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. With the view of separating its hydrogen, Sir H. Davy appled 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 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 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. Names of the neutral salts. Magnesia. Potash.. Soda. Ammoniac. Zinc. Zinc Manganese Manganese. Iron Iron. Lead Lead. Cobalt Copper Nickel Tin. Cobalt. Copper. Nickel. Arsenic Arsenic. Bismuth Bismuth. Mercury Silver Gold Platina Mercury. Silver. Gold. Platina. aud, 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; and, if the solution be kept in a vessel that admits of a slow evaporation, small brilliant crystals, transparent, hard, and apparently of a rhomboidal figure, will form, as Bergman found, on the bottom of the vessel, in the course of two years standing. Fluate of potash, soda, ammonia, or magnesia, may be prepared by saturating their carbonates with fluoric acid. Fluate of barytes is precipitated by adding fluoric acid to the nitrate, or muriate of barytes; and fluate of strontia is prepared in a similar manner. Fluate of iron is obtained by dissolving the red oxide of iron in fluoric acid. Scheele observed, that the fluor acid united with alumina into a salt that could not be crystallised, but assumed a gelatinous form. Fourcroy adds that the solution is always acid, astringent, decomposable and precipitable by all the earthy and alkaline bases. The only use to which fluoric acid has been applied is engraving on glass. It appears from Beckman that this was first practised by an artist of Nuremberg, in the year 1670, who prepared his etching liquor by digesting together nitrous acid and finely powdered fluor spar for several hours on a warm sand-bath, and then using the clear liquor as aquafortis is employed by the copper-plate engravers. But the knowledge and application of this liquor was confined to a few German artists, till, after the discoveries of Scheele and Priestley, the fluoric acid in a pure state was used by various ingenious artists in England and France. Puymaurin found the liquid acid prepared according to Scheele's process to answer very well for this purpose in warm weather. The gaseous acid however is much more efficacious. To engrave on glass, select a piece of plate glass of the requisite size, cover it with hard engraver's wax, and with a needle or other suitable instrument trace the intended design as in common etching, observing that every stroke passes quite through the wax to the surface of the glass. When the etching is completed, lay the plate with the engraved side downwards on a frame, in a box lined with strong sheet lead or thick tin foil, and place on the bottom of the box a few leaden cups containing a mixture of one part of very fine pulverised fluor spar and two parts of sulphuric acid; then close the lid of the box, and place it on a stove, or in any other convenient situation where it may be exposed to as high a heat as it can bear without risking the melting of the wax: fluoric acid gas will be copiously disengaged, and in a short time (from one hour to three, according to circumstances) the plate will be found sufficiently corroded. M. Kortum, of Warsaw, having found that some pieces of glass were more easily acted upon than others, tried its effect on various stones. Rock crystal, ruby, sapphire, emerald, oriental garnet, amethyst, chrysolite, aventurine, girasol, a Saxon topaz, a Brasilian topaz burnt, and an opal, being exposed to the fluoric gas at a temperature of 122° F. were not acted upon. Diamond exposed to the vapor on a common German stove for four days, was unaffected. Of polished granite, neither the quartz nor mica appeared to be attacked, but the feldt-spar was rendered opaque and muddy, and covered with a white powder. Chrysoprase, an opal from Hungary, onyx, a cornelian from Persia, agate, chalcedony, green Siberian jasper, and common flint, were etched by it in twenty-four hours; the chrysoprase, nearly half a line deep, the onyx pretty deeply, the opal with the finest and most regular strokes, and all the rest more or less irregularly. The uncovered part of the brown flint had become white, but was still compact: water, alcohol, and other liquids, rendered the whiteness invisible, but, as soon as the flint became dry, it appeared again. The same effect was produced on cornelian and on a dark brown jasper, if the operation of the acid was stopped as soon as it had whitened the part exposed, without destroying its texture. A piece of black flint with efflorescent white spots, and partly covered with the common white crust, being exposed five days to the gas at a heat of about 68° F. was reduced from 103 grains to 91, and rendered white throughout. Some parts of it were rendered friable. White Carrara marble in twenty-four hours, at 77°, lost onethirtieth of its weight, but the shining surface of its crystallised texture was distinguishable. Black marble was not affected, either in weight or color, and agate was not attacked. Transparent foliated gypsum fell into white powder on its surface in a few hours; but this powder was not soluble in dilute nitric acid,-so that the fluoric acid had not destroyed the combination of its principles; but deprived it of its water of crystallisation. A striated zeolite, weighing 102 grains, was rendered friable on its surface in forty-eight hours, and weighed only eighty-five grains and a half. On being immersed in water, and then dried, it gained two grains and a half, but did not recover