wide-mouthed glass, laying them in good order: tie over the top with an oil cloth, and carry them into a dry cellar, and set the whole upon a bed of the prepared matter, of two inches thick, in a box. Fill up the remainder of the box with the same preparation; and let it be four inches thick all over the top of the glass, and all round its sides. Flowers are to be preserved in the same sort of glasses, and in the same manner; and they may be taken up after a whole year as plump and fair as when they were buried. FLOWERS, in chemistry, generally imply dry bodies reduced into very fine parts, either spontaneously, or by some operation of art; but the terin is chiefly applied to volatile solid substances, reduced into a kind of fine meal by sublimation. Some flowers are nothing else than the bodies themselves, which are sublimed entire, without suffering any alteration or decomposition; others are some of the constituent parts of the body subjected to sublimation. FLOWERING OF BULBOUS PLANTS IN WATER. That these plants will grow and flower in water alone, without any earth, is evident from daily observation; but it has been generally confined to single roots. The elegant appearance that these make, however, may be greatly increased by causing several roots to grow in the same vessel; and that even in a common garden pot. Stop the hole at the bottom of the pot with a cork, and lute it with putty so as no water can get through; fit a board to the top of the pot, with a number of holes, proportioned to its size, bored in it for the bulbs, and as many smaller ones to receive sticks for supporting the flowers. Fill up the pot with water to the board, and place tulips, jonquils, narcissuses, and the like plants, in the root upon the holes, so that the bottom of the roots may touch the water: thus they will all flower early in the season, and be much more beautiful than any pot of gathered flowers; and will last many weeks in their full perfection. When the season of flowering is over, the roots will gradually sink through the holes of the board, and get loose into the water; where, instead of spoiling, they will soon increase in size, so that they cannot return through the holes, but will produce several offsets. From this it has been tried to keep the roots under water all the time of their blowing, which has succeeded very well, the flower being stronger and more beautiful than those growing from the ground. In a room properly regulated, as to heat, flowers may thus be kept in blow from before Christmas till March or April. But in this last method, as it is difficult to keep the board under water, a piece of sheet lead (four pounds to the foot) may be substituted for the board, and, besides the picce for the top, it will be necessary to have another plate of lead fitted to the bottom of the pot, with holes for the sticks corresponding with those in the upper plate, so that the sticks being put through both holes will be kept perfectly steady. Each of the leads should have a notch in the edge, for the free ascent and descent of the water. The roots thus kept under water will flower in the most vigorous and beautiful manner. To add to the virtues of the water some have tried the putting in small quantities of nitre, and others have tried earth and sand at the bottom; but the flowers always succeed better without any addition. Instead of earthen pots, some use glass jars with the leads; in which the flowers not only succeed as well, but the progress of the roots is visible, and the supply of water is better managed. Dried bulbs have been found, by repeated experiments, to succeed in this way better than those taken fresh out of the ground; the latter, being full of moisture, are long of imbibing nourishment from their new element, the fibres they struck in the ground rot, and new ones shoot out, before they produce flowers. Narcissuses and hyacinths do well together; as also tulips and jonquils, and crocuses and snow-drops. One species of hyacinth, called Keyser's jewel, seldom or never produces seed vessels in the common way flowering in the ground; but it will often produce some pods when blown in water. Ranunculus and anemone roots have been found to shoot up their stalks very well in this way; but the flowers are usually blasted, probably for want of free air. Pinks will flower very well in this manner; and auriculas may, with care, be brought to flower, but not strongly. Roses, jessamines, and honey-suckles, may also be made to flower in this way, and will thrive and send out suckers: the best pieces to plant are suckers cut off about three inches under ground, without any fibres. Some succulent plants may also be