VOLUME X SLICE IV Finland to Fleury, André (continued 4)

This organization was practically unchanged until 1898, when the Greater New York was chartered and the present system was introduced. At its head is a commissioner who receives $7500 a year. The more immediate head of the firemen is a chief (annual salary $10,000), the only member of the force not appointed on the basis of a civil service examination; the chief has a deputy in Manhattan (for Manhattan, Bronx and Richmond boroughs) and another for Brooklyn and Queens, each receiving an annual salary of $5000.

In December 1908 there were: 14 deputy chiefs (eight in Manhattan, Bronx and Richmond, and six in Brooklyn and Queens); 59 chiefs of battalion (31 in Manhattan, Bronx and Richmond, and 28 in Brooklyn and Queens); 248 foremen or captains (137 in Manhattan, Bronx and Richmond, and 111 in Brooklyn and Queens), 365 assistant foremen (221 in Manhattan, Bronx and Richmond; and 144 in Brooklyn and Queens); 431 engineers of steamers (247 in Manhattan, Bronx and Richmond, and 184 in Brooklyn and Queens) and 2933 firemen (1772 in Manhattan, Bronx and Richmond, and 1161 in Brooklyn and Queens); and the total uniformed force was 4107. At the close of 1908 there were 88 engine companies—at East 99th St., Battery Park, Grand St. (East River), West 35th St., Gansevoort St. and West 132nd St.; and in Manhattan and the Bronx there were 38 hook and ladder companies; in Brooklyn and Queens there were 70 engine companies, including two fire-boat companies—at 42nd St. and at North 8th St. The appropriations for the year 1906 were $4,777,687 for Manhattan, Bronx and Richmond, and $3,147,033 for Brooklyn and Queens; and the department expenses were $3,980,535 for Manhattan, Bronx and Richmond, and $2,565,849 for Brooklyn and Queens.

The first high-pressure main system in the city was installed at Coney Island in 1905, gas-engines working the pumps. Electrically driven centrifugal pumps are used in Brooklyn (protected area, 1360 acres) and in Manhattan, where the system was introduced in 1908, and where the protected district (1454 acres) reaches from the City Hall to 25th St. and from the Hudson east to Second Avenue and East Broadway, being the “Dry Goods District”; water is pumped either from city mains or from the river, and the change may be made instantaneously. The fire watch-tower system was abolished in 1869; the present system is that of red box electric telegraph alarms, which register at headquarters (East 67th St.), where an operator sends out the alarm to that engine-house nearest to the fire which is ready to respond, and a chart informing him of the absence from the engine-house of apparatus. There are volunteer forces (about 2700 men) in Queens and Richmond boroughs and in other outlying districts.

Boston.—The Boston fire department (reorganized after the great fire of 1872) is officered by a commissioner (annual salary, $5000), a chief (annual salary, $4000), a senior deputy ($2400), and a junior deputy ($2200), twelve district chiefs ($2000 each), a superintendent and an assistant superintendent of fire-alarms, and a superintendent and an assistant superintendent of the repair shop. In 1909 the force numbered 877 regulars and 8 call men. There were 53 steam fire-engines, 14 chemical engines, 3 water-towers, 3 combination chemical engines and hose-wagons (one being motor-driven), 3 fire-boats (built in 1889, 1895 and 1909 respectively), 29 ladder-trucks and 49 hose-wagons. The auxiliary salt-water main service was established in 1893. The earliest suggestion of the application of the electric telegraph to a fire-alarm system was made in Boston in 1845 by Dr Wm. F. Channing; in 1847-1848 Moses G. Farmer, then a telegraph operator at Framingham, made a practicable electric telegraph alarm; and in 1851-1855 Farmer became superintendent of the Boston fire-alarm system, a plant being installed in 1852.2

Chicago.—The Chicago organization practically dates from the fire of 1871, though there was a paid department as early as 1858. Its principal officers are a fire-marshal and chief of brigade (salary $8000), four assistant fire-marshals, a department inspector, eighteen battalion chiefs, a superintendent of machinery, a veterinary and assistant, and about one hundred each of captains, lieutenants, engineers and assistant engineers; the total regular force in 1908 was 1799 men with an auxiliary volunteer force of 71 in Riverdale, Norwood Park, Hansen Park and Ashburn Park. In the business part of the city there is a patrol of seven companies employed by the Board of Fire Underwriters. Since 1895 all men in the uniformed force (except the chief of brigade) are under civil service rules. In 1908 the equipment included 117 engine companies, 34 hook and ladder companies, including one water-tower, 15 chemical engines and one hose company; and there were 5 fire-boats (4 active and 1 reserve). The first fire-boat was built in 1883. The initial installation of high-pressure mains was completed in 1902, and was greatly enlarged in 1908.

Fire Appliances.

Fire-Alarms.—Most large cities possess a system of electrical fire-alarms, consisting of call boxes placed at frequent intervals along the streets. Any one wishing to give notice of a fire either opens the door of one of these boxes or breaks the glass window with which it is fitted, and then pulls the handle inside, thus causing the particular number allocated to the box, which of course indicates its position, to be electrically telegraphed to the nearest fire station, or elsewhere as thought advisable. Sometimes a telephone is fixed in each call-box. Automatic fire-alarms consist of arrangements whereby an electric circuit is closed when the surrounding air reaches a certain temperature. The electric circuit may be used to start an alarm bell or to give warning to a watchman or central office, and the devices for closing it are of the most varied kinds—the expansion of mercury in a thermometer tube, the sagging of a long wire suspended between horizontal supports, the unequal expansion of the brass in a curved strip of brass and steel welded together, &c.

Fire-Engines.—The earliest method of applying water to the extinction of fires was by means of buckets, and these long remained the chief instruments employed for the purpose, though Hero of Alexandria about 150 B.C. described a fire-engine with two cylinders and pistons worked by a reciprocating lever, and Pliny refers to the use of fire-engines in Rome. In the 16th century (as at Augsburg in 1518) we hear of fire squirts or syringes worked by hand, and towards the end of the same century Cyprien Lucar described a very large one operated by a screw handle. The fire squirts used in London about the time of the Great Fire were 3 or 4 ft. long by 2½ or 3 in. in diameter, and three men were required to manipulate them. The next stage of development was to mount a cistern or reservoir on wheels so that it was portable, and to provide it with pumps which forced out the water contained in it through a fixed delivery pipe in the middle of the machine. An important advance was made in 1672 when two Dutchmen, Jan van der Heyde, senior and junior, made flexible hose by sewing together the edges of a strip of leather, and applied it for both suction and delivery, so that the engines could be continuously supplied with water and the stream could be more readily directed on the seat of the fire. For many years manual engines were the only ones employed, and they came to be made of great size, requiring as many as 40 or 50 men to work them; but now they are superseded by power-driven engines, at least for all important services. The first practical steam fire-engine was made by John Braithwaite about 1829, but though it proved useful in various fires in London for several years after that date, it was objected to by the men of the fire brigade and its use was abandoned. A generation later, however, steam fire-engines began to come into vogue. At first they were usually drawn by horses to the scene of the fire, though exceptionally their engines could be geared to the wheels so that they became self-propelled; and it was not till the beginning of the 20th century that motor fire-engines were employed to any extent. Steam, petrol and electricity have all been used. Such engines have the advantage that they can reach a fire much more rapidly than a horse-drawn vehicle, especially in hilly districts, and they can if necessary be made of greater power, since their size need not be limited by considerations of the weight that can be drawn by horses. Petrol-propelled engines can be started off from a station within a few seconds of the receipt of an alarm, and their pumps are ready to work immediately the fire is reached; steam-propelled engines possess the same advantage, if they are kept always standing under steam, though this involves expense that is avoided with petrol engines, which cost nothing for maintenance except while they are actually working. Motor engines are made with a capacity to deliver 1000 gallons of water a minute or even more, but the sizes than can deal with 400 or 500 gallons a minute are probably those most commonly used.