its lustre. Barytes of a fibrous texture remained unchanged. A thin plate of Venetian talc, weighing 124 grains, was reduced to eighty-one grains in forty-eight hours, and had fallen into a soft powder, which floated on water. See CHEMISTRY. FLUO-SILIC ACID. If instead of being distilled in metallic vessels, the mixture of fluor spar and sulphuric acid be distilled in glass vessels, little of the liquid will be obtained; but the glass will be corroded, and a peculiar gas will be produced, which must be collected over mercury. The best mode of procuring this is to mix the fluor spar with pounded glass or quartz; and, in this case, the retort may be preserved from corrosion, and the gas obtained in greater quantities. This gas, which is called silicated fluoric gas, is very heavy; 100 cubic inches of it weigh 110,77 grains. It is about forty-eight times denser than hydrogen, and, when brought into contact with water, instantly deposits a white gelatinous substance, which is hydrate of silica and it produces white fumes when suffered to pass into the atmosphere. It is not affected by any of the common combustibles; but when potassium is strongly heated in it, it takes fire and burns with a deep red light; the gas is absorbed, and a fawn-colored substance is formed, which yields alkali to water with slight effervescence, and contains a combustible body. The washings afford potash, and a salt, from which the strong acid fluid previously described, may be separated by sulphuric acid. It affords, when decomposed by solution of ammonia, 61:4 per cent. of silica; and hence was at first supposed by Sir. H. Davy to consist of two prime proportions of acid=2.652, and one of silica4066, the sum of which numbers may represent its equivalent 6718. One volume of it condenses two volumes of ammonia, and they form together a peculiar saline substance, decomposed by water. The composition of this salt is easily reconciled to the numbers given as representing silica and fluoric acid, on the supposition that it contains one prime of ammonia to one of the fluosilicic gas; for 200 cubic inches of ammonia weigh 36-2 grains and 100 of the acid gas 110.77. Now 36-2: 2:13:: 110-77: 652. FLURRY, n. s., Goth. flokra. Hurry; violent commotion; a gust or storm of wind; a hasty blast. The boat was overset by a sudden flurry from the North. Swift. He lived (not Death, but Juan) in a hurry Of waste, and haste, and glare, and gloss, and glitter, In this gay clime of bear-skins, black and furryWhich (though I hate to say a thing that's better) Peep out sometimes when kings are in a flurry, Through all the purple and fine linen"-fitter For Babylon's than Russias' royal harlot, And neutralize her outward show of scarlet. Byron. FLUSH, v. n., v., a., adj., & n. s. Fr. flus, or flux, Lat. fluflus; Dutch, fluysen. To flow; to flow with violence; to approach with rapidity: ap plied to a rapid motion of the blood, from mental or any other excitement, which produces a glow in the skin, and a redness in the cheeks; it is used of a transient change of color in the face, not of a settled complexion. Thus it is applied to any sudden elation of the mind. The substantive expresses afflux; sudden impulse; violent flow. The adjective is used as a cant term for affluent; abounding. It sometimes means fresh; full of vigor. Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears Had left the flushing in her galled eyes, She married. Shakspeare. Hamlet. He took my father grossly, full of bread, With all his crimes broad blown, and flush as May; And how his audit stands, who knows, save Heaven? If the place but affords Any store of lucky birds, As I make 'em to flush, Shakspeare. Each owl out of his bush. Ben Jonson's Owls. Thus Eve with countenance blithe her story told; But in her cheek distemper flushing glowed. Milton's Paradise Lost. What means that lovely fruit? What means, alas! That blood, which flushes guilty in your face? Dryden. Never had any man such a loss, cries a widower, in the flush of his extravagancies for a dead wife. L'Estrange. The pulse of the arteries is not only caused by the pulsation of the heart, driving the blood through them in manner of a wave or flush, but by the coats of the arteries themselves. Ray. The pulse of the heart he attributes to an ebullition and sudden expansion of the blood in the ventricles, after the manner of the milk, which, being heated to At once, arrayed In all the colours of the flushing year, It is enough that Fortune found him flush Of youth and vigour, beauty, and those things Which for an instant clip Enjoyment's strings. Byron. FLUSHING, an important sea-port of the island of Walcheren, situated on the north side of the Scheldt, at the mouth of that river. The approach to the harbour is between jetties, and inside the town are two basins, one of which will contain a fleet of men of war; hence the importance of this place to the French, who, in 1795, stipulated for its possession jointly with the Dutch, and afterwards obtained it exclusively. The batteries nearly command the mouth of the Scheldt. This town is a noted and was the birth place of De Ruyter. resort of English smugglers. It is well built, In 1809 it sustained a successful siege from the Bri tish army landed in Walcheren, and was not evacuated until the 23rd December, when our troops endeavoured to destroy the inner basins. Buonaparte soon after annexed the island Walcheren to France, and thus it continued until 1814. Population 5700. Old Flushing is a suburb on the west side of the New town. FLUSHING, a