which thou vauntst to fight With that fire-mouthed dragon, horrible and bright? Spenser's Faerie Queene. Hermosilla courageously set upon the horsemen, and set fire also upon the stables where the Turks

horses stood.

Knolles.

Bacon.

The surest way to prevent seditions is to take away the matter of them; for, if there be fuel prepared, it is hard to tell whence the spark shall come that shall set it on fire. He sent Surrey with a competent power against the rebels, who fought with the principal band of them, and defeated them, and took alive John Chamber, their firebrand. Id. Pour of it upon a firepan well heated, as they do rose-water and vinegar. Id. Natural History. My judgment is, that they ought all to be despised, and ought to serve but for winter talk by the fireside. Bacon.

We represent also ordnance, and new mixtures of gunpowder, wildfires burning in water, and unquenchable; and also fireworks of all variety.

Id.

Carew.

Id.

By the fireside, but in the cooler shade. Happy are those that are from under the terrors of that law, which was given in fire, and in fire shall be required. Bp. Hall's Contemplations.

Now see I fire-flakes sparkle from his eyes, Like to a comets tayle in the angrie skies.

Bp. Hall's Satires. Children, when they play with firesticks, move and whirl them round so fast, that the motion will cozen their eyes, and represent an entire circle of fire to Digby on Bodies. Nor can the snow that age does shed Upon thy reverend head,

them.

Quench or allay the noble fire within,

But all that youth can be thou art. Cowley. He that set a fire on a plane-tree to spite his neighbour, and the plane-tree set fire on his neighbour's house, is bound to pay all the loss, because it did all Taylor.

arise from his own ill intention. Ammunition to supply their new firearms.

Clarendon.

Culinary utensils and irens often feel the force of fire; as tongs, fireshovels, prongs, and irons. Browne. The ancients were imperfect in the doctrine of meteors, by their ignorance of gun-powder and fireworks. Id.

The fire of love in youthful blood,
Like what is kindled in brush-wood,
But for a moment burns.

Shadwell.

Love various hearts does variously inspire, It stirs in gentle bosoms gentle fire,

Like that of incense on the altar laid;
But raging flames tempestuous souls invade;
A fire which every windy passion blows,
With pride it mounts, and with revenge it glows.

Dryden.

Yet, if desire of fame, and thirst of power, A beauteous princess with a crown in dower, So fire your mind, in arms assert your right. Id. The neighbours are coming out with forks and fireshovels, and spits, and other domestick weapons. Id. Spanish Fryar.

In fireworks give him leave to vent his spite: Those are the only serpents he can write. Dryden. I have eased my father-in-law of a firebrand, to set my own house in a flame. L'Estrange. They burn the cakes, firing being there scarce. Mortimer. Firestone, if broke small, and laid on cold lands, must be of advantage. Id. Husbandry.

Upon the wedding day, I put myself, according to custom, in another suit firenew, with silver buttons to it. Addison. Our companion proposed a subject for a firework, which he thought would be very amusing. Id.

He sent his heralds through all parts of the realm, and commanded the firecross to be carried; namely, two firebrands set in fashion of a cross, and pitched upon the point of a spear. Haywood.

The firestone, or pyrites, is a compound metallic fossil, composed of vitriol, sulphur, and an unmetallic earth, but in very different proportions to the several masses. It has its name of pyrites or firestone, from its giving fire on being struck against a steel much more freely than a flint will do; and all the sparks burn a longer time, and grow larger as they fall, the inflammable matter struck from off the stone burning itself out before the spark becomes extinguished.

Hill's Mat. Med. Prime all your firelocks, fasten well the stake.

Gay.

Though safe thou thinkest thy treasure lies, Concealed in chests from human eyes, A fire may come, and it may be Bury'd my friend, as far from thee.

Granville.

They have no notion of life and fire in fancy and in words, and any thing that is just in grammar and in measure is good oratory and poetry to them. Felton.