In towns standing on a navigable water-way fire-boats are often provided for extinguishing fires in buildings, in docks and along the waterside. The capacity of these may rise to 6000 gallons a minute. Steam is the power most commonly used in them, both for propulsion and for pumping, but in one built for Spezia by Messrs Merryweather & Sons of London in 1909, an 80 H. P. petrol engine was fitted for propulsion, while a steam engine was employed for pumping. The boiler was fired with oil-fuel, and steam could be raised in a few minutes while the boat was on its way to a fire. The pumps could throw a 1½-in. jet to a height of nearly 200 ft. In some places, as at Boston, Mass., the fire-boats are utilized for service at some distance from the water. Fire-mains laid through the streets terminate in deep water at points accessible to the boats, the pumps of which can be connected to them and made to fill them with water at high pressure. In cities where a high-pressure hydraulic supply system is available, a relatively small quantity of the pressure water can be used, by means of Greathead hydrants or similar devices, to draw a much larger quantity from the ordinary mains and force it in jets to considerable heights and distances, without the intervention of any engine.

The water is conducted from the engines or hydrants in hose-pipes, which are made either of leather fastened with brass or copper rivets, or of canvas (woven from flax) which has the merit of lightness but is liable to rot, or of rubber jacketed with canvas (or in America with cotton). For directing the water on the fire, nozzles of various forms are employed, some throwing a plain solid jet, others producing spray, and others again combining jet and spray, the spray being useful to drive away smoke and protect the firemen. Various devices are employed to enable the upper storeys of buildings to be effectively reached. A line of hose may be attached to a telescopic ladder, the extensions of which are pulled out by a wire rope until the top rests on the wall of the building at the required height. Water-towers enable the jet to be delivered at a considerable height independently of any support from the building. A light, stiff, lattice steel frame is mounted on a truck, on which it lies horizontally while being drawn to a fire, but when it has to be used it is turned to an upright position, often by the aid of compressed gas, and then an extensible tube is drawn out to a still greater height. The direction of the stream delivered at the top may be controlled from below by means of gearing which enables the nozzle to be moved both horizontally and vertically. The pipe up the tower may be of large diameter, so that it can carry a huge volume of water, and at the bottom it may terminate in a reservoir into which several fire-engines may pump simultaneously.

Another class of fire-engines, known in the smaller portable sizes as fire-extinguishers or “extincteurs,” and in the larger ones as “chemical engines,” throw a jet of water charged with gas, commonly carbon dioxide, which does not support combustion. Essentially they consist of a closed metal tank, filled with a solution of some carbonate and also containing a small vessel of sulphuric acid. Under normal conditions the acid is kept separate from the solution, but when the machine has to be used they are mixed together; in some cases there is a plunger projecting externally, which when struck a sharp blow breaks the bottle of acid, while in others the act of inverting the apparatus breaks the bottle or causes it to fall against a sharp pricker which pierces the metallic capsule that closes it. As soon as the acid comes into contact with the carbonate solution carbon dioxide is formed, and a stream of gas and liquid mixed issues under considerable pressure from the attached nozzle or hosepipe. Hand appliances of this kind, holding a few gallons, are often placed in the corridors of hotels, public buildings, &c., and if they are well-constructed, so that they do not fail to act when they are wanted, they are useful in the early stages of a fire, because they enable a powerful jet to be quickly brought to bear; but it is doubtful whether the stream of mixed gas and liquid they emit is much more efficacious than plain water, and too much importance can easily be attached to spectacular displays of their power to extinguish artificial blazes of wood soused with petrol, which have been burning only a few seconds. Chemical engines, up to 60 or 70 gallons capacity, are used by fire brigades as first-aid appliances, being mounted on a horsed or motor vehicle and often combined with a fire-escape, a reel of hose, and other appliances needed by the firemen, and even with pumps for throwing powerful jets of ordinary water. Large buildings, such as hotels and warehouses, where a competent watchman is assumed to be always on duty, may be protected by a large chemical engine placed in the basement and connected by pipes to hydrants placed at convenient points on the various floors. At each hose-station a handle is provided which when pulled actuates a device that effects the mixing of the acid and carbonate solution in the machine, so that in a minute or so a stream is available at the hydrants.

Automatic Sprinklers.—Factories, warehouses and other buildings in which the fire risks are great, are sometimes fitted with automatic sprinklers which discharge water from the ceiling of a room as soon as the temperature rises to a certain point. Lines of pipes containing water under pressure are carried through the building near the ceilings at distances of 8 or 10 ft. apart, and to these pipes are attached sprinkler heads at intervals such that the water from them is distributed all over the room. The valves of the sprinklers are normally kept closed by a device the essential feature of which is a piece of fusible metal; this as soon as it is softened (at a temperature of about 160° F.) by the heat from an incipient fire, gives way and releases the water, which striking against a deflecting plate is spread in a shower. In situations where the water is liable to freeze, the ceiling pipes are filled only with air at a pressure of say 10 ℔ per sq. in. When the sprinkler head opens under the influence of the heat from a fire, the compressed air escapes, and the consequent loss of pressure in the pipes is arranged to operate a system of levers that opens the water-valve of the main-feed pipe. The idea of automatic sprinklers is an old one, and a system was patented by Sir William Congreve in 1812; but in their present development they are specially associated with the name of Frederick Grinnell, of Providence, Rhode Island.

Fire-Escapes.—The best kind of fire-escape, because it is always in place, and always ready for use, is an external iron staircase, reaching from the top of a building to the ground, and connected with balconies accessible from the windows on each floor. In many towns the building by-laws require such staircases to be provided on buildings exceeding a certain height and containing more than a certain number of persons. Of non-fixed escapes, designed to enable the inmates of an upper room to reach the ground through the window, numberless forms have been invented, from simple knotted ropes and folding ladders to slings and baskets suspended by a rope over sheaves fixed permanently outside the windows, and provided with brakes by which the occupant can regulate the speed of his descent, and to “chutes” or canvas tubes down which he slides. Fire brigades are provided with telescopic ladders, mounted on a wheeled carriage, up which the firemen climb; sometimes the persons rescued are sent down a chute attached to the apparatus, but many fire brigades think it preferable to rely on carrying down those who are unable to descend the ladder unaided. Jumping sheets or nets, held by a number of men, are provided to catch those whose only chance of escape is by jumping from an upper window.