town of America, on a bay in Long Island. Long. 73° 50′ W., lat. 40° 45′ N. FLUSTER, v. a. From to flush. To make hot and rosy with drinking; to make half drunk. Three lads of Cyprus, noble swelling spirits, Have I to-night flustered with flowing cups, And they watch too. Shakspeare. Othello. FLUTE, v. a. & n. s. Fr. fluste, flute; Ital. flauto; Belg. fluite (a musical pipe). To cut columns into hollows; a channel or furrow in a pillar; a regular ornamental concare extending from the base to the capital of a column: a wind instrument, with stops for the fingers. In floites made he discordaunce Chaucer. Romaunt of the Rose. Shakspeare. Anon they move Milton's Paradise Lost. The soft complaining flute In dying notes discovers Whose dirge is whispered by the warbling lute. Dryden. FLUTE, in music, is the simplest of all musical instruments of the wind kind. It is played on by blowing it with the mouth; and the tones or notes are changed by stopping and opening the holes disposed for that purpose along its side. The ancient fistula, or flutes, were made at first of reeds; afterwards of wood, and at length of metal. But how they were blown, whether as our flutes, or hautboys, does not appear. The flute was of such importance in antiquity, that several female divinities laid claim to the honor of its invention. Of this number the principal was Minerva, or Pallas, the daughter of Jupiter: sometimes called Musica, or the musician, from a statue made by Demetrius, in which, when the serpents of the Gorgon were struck, they resounded like a lute. She is said by Hyginus to have found herself laughed at by Juno and Venus, whenever she played the flute in their presence; and on examining herself in a fountain, which served as a mirror, was convinced that she had been justly derided for the distortion of her countenance, occasioned by swelling her cheeks in the act of blowing the flute. However, a cause more worthy of her wisdom is assigned for her throwing aside the flute, upon seeing Apollo perform on the lyre; for, by having his mouth at liberty, she found that it enabled him to sing during the time he played. The performer upon the ancient flutes played always upon two at the same time, and placed round his mouth a species of bandage, tied behind the head, in order that the cheeks might not protrude, and for the better management of the breath. The right flute had only two holes, and produced low sounds; the left had several holes, and produced higher sounds. When the musicians performed, upon these two flutes of different sounds, it was said the piece was performed tibiis imparibus' or 'tibiis dextris et sinistris.' When they performed upon two flutes of the same sound it was said, that the piece was performed 'tibiis paribus dextris,' if upon those of grave sounds; and 'tibiis paribus sinistris' if upon high-sounding flutes. The present flute was originally called the flute à bec, or beaked flute, from the reed resembling the mouth of a bird. This instrument, at the beginning of the last century, till the works of Corelli came over, was in far more general use as a concert instrument than the violin. Sonatas for two flutes, and a thorough base, violone or theorbo, were innumerable: with solos, duets, and concertos for the same instrument; nor was there a ballad then printed which was not transposed for the flute at the bottom of the page. The concert flutes for which this music was composed were generally F and C. Besides the true concert flute, others of a less size were soon introduced into concerts of violins; in which case the method was to write the flute part in a key correspondent to its pitch. This practice was introduced in 1710, by one Woodcock, a celebrated performer, and William Babell, organ ist of All-Hallows Church, London. They failed, however, in procuring for the flute a reception into concerts of various instruments; for which reason one Thomas Stanesby, a very curious maker of flutes and of the instruments of the like kind, about 1732, adverting to the scale of Marsennus, in which the lowest note was C, invented what he called the new system; in which, by making the flute of such a size as to be a fifth above concert pitch, the lowest note became C sol fa ut. By this contrivance the necessity of transposing the flute part was taken away; for a flute of this size, adjusted to the system above mentioned, became an octave to the violin. further this invention of Stanesby, one Lewis Merci, an excellent performer on the flute, published, about 1735, six solos for this instrument, three of which are said to be accommodated to Mr. Stanesby's new system; but the German flute was now become a favorite instrument, and Stanesby's ingenuity failed of its effect. One great objection, indeed, lies against this instrument, which, however, equally affects all perforated pipes; namely, that they are never perfectly in tune, or cannot be made to play all their notes with equal exactness. To Flutes have a compass of nineteen diatonic intervals, viz. from D, first space below the treble clef, to A-sharp (or B-flat), the octave above the first ledger line, including every chromatic interval; but, generally, only to the second octave above the second line, treble clef. FLUTE, GERMAN, an instrument entirely dif ferent from the common flute. It is not, like that, put into the mouth to be played; but the end is stopped with a tompion or plug, and the lower lip is applied to a hole about two inches and a half or three inches distant from the end. This instrument is usually about