raised in this way; for instance, the opuntia or Indian fig. If a fragment of a leaf of this plant be cut and laid by to dry for a month, till it is an absolute skin, as soon as it is put in this manner into water, it begins to plump up, and soon sends out fibrous roots, and produces new leaves as quickly as it would do in the ground. This is the more remarkable in these sorts of plants, because in their natural state in the ground, they cannot bear much water. The growing of plants in water is, however, not peculiar to those with bulbous roots, for others may be thus raised, even from seed. A bean or a pea set in this manner, will grow up to its proper standard, produce pods and ripen seed. Smaller seeds may also be raised, if sown upon a piece of woollen cloth spread on the surface of the water. Though no vegetable transplanted out of the earth into water will thrive kindly, any plant, whether raised from the root or seed in water, may be transplanted to the earth, and will succeed very well. This method of raising plants in the water, would therefore suggest an improvement upon the usual practice in raising some roots in the earth which are subject to rot there; such as anemonies, ranunculuses, and hyacinths. A bulb acidentally dropped upon the ground, will strike out both stronger and more numerous fibres than those planted in the usual way; and from this it would seem to be proper to take out the earth of the bed where the bulbs are designed to stand, to such a depth as they are to be placed under it, when set for flowering. The bulbs should then be set in their places, on the surface of this low ground; to stand there till they have shot out their fibres and their head; after which the earth should be added over them by degrees, till they are covered as high above the head as in the usual manner of planting them. Thus they would be preserved from the danger of rotting; their fibres would be much stronger, and consequently they would draw more nourishment, and flower better than in the common way. The ordinary method of planting these roots renders them liable to be destroyed by either extreme of a wet or dry season: in the former case, they immediately rot by the superabundant moisture; and, in the latter, they become as dry as a stick and mouldy, so that the first rain that falls afterwards infallibly rots them. FLOWER DE LUCE, n. s. From Fr. fleur de lis. A bulbous iris. Cropped are the flower de luces in your arms : Of England's coat one half is cut away. The iris is the flower de luce. Shakspeare. Peachum. As the greatest part of my estate has hitherto been of an unsteady and volatile nature, either tossed upon seas, or fluctuating in funds, it is now fixed and settled in substantial acres and tenements. Addison The fluctuating fields of liquid air, With all the curious meteors hovering there, And the wide regions of the land, proclaim The Power Divine, that raised the mighty frame. Blackmore. FLUDD (Robert), the son of Sir Thomas Fludd, was born at Milgate in Kent, in 1574. He was educated at St. John's College, Oxford, where he took his degrees in arts, after which he travelled abroad. He returned to England in 1605, took the degree of M. D. and became fellow of the college of physicians in London. He was a most voluminous writer; doated greatly on the wonders of alchemy; was a zealous brother of the Rosicrucian order; and his books, which are mostly in Latin, are as dark and mysterious in their language as in their matter. FLOWK, n. s. Scott. fluke. A flounder; the He died in 1637. name of a fish. See FLOUNDER. FLUE, n. s. A word of which I know not Amongst these the flowk, sole, and plaice, follow the etymology, says Dr. Johnson, unless it be the tide up into the fresh waters. Carew. Is this a bridal or a friendly feast? Or from your deeds I rightly may divine, Unseemly flown with insolence or wine. Pope. FLUCTUATE, v. n. Lat. fluctuatus, part. FLUCTUANT, adj. of fluctuo from fluctus, FLUCTUATION, n. s. a wave. It conveys the idea of strong agitation: it expresses the motion of the waves perpetually heaving back wards and forwards: hence it is applied to whatever is uncertain, or is the subject of sudden vicissitudes. Applied to the mind, it signifies to be irresolute; undetermined. The Tempter, but with shew of zeal and love Milton's Paradise Lost. Fluctuations are but motions subservient, which winds, storms, shores, shelves, and every interjacency irregulates. Browne. Even the influence of superstition is fluctuating and precarious; and the slave whose reason is subdued, will often be delivered by his avarice or pride. Gibbon. It will not hinder it from making a proselyte of a person, that