(X.)

1 In the United States a special officer called a “fire-marshal” has for some time been allocated to this work in many cities, and in 1894 state fire-marshals were authorized in Massachusetts and in Maryland, this example being followed by Ohio (1900), Connecticut (1901), and Washington (1902); and in other states laws have been passed making official inquiry compulsory. In England the question has been mooted whether coroners, even where no death has occurred, should hold similar inquiries, but though this has been done in recent years in the City of London no regular system exists.

2 See Thomas C. Martin, Municipal Electric Fire Alarm and Police Patrol Systems (Washington, 1904), Bulletin II of the Bureau of the Census, Department of Commerce and Labour. The next plant was installed in Philadelphia in 1855; one in St Louis was completed in 1858; and work was begun in New Orleans and Baltimore in 1860.

FIREBACK, the name given to the ornamented slab of cast iron protecting the back of a fireplace. The date at which firebacks became common probably synchronizes with the removal of the fire from the centre to the side or end of a room. They never became universal, since the proximity of deposits of iron ore was essential to their use. In England they were confined chiefly to the iron districts of Sussex and Surrey, and appear to have ceased being made when the ore in those counties was exhausted. They are, however, occasionally found in other parts of the country, and it is reasonable to suppose that there was a certain commerce in an appliance which gradually assumed an interesting and even artistic form. The earlier examples were commonly rectangular, but a shaped or gabled top eventually became common. English firebacks may roughly be separated into four chronological divisions—those moulded from more than one movable stamp; armorial backs; allegorical, mythological and biblical slabs with an occasional portrait; and copies of 17th and 18th century continental designs, chiefly Netherlandish. The fleur-de-lys, the rosette, and other motives of detached ornament were much used before attempts were made to elaborate a homogeneous design, but by the middle of the 17th century firebacks of a very elaborate type were being produced. Thus we have representations of the Crucifixion, the death of Jacob, Hercules slaying the hydra, and the plague of serpents. Coats of arms were very frequent, the royal achievement being used extensively—many existing firebacks bear the arms of the Stuarts. About the time of Elizabeth the coats of private families began to be used, the earliest instances remaining bearing those of the Sackvilles, who were lords of a large portion of the forest of Anderida, which furnished the charcoal for the smelting operations in our ancient iron-fields. To the armorial shields the date was often added, together with the initials of the owner. The method of casting firebacks was to cut the design upon a thick slab of oak which was impressed face downwards upon a bed of sand, the molten metal being ladled into the impression. Firebacks were also common in the Netherlands and in parts of France, notably in Alsace. At Strassburg and Metz there are several private collections, and there are also many examples in public museums. The museum of the Porte de Hal at Brussels contains one of the finest examples in existence with an equestrian portrait of the emperor Charles V., accompanied by his arms and motto. When monarchy was first destroyed in France the possession of a plaque de cheminée bearing heraldic insignia was regarded as a mark of disaffection to the republic, and on the 13th of October 1793 the National Convention issued a decree giving the owners and tenants of houses a month in which to turn such firebacks with their face to the wall, pending the manufacture by the iron foundries of a sufficient number of backs less offensive to the instinct of equality. Very few of the old plaques were however removed, and to this day the old chateaux of France contain many with their backs outward. Reproductions of ancient chimney backs are now not infrequently made, and the old examples are much prized and collected.

FIRE BRAT, a small insect (Thermobia or Thermophila furnorum) related to the silverfish, and found in bakehouses, where it feeds upon bread and flour.

FIREBRICK.—Under this term are included all bricks, blocks and slabs used for lining furnaces, fire-mouths, flues, &c., where the brickwork has to withstand high temperature (see Brick).

The conditions to which firebricks are subjected in use vary very greatly as regards changes of temperature, crushing strain, corrosive action of gases, scouring action of fuel or furnace charge, chemical action of furnace charge and products of combustion, &c., and in order to meet these different conditions many varieties of firebricks are manufactured.

Ordinary firebricks are made from fireclays, i.e. from clays which withstand a high temperature without fusion, excessive shrinkage or warping. Many clays fulfil these conditions although the term “fireclay” is generally restricted in use to certain shales from the Coal Measures, which contain only a small percentage of soda, potash and lime, and are consequently highly refractory. There is no fixed standard of refractoriness for these clays, but no clay should be classed as a fireclay which has a fusion point below 1600° C.

Fireclays vary considerably in chemical composition, but generally the percentage of alumina and silica (taken together) is high, and the percentage of oxide of iron, magnesia, lime, soda and potash (taken together) is low. Other materials, such as lime, bauxite, &c., are also used for the manufacture of firebricks where special chemical or other properties are necessary.

The suitability of a fireclay for the manufacture of the various fireclay goods depends upon its physical character as well as upon its refractoriness, and it is often necessary to mix with the clay a certain proportion of ground firebrick, ganister, sand or some similar refractory material in order to obtain a suitable brick. Speaking generally, fireclay goods used for lining furnaces where the firing is continuous, or where the lining is in contact with molten metal or other flux, are best made from fine-grained plastic clays; whereas firebricks used in fire-mouths and other places which are subjected to rapid changes of temperature must be made from coarser-grained and consequently less plastic clays. In all cases care should be taken to obtain a texture and also, as far as possible, by selection and mixing, to obtain a chemical composition suitable for the purpose to which the goods are to be applied. The Coal Measure clays often contain nodules of siderite in addition to the carbonate of iron disseminated in fine particles throughout the mass, and these nodules are carefully picked out as far as practicable before the clay is used.

A firebrick suitable for ordinary purposes should be even and rather open in texture, fairly coarse in grain, free from cracks or warping, strong enough to withstand the pressure to which it may be subjected when in use, and sufficiently fired to ensure practically the full contraction of the material. Very few fireclays meet all these requirements, and it is usual to mix a certain proportion of ground firebrick, ganister, sand or clay with the fireclay before making up. The fireclay or shale or other materials are ground either between rollers or on perforated pans, and then passed through sieves to ensure a certain size and evenness of grain, after which the clay and other materials are mixed in suitable proportion in the dry state, water being generally added in the mixing mill, and the bricks made up from plastic or semi-plastic clay in the ordinary way.

The proportion of ground firebrick, &c., used depends on the nature of the clay and the purpose for which the material is required, but generally speaking the more plastic clays require a higher percentage of a plastic material than the less plastic clays, the object being to produce a clay mixture which shall dry and fire without cracking, warping or excessive shrinkage, and which shall retain after firing a sufficiently open and even texture to withstand alternate heatings and coolings without cracking or flaking. For special purposes special mixtures are required and many expedients are used to obtain fireclay goods having certain specific qualities. In preparing clay for the manufacture of ordinary fire-grate backs, &c., where the temperature is very variable but never very high, a certain percentage of sawdust is often mixed with the fireclay, which burns out on firing and ensures a very open or porous texture. Such material is much less liable to splitting or flaking in use than one having a closer texture, but it is useless for furnace lining and similar work, where strength and resistance to wear and tear are essential. For the construction of furnaces, fire-mouths, &c., the firebrick used must be sufficiently strong and rigid to withstand the crushing strain of the superimposed brickwork, &c., at the highest temperature to which they are subjected.