Exact Racine, and Corneille's noble fire, Taught us that France had something to admire. Pope. The god of love retires; Dim are his torches, and extinct his fires. Id. Before the use of fire-arms there was infinitely more scope for personal valour than in the modern battles. Id. The same great man hath sworn to make us swallow his coin in fire-balls.

Swift. When you are ordered to stir up the fire, clean away the ashes from betwixt the bars with the fire

brush.

New charms shall still increase desire, And time's swift wing shall fan the fire.

Id.

Moore's Fables. BOOKSELLER. The monsters of Botanic Garyour den are as surprising as the bulls with brazen feet, and the fire-breathing dragons, which guarded the Hesperian fruit.

Darwin.

The opinions of the ancients respecting fire were various and fanciful. Ignorant of the leading facts which a theory is required to account for, and unassisted by experiments or tools, they generally made use of words which conveyed no definite ideas. They called it an active fermentation, an intestine motion, a repulsive agent, and so forth; but no real attempt towards a rational investigation is to be found in their works. And, though some of their assertions seem to coincide with the more rational modern

theories, yet that apparent coincidence must be considered as being accidental; for it is not grounded upon any regular reasoning. It must be acknowledged, however, that almost all the opinions, either ancient or modern, respecting fire, may be divided into two classes; for some of them asserted that fire was nothing more than a violent agitation, in some unknown manner, of the parts of burning bodies; whilst others attributed it to something peculiar, and sui generis, which either existed in all combustible bodies, or was communicated to them. The former, which is called the mechanical hypothesis, was believed and maintained by the most able philosophers of much earlier and much more enlightened times. The celebrated philosophers of the sixteenth century, Bacon, Boyle, and Newton, were of opinion that fire was no distinct substance from other bodies, but that it consisted entirely in the violent motion of the parts of any body. As no motion, however, can be produced without a cause, they were obliged to have recourse to a mechanical force or impulse as the ultimate cause of fire in all cases. Thus Boyle tells us, that when a piece of iron becomes hot by hammering, there is nothing to make it so, except the forcible motion of the hammer impressing a vehement and variously determined agitation on the small parts of the iron.' Bacon defines heat, which he makes synonymous with fire, to be an expansive undulatory motion in the minute particles of a body, whereby they tend with some rapidity from a centre towards a circumference, and at the same time a little upwards. Isaac Newton said nothing positive upon the subject; but conjectured that gross bodies and light might be convertible into one another; and that great bodies, of the size of our earth, when violently heated, might continue and increase their heat by the mutual action and re-action of their parts. But while the mechanical philosophers thus endeavoured to account for the phenomena of fire, upon the same principles which they judged sufficient to explain those of the universe in general, the chemists as strenuously asserted, that fire was a fluid of a certain kind, distinct from all others, and universally present throughout the whole globe. Boerhaave particularly maintained this doctrine; and in support of it argued, that steel and flint would strike fire, and produce the very same degree of heat in Nova Zembla, which they would do under the equator. Other arguments were drawn from the increased weight of metalline calces, which they supposed to proceed from the fixing of the element of fire in the substance whose weight was thus increased. By these experiments Mr. Boyle himself seems to have been staggered: as