loves fluctuation of judgment little enough to be willing to be eased of it by any thing but errour. Boyle. To be longing for this thing to-day, and for that thing to-morrow; to change likings for loathings, and to stand wishing and hankering at a venture, how is it possible for any man to be at rest in this fluctuant wandering humour and opinion? L'Estrange. The herb speedwell. derived from flew of fly. Mr. Todd suggests the God riches and renown to men imparts, Sandys. Fluency of numbers, and most expressive figures for the poet, morals for the serious, and pleasantries for admirers of points of wit. Garth. The common fluency of speech in many men, and most women, is owing to a scarcity of matter, and a scarcity of words; for whoever is master of language, and hath a mind full of ideas, will be apt, in speaking, to hesitate upon the choice of both. Swift. Lat. Aluo, fluidus. See FLUENCY. Fr. fluide, That which, from its nature, flows; that quality in bodies which is opposite to solidity and stability; any thing not solid. FLUID, adj. & n. :. FLUID'ITY, n. s. FLUIDNESS, n. s. Sfluidité. Or serve they as a flowery verge to bind The fluid skirts of that same watery cloud, Lest it again dissolve, and shower the earth? Milton. What if we should say that fluidness and stability depend so much upon the texture of the parts, that by the change of that texture the same parts may be made to constitute either a fluid or a dry body, and that permanently too. Boyle. If particles slip easily, and are of a fit size to be agitated by heat, and the heat is big enough to keep them in agitation, the body is fluid; and if it be apt to stick to things, it is humid. Newton. Heat promotes fluidity very much, by diminishing the tenacity of bodies: it makes many bodies fluid, which are not fluid in cold, and increases the fluidity of tenacious liquids; as of oil, balsam, and honey; and thereby decreases their resistance. Id. Pope. As when the fig's prest juice, infused in cream, To curds coagulates the liquid stream, Sudden the fluids fix, the parts combine. Consider how luxury hath introduced new diseases, and with them, not improbably, altered the whole course of the fluids. Arbuthnot. The permanently elastic fluid generated in the firing of gunpowder, is calculated by Mr. Robins to be about 244, if the bulk of the powder be one. Darwin. FLUIDS, ELASTIC. See AEROLOGY, AIR, FIXED AIR, GAS, VAPOR, &c. FLUIDS, LAWS AND PROPERTIES OF. HYDROSTATICS. See with as much force as concentrated sulphuric acid, and appears to operate by the production of water; for, while it carbonises these subtances, they may be touched without any risk of burning. Exposed to a high temperature, it is not decomposed; and is condensed by cold without changing its form. When it is put in contact with oxygen, or air, either at a high or low temperature, it experiences no change, except seizing, at ordinary temperatures, the moisture which these gases contain. It may hence be employed with advantage, to show whether or not a gas contains moisture. No combustible body attacks fluoboric gas, if we except potassium and sodium, which, with the aid of heat, burn in this gas, almost as brilliantly as in oxygen. Boron, and fluate of potash, are the products of this decomposition; the fluoboric gas being a compound of fluorine and boron, the potassium unites to the former, giving rise to the fluoride of potassium, while the boron remains disengaged. Fluoboric gas is very soluble in water. According to Dr. John Davy water combines with 700 times its own volume, or twice its weight, at the ordinary temperature and pressure of the air. Water saturated with this gas is limpid, fuming, and very caustic. By heat, about one-fifth of the absorbed gas may be expelled; but it is impossible to abstract more. It then resembles concentrated sulFLUKE-WORM. See FASCIOLA. phuric acid, and boils at a temperature consiFLUMET, a town of France, in the depart- derably above 212°. It afterwards condenses ment of Mont Blanc, ci-devant duchy of Savoy, altogether in striæ, although it contains still a and lordship of Faussigny; seated on the Arly, very large quantity of gas. It unites with the among the mountains, thirty miles north-east of bases, forming salts, called fluoborates, none of Chambery, and thirty-one south-east of Geneva. which have been applied to any use in the arts. FLUM MERY, n. s. A kind of food, made See CHEMISTRY. by coagulation of wheat-flour or oatmeal. Milk and flummery are very fit for children. Locke. FLUMMERY is thus prepared: steep three large handfuls of finely ground oat-meal, for twenty-four hours, in two quarts of fair water: then pour off the clear water, and put