The wearing out of a firebrick used in the construction of furnaces, &c., takes place in various ways according to the character of the brick and the particular conditions to which it is subjected. The firebrick may waste by crumbling—due to excessive porosity or openness of texture; it may waste by shattering, due to the presence of large pebbles, pieces of limestone, &c.; it may gradually wear away by the friction of the descending charge in the furnace, of the solid particles carried by the flue gases and of the flue gases themselves; it may waste by the gradual vitrification of the surface through contact with fluxing materials: in cases where it is subjected to very high temperature it will gradually vitrify and contract and so split and fall away from the setting. It is a well-recognized fact that successive firings to a temperature approaching the fusion point, or long continued heating near that temperature, will gradually produce vitrification, which brings about a very dense mass and close texture, and entirely alters the properties of the brick.

Where firebricks are in contact with the furnace charge it is necessary that the texture shall be fairly close, and that the chemical composition of the brick shall be such as to retard the formation of fusible double silicates as much as possible. Where the furnace charge is basic the firebrick should, generally speaking, be basic or aluminous and not siliceous, i.e. it should be made from a fireclay containing little free silica, or from such a fireclay to which a high percentage of alumina, lime, magnesia, or iron oxide has been added. For such purposes firebricks are often made from materials containing little or no clay, as for example mixtures of calcined and uncalcined magnesite; mixtures of lime and magnesia and their carbonates; mixtures of bauxite and clay; mixtures of bauxite, clay and plumbago; bauxite and oxide of iron, &c.

In certain cases it is necessary to use an acid brick, and for the manufacture of these a highly siliceous mineral, such as chert or ganister, is used, mixed if necessary with sufficient clay to bind the material together. Dinas fireclay, so-called, and the ganisters of the south Yorkshire coal-fields are largely used for making these siliceous firebricks, which may be also used where the brickwork does not come in contact with basic material, as in the arches, &c., of many furnaces. It is evident that no particular kind of firebrick can be suitable for all purposes, and the manufacturer should endeavour to make his bricks of a definite composition, texture, &., to meet certain definite requirements, recognizing that the materials at his disposal may be ill-adapted or entirely unsuitable for making firebricks for other purposes. In setting firebricks in position, a thin paste of fireclay and water or of material similar to that of which the brick is composed, must be used in place of ordinary mortar, and the joints should be as close as possible, only just sufficient of the paste being used to enable the bricks to bed on one another.

It has long been the practice on certain works to wash the face of firebrick work with a thin paste of some very refractory material—such as kaolin—in order to protect the firebricks from the direct action of the flue gases, &c., and quite recently a thin paste of carborundum and clay, or carborundum and silicate of soda has been more extensively used for the same purpose. So-called carborundum bricks have been put on the market, which have a coating of carborundum and clay fired on to the firebrick, and which are said to have a greatly extended life for certain purposes. It is probable that the carborundum gradually decomposes in the firing, leaving a thin coating of practically pure silica which forms a smooth, impervious and highly-refractory facing.

(J. B.*; W. B.*)

FIREFLY, a term popularly used for certain tropical American click-beetles (Pyrophorus), on account of their power of emitting light. The insects belong to the family Elateridae, whose characters are described under Coleoptera (q.v.). The genus Pyrophorus contains about ninety species, and is entirely confined to America and the West Indies, ranging from the southern United States to Argentina and Chile. Its species are locally known as cucujos. Except for a few species in the New Hebrides, New Caledonia and Fiji, the luminous Elateridae are unknown in the eastern hemisphere. The light proceeds from a pair of conspicuous smooth ovoid spots on the pronotum and from an area beneath the base of the abdomen. Beneath the cuticle of these regions are situated the luminous organs, consisting of layers of cells which may be regarded as a specialized portion of the fat-body. Both the male and female fireflies emit light, as well as their larvae and eggs, the egg being luminous even while still in the ovary. The inhabitants of tropical America sometimes keep fireflies in small cages for purposes of illumination, or make use of the insects for personal adornment.

The name “firefly” is often applied also to luminous beetles of the family Lampyridae, to which the well-known glow-worm belongs.

FIRE-IRONS, the implements for tending a fire. Usually they consist of poker, tongs and shovel, and they are most frequently of iron, steel, or brass, or partly of one and partly of another. The more elegant brass examples of the early part of the 19th century are much sought after for use with the brass fenders of that date. They were sometimes hung from an ornamental brass stand. The fire-irons of our own times are smaller in size and lighter in make than those of the best period.

FIRENZUOLA, AGNOLO (1493-c. 1545), Italian poet and littérateur, was born at Florence on the 28th of September 1493. The family name was taken from the town of Firenzuola, situated at the foot of the Apennines, its original home. The grandfather of Agnolo had obtained the citizenship of Florence and transmitted it to his family. Agnolo was destined for the profession of the law, and pursued his studies first at Siena and afterwards at Perugia. There he became the associate of the notorious Pietro Aretino, whose foul life he was not ashamed to make the model of his own. They met again at Rome, where Firenzuola practised for a time the profession of an advocate, but with little success. It is asserted by all his biographers that while still a young man he assumed the monastic dress at Vallombrosa, and that he afterwards held successively two abbacies. Tiraboschi alone ventures to doubt this account, partly on the ground of Firenzuola’s licentiousness, and partly on the ground of absence of evidence; but his arguments are not held to be conclusive. Firenzuola left Rome after the death of Pope Clement VII., and after spending some time at Florence, settled at Prato as abbot of San Salvatore. His writings, of which a collected edition was published in 1548, are partly in prose and partly in verse, and belong to the lighter classes of literature. Among the prose works are—Discorsi degli animali, imitations of Oriental and Aesopian fables, of which there are two French translations; Dialogo delle bellezze delle donne, also translated into French; Ragionamenti amorosi, a series of short tales in the manner of Boccaccio, rivalling him in elegance and in licentiousness; Discacciamento delle nuove lettere, a controversial piece against Trissino’s proposal to introduce new letters into the Italian alphabet; a free version or adaptation of The Golden Ass of Apuleius, which became a favourite book and passed through many editions; and two comedies, I Lucidi, an imitation of the Menaechmi of Plautus, and La Trinuzia, which in some points resembles the Calandria of Cardinal Bibbiena. His poems are chiefly satirical and burlesque. All his works are esteemed as models of literary excellence, and are cited as authorities in the vocabulary of the Accademia della Crusca. The date of Firenzuola’s death is only approximately ascertained. He had been dead several years when the first edition of his writings appeared (1548).

His works have been very frequently republished, separately and in collected editions. A convenient reprint of the whole was issued at Florence in 2 vols. in 1848.