a foot and a half long; rather bigger at the upper end than the lower; and perforated with holes, besides that for the mouth, the lowest of which is stopped and opened by the little finger's pressing on a brass or sometimes a silver key, like those in hautboys, bassoons, &c. Its sound is exceedingly sweet and agreeable; and serves as a treble in a concert. FLUTE, OF FLUYT, from flotte, a little boat, is a kind of long vessel with flat ribs or floortimbers, round behind, and swelled in the middle; serving chiefly for the carrying of provisions in fleets or squadrons of ships; though it is often used in merchandise. FLUTES, OF FLUTINGS, in architecture, are perpendicular cavities cut along the shaft of a column or pilaster. They are supposed to have been first introduced in imitation of the plaits of women's robes; and are therefore called by the Latins striges and ruga. The French call them cannelures, as being excavations; and we, flutes or flutings, as bearing some resemblance to the musical flute. They are chiefly affected in the Ionic order, in which they had their first rise; though they are also used in all the richer orders, as the Corinthian and Composite; but rarely in the Doric, and scarcely ever in the Tuscan. FLUTTER, v. n., v. a. & n. s. Sax. ploteran : Fr. flotter; Belg. flodderon. Is a frequentative of fly, and signifies to take short flights with great agitation of the wings. The noun is used to express vibration; undulation; quick and irregular motion; hurry; tumult; confusion; irregular position; disorder of mind. The verb, in addition to these applications, signifies to move with great show and bustle; to move irregularly; to be in a state of uncertainty. Fluttering, agitating between hope and fear. To drive in disorder like a flock of birds suddenly roused. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, and spreadeth abroad her wings, so the Fair crews triumphant, leaning from above, Shall wave their fluttering kerchiefs as they move. Darwin. What singular emotions fill Their bosoms who have been induced to roam With fluttering doubts if all be well or illWith love for many and with fears for some; All feelings which o'erleap the years long lost, And bring our hearts back to their starting-post. Byron. Don Juan, FLUVANNA, a county of Virginia, bounded north by Albemarle, north-east by Louisa, east by Goochland, west by Amherst, and south by James River, which divides it from Buckingham. It is twenty-two miles long, and thirty broad, and contains about 5000 inhabitants. Columbia is the chief town. FLUVANNA, a river of Virginia, which rises in the Blue Mountains, and runs into the Rivanna at Columbia, to form James River. FLUVIA, a river of Spain in Catalonia, which runs into the Mediterranean at Ampurias. On the 14th June, 1795, there was an engagement on its banks, between the French under general Scherer, and the Spaniards under general Urratia, wherein the latter were defeated, with the loss of above 600 men, though they displayed the utmost bravery, and crossed the river up to the waist in water, to attack the French, who lost only eighty-five men. FLUVIATIC, adj. Lat. flluviaticus. Belonging to rivers. FLUX, n. s., adj. & v. a. Lat. fluxus; Fr. flux. The act of flowing; the state of passing away; any flow or issue of matter. Concourse; confluence; the state of being melted. Fluxion is frequently used as a synonyme of flux; in mathematics it is defined by Harris, The arithmetic or analysis of infinitely small variable quantities; or the method of finding an infinitely small quantity, which, being taken an infinite number of times, becomes equal to a quantity given:' as an adjective, flux signifies inconstant; not durable; maintained by a constant succession of parts. Fluxility, capability; possibility, or tendency to liquefaction. Left and abandoned of his velvet friends; 'Tis right, quoth he; thus misery doth part The flux of company. Shakspeare. As You Like It. The simple and primary motion of fire is flux, in a direct line from the centre of the fuel to its circumference. Digby. Whether the heat of the sun in animals whose parts are successive, and in a continual flux, can produce a deep and perfect gloss of blackness. Browne's Vulgar Errours. Experiments seem to teach, that the supposed aversation of nature to a vacuum is but accidental, or in consequence, partly of the weight and fluidity, or at least fluxility of the bodies here below. Boyle. What the stated rate of interest should be, in the constant change of affairs, and flux of money, is hard to determine. Locke. Quinces stop fluxes of blood. Arbuthnot. By the perpetual flux of the liquids, a great part of them is thrown out of the body. Id. The flurion increased, and abscesses were raised. Wiseman. A penetration into the abstruse difficulties and depths of modern algebra and flurions, is not worth the labour of those who design the learned professions as the business of life. Watts. Eat eastern spice, secure From burning fluxes and hot calenture. Halifax. FLUX, in hydrography, a regular periodical motion of the sea, happening twice in twentyfour hours; wherein the water is raised and driven violently against the shores. The flux or flow is one of the motions of the tide; the other, whereby the water sinks and retires, is called the reflux or ebb. See TIDE. FLUX, in medicine, an extraordinary evacuation of some humor. Fluxes are variously denominated according to their seats and the humors voided; as a flux of the belly, uterine flux, hepatic flux, salival flux, &c. The flux of |