two quarts of fresh water to it: strain it through a fine hair sieve, putting in two spoonfuls of orange-flower water and a spoonful of sugar: boil it till it is as thick as a hasty pudding, stirring it continually while it is boiling, that it may be very smooth. FLUMS, a town of Switzerland, in the late county of Sargans, on the Mat, five miles west of Sargans. FLUNG, participle and preterite of fling. Thrown; cast. Several statues the Romans themselves flung into the river, when they would revenge themselves. Addison on Italy. FLUOBORIC ACID. This is a gaseous acid, and may be obtained by heating in a glass retort twelve parts of sulphuric acid with a mixture of one part of fused boracic acid, and two of fluor-spar, reduced to a very fine powder, and it must be received over mercury. Its density is 2:41; it is colorless; its smell is pungent, resembling that of muriatic acid; it cannot be breathed without instant suffocation; it extinguishes combustion; and reddens strongly the tincture of turnsole. It has no manner of action on glass, but attacks vegetable and animal matters FLU'OR, n. s., Lat. A fluid state; catamenia. The particles of fluids, which do not cohere too strongly, and are of such a smallness as renders them most susceptible of those agitations which keep liquors in a fluor, are most easily separated and rarefied into vapours. Newton's Opticks. Hence silvery selenite her crystal moulds, Darwin. FLUOR, in physics, signifies properly the state of a body that was before hard or solid, but is reduced by fusion or fire into a state of fluidity. FLUOR, OF FLUOR-SPAR, in mineralogy, a genus of calcareous earth, the eleventh of that class in Kirwan's arrangement, the octohedral fluor of Jameson, and flus of Werner. It is divided into three sub-species, viz. compact fluor, foliated fluor, and earthy or sandy fluor. 1. Compact fluor. Colors, greenish-gray and greenish-white. Dull or feebly glimmering. Massive. Fracture even. Fragments sharpedged. Harder than calcareous spar, but not so hard as apatite, the eighth of Kirwan's scale for hardness. Brittle, and easily frangible. Specific gravity 3.17. It is found in veins, associated with sparry fluor, at Stolberg in the Hartz. 2. Foliated fluor. Its colors are very numerous, pure, and greenish-white, or yellowish or reddish-white, or gray or bluish-gray, or light or violet-blue, or grass, leek, or olive-green, or dark red verging to purple, or purple inclining to black, or wine or honey yellow, or yellowishbrown. Many of these occur often in spots, blotches, or veins pervading the mass of one and the same specimen. It is found either amorphous, or crystallised; the most usual of the crystallised forms is that of a perfect cube, the angles or edges rarely truncated or bevelled; these last have sometimes concave planes. The octohedral form is also sometimes met with. Its surface mostly smooth, or frosted over with minute crystals. Lustre 2, 3. Transparency 2,3,4. Fracture foliated, generally straight, seldom curved; some parts, however, are found splintery, as if passing into the compact. Fragments tend to the form of triangular or quadrangular pyramids, and present coarse or small-grained, seldom prismatic, distinct concretions. Hardness 8, being harder than calcareous spar, but not so hard as apatite; very brittle. Specific gravity 3-09 to 3:19; that of the specimen, Leske, O. 1613, is 3.154. Before the blow-pipe it generally decrepitates, gradually loses its color and transparency, and melts, without any flux, into a grayish-white glass. When two fragments are rubbed together, they become luminous in the dark. When gently heated it phosphoresces with a blue and green light; but, by ignition, loses its phosphorescent property. The violet-blue variety, from Nertschinsky, called chlorophane, when placed on glowing coals, does not decrepitate, but soon throws out a green light. It occurs principally in veins that traverse primitive, transition, and sometimes secondary rocks. It has been found only in four places in Scotland; but occurs much more abundantly in England, being found in all the galena veins that traverse the coal formation in Cumberland and Durham: in secondary or floetz limestone in Derbyshire; and it is the most common veinstone in the copper, tin, and lead veins, that traverse granite, clay-slate, &c., in Cornwall and Devonshire. It is also frequent on the continent of Europe. We need offer no apology for extracting the following account of an experiment, by Dr. Brewster, on the phosphorescence of a specimen of the blue foliated fluor: 'When a thin slice was cut from this specimen, so as to be transparent, it resembled a leaf with veins inclined