FIRESHIP, a vessel laden with combustibles, floated down on an enemy to set him on fire. Fireships were used in antiquity, and in the middle ages. The highly successful employment of one by the defenders of Antwerp when besieged by the prince of Parma in 1585 brought them into prominent notice, and they were used to drive the Armada from its anchorage at Gravelines in 1588. They continued to be used, sometimes with great effect, as late as the first quarter of the 19th century. Thus in 1809 fireships designed by Lord Cochrane (earl of Dundonald) were employed against the French ships at anchor in the Basque Roads; and in the War of Greek Independence the successes of the Greek fireships against the Ottoman navy, and the consequent demoralization of the ill-disciplined Turkish crews, largely contributed to secure for the insurgents the command of the sea. In general, however, it was found that fireships hampered the movements of a fleet, were easily sunk by an enemy’s fire, or towed aside by his boats, while a premature explosion was frequently fatal to the men who had to place them in position. They were made by building “a fire chamber” between the decks from the forecastle to a bulkhead constructed abaft the mainmast. This space was filled with resin, pitch, tallow and tar, together with gunpowder in iron vessels. The gunpowder and combustibles were connected by trains of powder, and by bundles of brushwood called “bavins.” When a fireship was to be used, a body of picked men steered her down on the enemy, and when close enough set her alight, and escaped in a boat which was towed astern. As the service was peculiarly dangerous a reward of £100, or in lieu of it a gold chain with a medal to be worn as a mark of honour, was granted in the British navy to the successful captain of a fireship. A rank of capitaine de brûlot existed in the French navy of Louis XIV., and was next to the full captain—or capitaine de vaisseau.

FIRE-WALKING, a religious ceremony common to many races. The origin and meaning of the custom is very obscure, but it is shown to have been widespread in all ages. It still survives in Bulgaria, Trinidad, Fiji Islands, Tahiti, India, the Straits Settlements, Mauritius, and it is said Japan. The details of its ritual and its objects vary in different lands, but the essential feature of the rite, the passing of priests, fakirs, and devotees barefoot over heated stones or smouldering ashes is always the same. Fire-walking was usually associated with the spring festivals and was believed to ensure a bountiful harvest. Such was the Chinese vernal festival of fire. In the time of Kublai Khan the Taoist Buddhists held great festivals to the “High Emperor of the Sombre Heavens” and walked through a great fire barefoot, preceded by their priests bearing images of their gods in their arms. Though they were severely burned, these devotees held that they would pass unscathed if they had faith. J.G. Frazer (Golden Bough, vol. iii. p. 307) describes the ceremony in the Chinese province of Fo-kien. The chief performers are labourers who must fast for three days and observe chastity for a week. During this time they are taught in the temple how they are to perform their task. On the eve of the festival a huge brazier of charcoal, often twenty feet wide, is prepared in front of the temple of the great god. At sunrise the next morning the brazier is lighted. A Taoist priest throws a mixture of salt and rice into the flames. The two exorcists, barefooted and followed by two peasants, traverse the fire again and again till it is somewhat beaten down. The trained performers then pass through with the image of the god. Frazer suggests that, as the essential feature of the rite is the carrying of the deity through the flames, the whole thing is sympathetic magic designed to give to the coming spring sunshine (the supposed divine emanation), that degree of heat which the image experiences. Frazer quotes Indian fire-walks, notably that of the Dosadhs, a low Indian caste in Behar and Chota Nagpur. On the fifth, tenth, and full moon days of three months in the year, the priest walks over a narrow trench filled with smouldering wood ashes. The Bhuiyas, a Dravidian tribe of Mirzapur, worship their tribal hero Bir by a like performance, and they declare that the walker who is really “possessed” by the hero feels no pain. For fire-walking as observed in the Madras presidency see Indian Antiquary, vii. (1878) p. 126; iii. (1874) pp. 6-8; ii. (1873) p. 190 seq. In Fiji the ceremony is called vilavilarevo, and according to an eyewitness a number of natives walk unharmed across and among white-hot stones which form the pavement of a huge native oven. In Tahiti priests perform the rite. In April 1899 an Englishman saw a fire-walk in Tokio (see The Field, May 20th, 1899). The fire was six yards long by six wide. The rite was in honour of a mountain god. The fire-walkers in Bulgaria are called Nistinares and the faculty is regarded as hereditary. They dance in the fire on the 21st of May, the feast of SS. Helena and Constantine. Huge fires of faggots are made, and when these burn down the Nistinares (who turn blue in the face) dance on the red-hot embers and utter prophecies, afterwards placing their feet in the muddy ground where libations of water have been poured.

The interesting part of fire-walking is the alleged immunity of the performers from burns. On this point authorities and eyewitnesses differ greatly. In a case in Fiji a handkerchief was thrown on to the stones when the first man leapt into the oven, and what remained of it snatched up as the last left the stones. Every fold that touched the stone was charred! In some countries a thick ointment is rubbed on the feet, but this is not usual, and the bulk of the reports certainly leave an impression that there is something still to be explained in the escape of the performers from shocking injuries. S.P. Langley, who witnessed a fire-walk in Tahiti, declares, however, that the whole rite as there practised is a mere symbolic farce (Nature for August 22nd, 1901).

For a full discussion of the subject with many eyewitnesses’ reports in extenso, see A. Lang, Magic and Religion (1901). See also Dr Gustav Oppert, Original Inhabitants of India, p. 480; W. Crooke, Introd. to Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India, p. 10 (1896); Folklore Journal for September 1895 and for 1903, vol. xiv. P. 87.

FIREWORKS. In modern times this term is principally associated with the art of “pyrotechny” (Gr. πῦρ, fire, and τέχνη, art), and confined to the production of pleasing scenic effects by means of fire and inflammable and explosive substances. But the history of the evolution of such displays is bound up with that of the use of such substances not only for scenic display but for exciting fear and for military purposes; and it is consequently complicated by our lack of exact knowledge as to the materials at the disposal of the ancients prior to the invention of gunpowder (see also the article Greek Fire). For the following historical account the term “fireworks” is therefore used in a rather general sense.

History.—It is usually stated that from very ancient times fireworks were known in China; it is, however, difficult to assign dates or quote trustworthy authorities. Pyrotechnic displays were certainly given in the Roman circus. While a passage in Manilius,1 who lived in the days of Augustus, seems to bear this interpretation, there is the definite evidence of Vopiscus2 that fireworks were performed for the emperor Carinus and later for the emperor Diocletian; and Claudian,3 writing in the 4th century, gives a poetical description of a set piece, where whirling wheels and dropping fountains of fire were displayed upon the pegma, a species of movable framework employed in the various spectacles presented in the circus. After the fall of the Western empire no mention of fireworks can be traced until the Crusaders carried back with them to Europe a knowledge of the incendiary compounds of the East, and gunpowder had made its appearance. Biringuccio,4 writing in 1540, says that at an anterior period it had been customary at Florence and Siena to represent a fable or story at the Feast of St John or at the Assumption, and that on these occasions stage properties, including effigies with wooden bodies and plaster limbs, were grouped upon lofty pedestals, and that these figures gave forth flames, whilst round about tubes or pipes were erected for projecting fire-balls into the air: but he adds that these shows were never heard of in his time except at Rome when a pope was elected or crowned. But if relinquished in Italy, fire festivals on the eve of St John were observed both in England and France; the custom was a very old one in the days of Queen Elizabeth,5 while De Frezier,6 writing in 1707, says it was commonly adhered to in his time, and that on one occasion the king of France himself set a light to the great Paris bonfire. Survivals of these curious rites have been noted quite recently in Scotland and Ireland.7 Early use also of fireworks was made in plays and pageants. Hell or hell’s mouth was represented by a gigantic head out of which flames were made to issue:8 in the river procession on the occasion of the marriage of Henry VII. and Elizabeth (1487) the “Bachelors’ Barge” carried a dragon spouting flames, and Hall relates that at the marriage of Anne Boleyn (1538) “there went before the lord mayor’s barge a foyst or wafter full of ordnance, which foyst also carried a great red dragon that spouted out wild fyre and round about were terrible monstrous and wild men casting fire and making a hideous noise.”9 These individuals were known as “green men.” Their clothing was green, they wore fantastic masks, and carried “fire clubs.” They were sometimes employed to clear the way at processions.10