Sir

he published a treatise on the possibility of making fire and flame ponderable; though this was directly contrary to his own principles already quoted. For a long time, however, the matter was most violently disputed; and the mechanical philosophers, though their arguments were equally inconclusive with those of their adversaries, at last prevailed, through the prejudice in favor of Sir Isaac Newton, who, indeed, had scarcely taken any active part in the contest. The first of the chemists who attempted to form chemistry into a regular system, was John Joachim Becher; but the famous George Ernest Stahl (who was born in the year 1660, and died in the year 1734), by following Becher's plan, continued to raise the edifice, endeavouring to collect the principal facts then known into a coherent system, by connecting them by means of general principles. This intelligent man, amongst other improvements, formed the famous phlogistic theory of fire (see the article COMBUSTION), which was almost universally adopted, notwithstanding its insufficiency to account for some of the most essential phenomena of combustion. This theory continued in vogue until towards the close of the last century. The experiments on which the modern theory of combustion was first developed were those of Dr. Black, concerning what he called latent heat; on which some other names, such as absolute heat, specific fire, &c., have been bestowed. See CHEMISTRY. From these discoveries it appeared that fire may exist in bodies in such a manner as not to discover itself in any other way than by its action upon the minute parts of the body; but that suddenly this action may be changed in such a manner as no longer to be directed upon the particles of the body itself, but upon external objects: in which case we then perceive its action by our sense of feeling, or discover it by the thermometer, and call it sensible heat. It is certain, from the experiments just mentioned, that fire may exist in substances actually cold to the touch. From this discovery made by Dr. Black, along with many others in electricity, and recorded at length in various articles of this work, it is now almost universally allowed that fire is a distinct fluid, capable of being transferred from one body to another. But when this was discovered, another question no less perplexing occurred, viz. what kind of a fluid it was? or whether it bears any analogy to those with which we are better acquainted? Here we find two fluids, viz. the solar light, and the electric matter, both of which occasionally act as fire, and which therefore seem likely to be the same. See ELECTRICITY. By the vulgar, indeed, the matter has long ago been determined, and the rays of the sun as well as the electrical fluid have been promiscuously denominated elementary fire. Philosophers, however, have withheld their assent. The most strange suppositions have been made concerning the nature of both these fluids; and on the most slender grounds, or rather on no grounds at all, they have been supposed to be phologiston itself, or to contain a large proportion of it. Mr. Scheele went so far in this way as to form an hypothesis, which he endeavoured to support by some experiments,

that fire is composed of dephlogisticated air and phlogiston. But it is now ascertained beyond dispute, that the result of such a combination is not fire, but fixed air: so that this hypothesis would have been altogether untenable, even though this discovery had not been made; because the dephlogisticated air itself is not a simple but a compound substance; and in all cases of combustion the one part of the air is separated from the other. It was long ago observed by Sir Isaac Newton, that heat was certainly conveyed by a medium more subtile than common air; because two thermometers, one included in the vacuum of an air-pump, the other placed in the open air, at an equal distance from the fire, would grow equally hot in nearly the same time. The consequence of this, had he pursued the thought, was, that fire itself was equally present in all places, and as active where there was no terrestrial matter as where there was. New improvements in the air-pump have enabled succeeding philosophers to make more perfect vacuums, such as it has been supposed even the electric matter cannot pass through. It is not to be doubted, however, that even there the thermometer would be heated by a fire as well as in the open air. See HEAT and COMBUSTION.

The word fire has also been used both figuratively and incorrectly. The allegorical expressions, of the fire of the imagination, the fire of youth, the fire of contention, and so forth, do not fall under the cognizance of natural philosophy, but the scientific use of that word for expressing heat without light, or light without heat, or lastly, things which have neither heat nor light, is in want of correction. Thus, phosphorescent substances, like certain pieces of decayed wood, fish, &c., are frequently said to be on fire, whereas they are not attended with any degree of heat. Also the heat of fermenting substances, and of other kinds of chemical combinations, has often been called their fire.

FIRE, St. ANTHONY'S. Erysipelas was first so called, it seems, in the south of France, in the twelfth century, where, and when, this disorder was exceedingly prevalent, from the success of the monks of St. Anthony (whose profession it was to attend the sick, and who therefore carried the figure of a crutch upon the left shoulder) in curing it. They made great use of lard in these cures, hence their pigs were allowed to range free through the neighbouring grounds; and that they might be distinguished from other pigs, bells were hung round their necks. These circumstances account for the figure of St. Anthony, the Egyptian hermit of the fourth century, being represented with the pig, the bell, and the letter tau upon his shoulder. Paquot in Molanum, de Imaginibus.

FIRE, in theology. God has made several revelations of Himself under the appearance of fire: He appeared to Moses under the form of a fire burning in a bush; the Holy Ghost descended on the apostles in tongues of fire; and the camp of the Israelites was guided and conducted in the night-time by a pillar of fire. The Jews kept up the holy fire in the temple. This holy fire descended from heaven, first upon the altar