to the ridge or central line which divided it into two parts. The central line, and several of the veins were colorless; while some of the veins were of a deep amethyst color, and others of a pale amethyst color.' Upon placing this slice on a hot iron,' says Dr. Brewster, in order to examine its phosphorescence, I was surprised to observe that the phosphorescent matter was arranged in strata or veins, parallel to those of the specimen, and each stratum emitted a phosphoric light peculiar to itself, and differing from that of the other strata either in color or intensity. Some of the veins discharged a purple light; others a yellowish-green light; others a whitish light, and others exhibited no phosphorescence at all. The most singular circumstance, however, was that the different strata of phosphoric light preserved their boundaries sharp and well defined, and were far more minute and numerous than the strata seen by a microscopical examination of the specimen.' 3. Common sand, or earthy fluor. It is of a light gray color and loose consistence; when strewed on an iron plate, heated a little below redness, it diffuses a blue or pale-yellow phosphoric light. According to the experiments of Klaproth and Gmelin, it contains the fluor acid singly, and not the phosphoric. Mr. Pelletier found 100 parts of it to contain thirty-one of silex, twenty-one of calx, 15-5 argil, 28-5 sparry acid, one of phosphoric acid, and one of iron. In an unconnected substance of this sort, different specimens must undoubtedly contain different proportions of ingredients; among these the silex is evidently adventitious, the phosphoric acid being in such small quantity, may be found in some specimens, and not in others. It occurs in veins along with fluor spar at Beeralstone in Devoushire, in Cumberland, in Saxony, and Norway. It has also been found at Kobola Poiana, in the district of Marmaros, in Hungary, The whole of this genus is nearly insoluble in water. It does not effervesce with any acid, except the concentrated vitriolic acid, and with that but feebly. The nitrous and marine acids, in the common temperature of the atmosphere, are not absolutely inert with respect to it, but scarcely dissolve it without decomposition. It is insoluble in the acetous. In a moderate heat it decrepitates; and, if pulverised, phosphoresces, particularly the blue or purple colored; but, if heated to redness, it will never afterwards phosphoresce. In a heat of 130° of Wedgwood, it melts in clay crucibles, or, but less perfectly, in those of chalk, but on charcoal very imperfectly. By concentrated solar heat, or that given out by pure air, it melts into a button which is generally white and opaque when cold; if that heat be long continued, it becomes less fusible. FLUORIC ACID, in chemistry, is an acid generally supposed among chemists, to be a compound of an unknown radical fluorine and hydrogen. Such, at least, is the opinion expressed by Dr. Henry, Dr. Thomson, and Sir H. Davy. Put one part of fluate of lime, i. e. fluor spar, in coarse powder into a leaden or tin retort, and pour upon it two parts of sulphuric acid. Lute the retort to a leaden receiver, containing one part of water, and apply a gentle heat. The fluoric acid gas disengaged will be absorbed by the water, and form liquid fluoric acid, which must be kept in well-closed leaden or tin bottles, or phials coated within with wax or varnish. If the receiver be cooled with ice, and no water put in it, then the condensed acid is an intensely active liquid, first procured by M. Gay Lussac. It has the appearance of sulphuric acid, but is much more volatile, and sends off white fumes when exposed to the moist air. Its specific gravity is only 1.0609. It must be examined with great caution, for when applied to the skin it instantly disorganises it, and produces very painful wounds; and it instantly corrodes and disorganises glass, flints, &c. Its odor resembles muriatic acid, and its action upon all inflammable substances is very feeble, as it does not afford any oxygen to them. With ammonia, it forms a concrete body, and has no action upon platina, gold, silver, mercury, tin, lead, antimony, cobalt, nickel, or bismuth; but it corrodes iron, arsenic, and manganese. It combines readily with water without depositing any earth, and has an astringent acidulous taste. A candle immersed in it is extinguished without any change in the color of the flame: it combines with ammoniacal gas, forming a white cloud: it dissolves camphor, and is taken up in large quantity by oil of turpentine, to which it communicates an orange color, and a pungent acid odor. Fluoric acid gas volatilises silicious earth; which