Soon after the introduction of gunpowder the gunner and fireworker came into existence; at first they were not soldiers, but civilians who sometimes exercised military functions, and part of their duties was intimately connected with the preparation of fireworks both for peace and war. The emperor Charles V. brought his fireworks under definite regulations in 1535,11 and eventually other countries did the same. The ignes triumphales were an early form of public fireworks. Scaffold poles were erected with trophies at their summits, while fixed around them were tiers of casks filled with combustibles, so that they presented the appearance of huge flaming trees; at their bases crouched dragons or other mythical beasts. With such a display Antwerp welcomed the archduke of Austria in 1550.12 Then the “fire combat” came into fashion. Helmets from which flames would issue were provided for the performers; there were also swords and clubs that would give out sparks at every stroke, lances with fiery points, and bucklers that when struck gave forth a detonation and a flame. A picture of a combat with weapons such as these will be found in Hanzelet’s Recueil de machines militaires (1620). In addition, the fireworker grew to be somewhat of a scenic artist who could devise a romantic background and fill it with shapes bizarre, beautiful or terrific; he had to make his castle, his cave or his rocky ravine, and people his stage with distressed damsel, errant knight or devouring dragon. Furthermore he had to give motion to the inanimate persons of the drama; thus his dragon would run down an incline on hidden wheels, be actuated by a rope, or be propelled by a rocket.13 In 1613 at the marriage of the prince palatine to the daughter of James, the pyrotechnic display was confided to four of the king’s gunners, who provided a fiery drama which included a giant, a dragon, a lady, St George, a conjurer, and an enchanted castle, jumbled up together after the approved fashion of the Spenserian legends.14 As time went on a more refined taste rejected the bizarre features of the old displays, artistic merit began to creep into the designs, and an effort was made to introduce something appropriate to the occasion. Thus Clarmer of Nuremberg, a well-known fire-worker, celebrated the capture of Rochelle (1613) by an adaptation of the Andromeda legend, where Rochelle was the rock, Andromeda the Catholic religion, the monster Heresy, and Perseus on his Pegasus the all-conquering Louis XIII.15 In the first half of the 17th century many books16 on fireworks appeared, which avoided the old grotesque ideas and advocated skill and finesse. “It is a rare thing,” says Nye (1648), “to represent a tree or fountain in the air.” The most celebrated work of them all was the Great Art of Artillery by Siemienowitz, which was considered important enough to be translated into English by order of the Board of Ordnance, nearly eighty years after it had appeared.17 The classic façade now came into fashion; on it and about it were placed emblematic figures, and disposed around were groups of rockets, Roman candles, &c., musket barrels for projecting stars, and mortars from which were fired shells called balloons, which were full of combustibles. The figures were carved out of wood which was soaped or waxed over and covered with papier mâché so that a skin was formed: this was cut vertically into two parts, removed from the wood, formed into a hollow figure, and filled with fireworks.

National fireworks now assumed a stately and dignified appearance, and for two centuries played a conspicuous part all over Europe in the public expression of thanksgiving or of triumph. Representations and sometimes accounts will be found in the British Museum18 of the more important English displays, from the coronation of James II. down to the peace rejoicings of 1856, during which period national fireworks were provided by the officials of the Ordnance. But since the days of Ranelagh and Vauxhall fireworks have become a subject of private enterprise, and the triumphs of such firms as Messrs Brock or Messrs Pain at the Crystal Palace and elsewhere have been without an official rival.

(J. R. J. J.)

Modern Fireworks.—In modern times the art of pyrotechny has been gradually improved by the work of specialists, who have had the advantage of being guided by the progress of scientific chemistry and mechanics. As in all such cases, however, science is useless without the aid of practical experience and acquired manual dexterity.

Many substances have a strong tendency to combine with oxygen, and will do so, in certain circumstances, so energetically as to render the products of the combination (which may be solid matter or gas) intensely hot and luminous. This is the general cause of the phenomenon known as fire. Its special character depends chiefly on the nature of the substances burned and on the manner in which the oxygen is supplied to them. As is well known, our atmosphere contains oxygen gas diluted with about four times its volume of nitrogen; and it is this oxygen which supports the combustion of our coal and candles. But it is not often that the pyrotechnist depends wholly upon atmospheric oxygen for his purposes; for the phenomena of combustion in it are too familiar, and too little capable of variation, to strike with wonder. Two cases, however, where he does so may be instanced, viz. the burning of magnesium powder and of lycopodium, both of which are used for the imitation of lightning in theatres. Nor does the pyrotechnist resort much to the use of pure oxygen, although very brilliant effects may be produced by burning various substances in glass jars filled with the gas. Indeed, the art could never have existed in anything like its present form had not certain solid substances become known which, containing oxygen in combination with other elements, are capable of being made to evolve large volumes of it at the moment it is required. The best examples of these solid oxidizing agents are potassium nitrate (nitre or saltpetre) and chlorate; and these are of the first importance in the manufacture of fireworks. If a portion of one of these salts be thoroughly powdered and mixed with the correct quantity of some suitable combustible body, also reduced to powder, the resulting mixture is capable of burning with more or less energy without any aid from atmospheric oxygen, since each small piece of fuel is in close juxtaposition to an available and sufficient store of the gas. All that is required is that the liberation of the oxygen from the solid particles which contain it shall be started by the application of heat from without, and the action then goes on unaided. This, then, is the fundamental fact of pyrotechny—that, with proper attention to the chemical nature of the substances employed, solid mixtures (compositions or fuses) may be prepared which contain within themselves all that is essential for the production of fire.

If nitre and potassium chlorate, with other salts of nitric and chloric acids and a few similar compounds, be grouped together as oxidizing agents, most of the other materials used in making firework compositions may be classed as oxidizable substances. Every composition must contain at least one sample of each class: usually there are present more than one oxidizable substance, and very often more than one oxidizing agent. In all cases the proportions by weight which the ingredients of a mixture bear to one another is a matter of much importance, for it greatly affects the manner and rate of combustion. The most important oxidizable substances employed are charcoal and sulphur. These two, it is well known, when properly mixed in certain proportions with the oxidizing agent nitre, constitute gunpowder; and gunpowder plays an important part in the construction of most fireworks. It is sometimes employed alone, when a strong explosion is required; but more commonly it is mixed with one or more of its own ingredients and with other matters. In addition to charcoal and sulphur, the following oxidizable substances are more or less employed:—many compounds of carbon, such as sugar, starch, resins, &c.; certain metallic compounds of sulphur, such as the sulphides of arsenic and antimony; a few of the metals themselves, such as iron, zinc, magnesium, antimony, copper. Of these metals iron (cast-iron and steel) is more used than any of the others. They are all employed in the form of powder or small filings. They do not contribute much to the burning power of the composition; but when it is ignited they become intensely heated and are discharged into the air, where they oxidize more or less completely and cause brilliant sparks and scintillations.

Sand, potassium sulphate, calomel and some other substances, which neither combine with oxygen nor supply it, are sometimes employed as ingredients of the compositions in order to influence the character of the fire. This may be modified in many ways. Thus the rate of combustion may be altered so as to give anything from an instantaneous explosion to a slow fire lasting many minutes. The flame may be clear, smoky, or charged with glowing sparks. But the most important characteristic of a fire—one to which great attention is paid by pyrotechnists—is its colour, which may be varied through the different shades and combinations of yellow, red, green and blue. These colours are imparted to the flame by the presence in it of the heated vapours of certain metals, of which the following are the most important:—sodium, which gives a yellow colour; calcium, red; strontium, crimson; barium, green; copper, green or blue, according to circumstances. Suitable salts of these metals are much used as ingredients of fire mixtures; and they are decomposed and volatilized during the process of combustion. Very often the chlorates and nitrates are employed, as they serve the double purpose of supplying oxygen and of imparting colour to the flame.

The number of fire mixtures actually employed is very great, for the requirements of each variety of firework, and of almost each size of each variety, are different. Moreover, every pyrotechnist has his own taste in the matter of compositions. They are capable, however, of being classified according to the nature of the work to which they are suited. Thus there are rocket-fuses, gerbe-fuses, squib-fuses, star-compositions, &c.; and, in addition, there are a few which are essential in the construction of most fireworks, whatever the main composition may be. Such are the starting-powder, which first catches the fire, the bursting-powder, which causes the final explosion, and the quick-match (cotton-wick, dried after being saturated with a paste of gunpowder and starch), employed for connecting parts of the more complicated works and carrying the fire from one to another. Of the general nature of fuses an idea may be had from the following two examples, which are selected at hazard from among the numerous recipes for making, respectively, tourbillion fire and green stars:—

Tourbillion. Green Stars.

Meal gunpowder 24 parts. Potassium chlorate 16 parts.

Nitre 10 ” Barium nitrate 48 ”

Sulphur 7 ” Sulphur 12 ”

Charcoal 4 ” Charcoal 1 ”

Steel filings 8 ” Shellac 5 ”

Calomel 8 ”

Copper sulphide 2 ”

Although the making of compositions is of the first importance, it is not the only operation with which the pyrotechnist has to do; for the construction of the cases in which they are to be packed, and the actual processes of packing and finishing, require much care and dexterity. These cases are made of paper or pasteboard, and are generally of a cylindrical shape. In size they vary greatly, according to the effect which it is desired to produce. The relations of length to thickness, of internal to external diameter, and of these to the size of the openings for discharge, are matters of extreme importance, and must always be attended to with almost mathematical exactness and considered in connexion with the nature of the composition which is to be used.

There is one very important property of fireworks that is due more to the mechanical structure of the cases and the manner in which they are filled than to the precise chemical character of the composition, i.e. their power of motion. Some are so constructed that the piece is kept at rest and the only motion possible is that of the flame and sparks which escape during combustion from the mouth of the case. Others, also fixed, contain, alternately with layers of some more ordinary compositions, balls or blocks of a special mixture cemented by some kind of varnish; and these stars, as they are called, shot into the air, one by one, like bullets from a gun, blaze and burst there with striking effect. But in many instances motion is imparted to the firework as a whole—to the case as well as to its contents. This motion, various as it is in detail, is almost entirely one of two kinds—rotatory motion round a fixed point, which may be in the centre of gravity of a single piece or that of a whole system of pieces, and free ascending motion through the air. In all cases the cause of motion is the same, viz. that large quantities of gaseous matter are formed by the combustion, that these can escape only at certain apertures, and that a backward pressure is necessarily exerted at the point opposite to them. When a large gun is discharged, it recoils a few feet. Movable fireworks may be regarded as very light guns loaded with heavy charges; and in them the recoil is therefore so much greater as to be the most noticeable feature of the discharge; and it only requires proper contrivances to make the piece fly through the air like a sky-rocket or revolve round a central axis like a Catherine wheel. Beauty of motion is hardly less important in pyrotechny than brilliancy of fire and variety of colour.

The following is a brief description of some of the forms of firework most employed:—

Fixed Fires.—Theatre fires consist of a slow composition which may be heaped in a conical pile on a tile or a flagstone and lit at the apex. They require no cases. Usually the fire is coloured—green, red or blue; and beautiful effects are obtained by illuminating buildings with it. It is also used on the stage; but, in that case, the composition must be such as to give no suffocating or poisonous fumes. Bengal lights are very similar, but are piled in saucers, covered with gummed paper, and lit by means of pieces of match. Marroons are small boxes wrapped round several times with lind cord and filled with a strong composition which explodes with a loud report. They are generally used in batteries, or in combination with some other form of firework. Squibs are straight cylindrical cases about 6 in. long, firmly closed at one end, tightly packed with a strong composition, and capped with touch-paper. Usually a little bursting-powder is put in before the ordinary composition, so that the fire is finished by an explosion. The character of the fire is, of course, susceptible of great variation in colour, &c. Crackers are characterized by the cases being doubled backwards and forwards several times, the folds being pressed close and secured by twine. One end is primed; and when this is lit the cracker burns with a hissing noise, and a loud report occurs every time the fire reaches a bend. If the cracker is placed on the ground, it will give a jump at each report; so that it cannot quite fairly be classed among the fixed fireworks. Roman candles are straight cylindrical cases filled with layers of composition and stars alternately. These stars are simply balls of some special composition, usually containing metallic filings, made up with gum and spirits of wine, cut to the required size and shape, dusted with gunpowder and dried. They are discharged like blazing bullets several feet into the air, and produce a beautiful effect, which may be enhanced by packing stars of differently coloured fire in one case. Gerbes are choked cases, not unlike Roman candles, but often of much larger size. Their fire spreads like a sheaf of wheat. They may be packed with variously coloured stars, which will rise 30 ft. or more. Lances are small straight cases charged with compositions like those used for making stars. They are mostly used in complex devices, for which purpose they are fixed with wires on suitable wooden frames. They are connected by leaders, i.e. by quick-match enclosed in paper tubes, so that they can be regulated to take fire all at the same time, singly, or in detachments, as may be desired. The devices and “set pieces” constructed in this way are often of an extremely elaborate character; and they include all the varieties of lettered designs, of fixed suns, fountains, palm-trees, waterfalls, mosaic work, Highland tartan, portraits, ships, &c.