may be shown by decomposing fluate of lime in a glass retort, and receiving the gas in a vessel filled with water over mercury. Each bubble of the gas, which passes through the mercury into the water, becomes immediately enveloped in a silicious crust, and leaves, as it ascends to the surface of the water, traces in the form of tubes, which frequently decrease upwards, the bubble diminishing as the water dissolves it. The gas, when disengaged in the glass retort, dissolves part of the silex of the retort, which it keeps in an aeriform state. On coming into the water, it abandons its caloric, and is converted into fluoric acid, depositing at the same time the silex. stances which are not rapidly dissolved or decomposed by it, except metals, charcoal, phosphorus, sulphur, and certain combinations of chlorine. I attempted to make tubes of sulphur, of muriates of lead, and of copper containing metallic wires, by which it might be electrised, but without success. I succeeded, however, in boring a piece of horn silver in such a manner that I was able to cement a platina wire into it by means of a spirit lamp; and by inverting this in a tray of platina, filled with liquid fluoric acid, I contrived to submit the fluid to the agency of electricity in such a manner, that, in successive experiments, it was possible to collect any elastic fluid that might be produced. Operating in this way with a very weak Voltaic power, and keeping the apparatus cool by a freezing mixture, I ascertained that the platina wire at the positive pole rapidly corroded, and became covered with a chocolate powder; gaseous matter separated at the negative pole, which I could never obtain in sufficient quantities to analyse with accuracy, but it inflamed like hydrogen. No other inflammable matter was produced when the acid was pure.' The following is Lavoisier's table of the combinations of fluoric acid with the salifiable bases, in the order of affinity. Names of the bases. Lime Barytes Soda Oxide of Names of the neutral salts. Magnesia. Potash.. Soda. Ammoniac. Zinc Zinc. Manganese Manganese. Iron Iron. Lead. Cobalt Copper Arsenic Bismuth With the view of separating its hydrogen, Sir H. Davy applied the power of the great Voltaic batteries of the Royal Institution to the liquid fluoric acid. In this case,' says that eminent chemist in his account of his experiments in the Philosophical Transactions, gas appeared to be produced from both the negative and positive Ammoniac surfaces; but it was probably only the undecompounded acid rendered gaseous which was evolved at the positive surface; for during the operation the fluid became very hot, and speedily diminished. In the course of these investigations I made several attempts to detach hydrogen from the liquid fluoric acid, by the agency of oxygen and chlorine. It was not decomposed when passed through a platina tube heated red-hot with chlorine, nor by being distilled from salts containing abundance of oxygen, or those containing abundance of chlorine.' By the strict rules of chemical logic, therefore, we ought to regard fluoric acid as a simple body, as there is no evidence of its ever having been decompounded; and nothing but analogy with the other acids has given rise to the assumption of its being a compound. The marvellous activity of this powerful acid may be inferred from the following remarks of Sir H. Davy, from which also may be estimated, in some measure, the difficulty attending refined investigations on this extraordinary substance. 'I undertook,' continues he, the experiment of electrising pure liquid fluoric acid with considerable interest, as it seemed to offer the most probable method of ascertaining its real nature; but considerable difficulties occurred in executing the process. The liquid fluoric acid immediately destroys glass, and all animal and vegetable substances; it acts on all bodies containing metallic oxides; and I know of no sub Argil Mercury Tin. Arsenic. Bismuth. Mercury. Silver. Gold. Platina. and, by the dry way, Fluat of argil. The native fluate of lime, the fluor spar already mentioned, is the most common. At the heat 130° of Wedgwood, it enters into fusion in a clay crucible. It is not acted upon by the air, and is insoluble in water. Concentrated sulphuric acid deprives it of the fluoric acid with effervescence, at the common temperature, but heat promotes its action. . The affinity of the fluoric acid for siler has already appeared. If the acid solution, obtained by keeping the solution of the acid in glass vessels, be evaporated to dryness, the fluoric acid may be disengaged from the solid salt remaining either by the powerful acids, or by a strong heat; |