Rotating Fireworks.—Pin or Catherine wheels are long paper cases filled with a composition by means of a funnel and packing-wire and afterwards wound round a disk of wood. This is fixed by a pin, sometimes vertically and sometimes horizontally; and the outer primed end of the spiral is lit. As the fire escapes the recoil causes the wheel to revolve in an opposite direction and often with considerable velocity. Pastiles are very similar in principle and construction. Instead of the case being wound in a spiral and made to revolve round its own centre point, it may be used as the engine to drive a wheel or other form of framework round in a circle. Many varied effects are thus produced, of which the fire-wheel is the simplest. Straight cases, filled with some fire-composition, are attached to the end of the spokes of a wheel or other mechanism capable of being rotated. They are all pointed in the same direction at an angle to the spokes, and they are connected together by leaders, so that each, as it burns out, fires the one next it. The pieces may be so chosen that brilliant effects of changing colour are produced; or various fire-wheels of different colours may be combined, revolving in different planes and different directions—some fast and some slowly. Bisecting wheels, plural wheels, caprice wheels, spiral wheels, are all more or less complicated forms; and it is possible to produce, by mechanism of this nature, a model in fire of the solar system.

Ascending Fireworks.—Tourbillions are fireworks so constructed as to ascend in the air and rotate at the same time, forming beautiful spiral curves of fire. The straight cylindrical case is closed at the centre and at the two ends with plugs of plaster of Paris, the composition occupying the intermediate parts. The fire finds vent by six holes pierced in the case. Two of these are placed close to the end, but at opposite sides, so that one end discharges to the right and the other to the left; and it is this which imparts the rotatory motion. The other holes are placed along the middle line of what is the under-surface of the case when it is laid horizontally on the ground; and these, discharging downwards, impart an upward motion to the whole. A cross piece of wood balances the tourbillion; and the quick-match and touch-paper are so arranged that combustion begins at the two ends simultaneously and does not reach the holes of ascension till after the rotation is fairly begun. The sky-rocket is generally considered the most beautiful of all fireworks; and it certainly is the one that requires most skill and science in its construction. It consists essentially of two parts,—the body and the head. The body is a straight cylinder of strong pasted paper and is choked at the lower end, so as to present only a narrow opening for the escape of the fire. The composition does not fill up the case entirely, for a central hollow conical bore extends from the choked mouth up the body for three-quarters of its length. This is an essential feature of the rocket. It allows of nearly the whole composition being fired at once; the result of which is that an enormous quantity of heated gases collects in the hollow bore, and the gases, forcing their way downwards through the narrow opening, urge the rocket up through the air. The top of the case is closed by a plaster-of-Paris plug. A hole passes through this and is filled with a fuse, which serves to communicate the fire to the head after the body is burned out. This head, which is made separately and fastened on after the body is packed, consists of a short cylindrical paper chamber with a conical top. It serves the double purpose of cutting a way through the air and of holding the garniture of stars, sparks, crackers, serpents, gold and silver rain, &c., which are scattered by bursting fire as soon as the rocket reaches the highest point of its path. A great variety of beautiful effects may be obtained by the exercise of ingenuity in the choice and construction of this garniture. Many of the best results have been obtained by unpublished methods which must be regarded as the secrets of the trade. The stick of the sky-rocket serves the purpose of guiding and balancing it in its flight; and its size must be accurately adapted to the dimensions of the case. In winged rockets the stick is replaced by cardboard wings, which act like the feathers of an arrow. A girandole is the simultaneous discharge of a large number of rockets (often from one hundred to two hundred), which either spread like a peacock’s tail or pierce the sky in all directions with rushing lines of fire. This is usually the final feat of a great pyrotechnic display.

See Chertier, Sur les feux d’artifice (Paris, 1841; 2nd ed., 1854); Mortimer, Manual of Pyrotechny (London, 1856); Tessier, Chimie pyrotechnique, ou traité pratique des feux colorés (Paris, 1858); Richardson and Watts, Chemical Technology, s.v. “Pyrotechny” (London, 1863-1867); Thomas Kentish, The Pyrotechnist’s Treasury (London, 1878); Websky, Luftfeuerwerkkunst (Leipzig, 1878).

(O. M.)

1 Manilius, Astronomica, lib. v., 438-443.

2 Vopiscus, Carus, Numerianus et Carinus, ch. xix.

3 Claudianus, De consulatu Manlii Theodori, 325-330.

4 Vanuzzio Biringuccio, Pyrotechnia.

5 Strutts, Sports and Pastimes of the English People.

6 De Frezier, Traité des feux d’artifice (1707 and 1747).

7 Notes and Queries, series 5, vol. ix. p. 140, and series 8, vol. ii. pp. 145 and 254.

8 J.B. Nichols & Sons, London Pageants.

9 Hall’s Chronicles.

10 J. Bate, Mysteries of Nature and Art (1635). This contains a picture of a green man.

11 Geschichte des Feuerwerkswesen (Berlin, 1887). The Jubilee pamphlet of the Brandenburg Artillery.

12 See “Fairholts’ Collection” bequeathed to the Royal Society of Antiquaries.

13 Journal of the Royal Artillery, vol. xxxii. No. 11.

14 Somers’ Tracts, vol. iii.

15 De Frezier.

16 Diego Ufano, Artillery, in Spanish (1614); Master Gunner Norton, The Gunner and The Gunner’s Dialogue (1628); F. de Malthe (Malthus), Artificial Fireworks, in French and English (1628); “Hanzelet,” Recueil de plusieurs machines militaires et feux artificiels pour la guerre et récréation (1620 and 1630); Furttenback, master gunner of Bavaria, Halinitro Pyrobolio, in German (1627); (John Babington Matross, Pyrotechnia, 1635); Nye, master gunner of Worcester, Art of Gunnery (Worcester, 1648); Casimir Siemienowitz, lieut.-general of the Ordnance to the king of Poland, The Great Art of Artillery, in French (1650).

17 Translated by George Shelvocke, 1727, by order of the surveyor-general of the Ordnance.

18 “Crace Collection” in the print-room; the King’s Prints and Drawings in the library. See also “The Connection of the Ordnance Department with National and Royal Fireworks,” R. A. Journal, vol. xxii. No. 11.

FIRM, an adjective originally indicating a dense or close consistency, hence steady, unshaken, unchanging or fixed. This word, in M. Eng. ferme, is derived through the French, from Lat. firmus. The medieval Latin substantive firma meant a fixed payment, either in the way of rent, composition for periodic payments, &c.; and this word, often represented by “firm” in translations of medieval documents, has produced the English “farm” (q.v.). From a late Latin use of firmare, to confirm by signature, firma occurs in many Romanic languages for a signature, and the English “firm” was thus used till the 18th century. From a transferred use came the meaning of a business house. In the Partnership Act 1890, persons who have entered into partnership with one another are called collectively a firm, and the name under which their business is carried on is called the firm-name.

FIRMAMENT, the sky, the heavens. In the Vulgate the word firmamentum, which means in classical Latin a strengthening or support (firmare, to make firm or strong) was used as the equivalent of στερέωμα (στερεόειν, to make firm or solid) in the LXX., which translates the Heb. rāqīya‘. The Hebrew probably signifies literally “expanse,” and is thus used of the expanse or vault of the sky, the verb from which it is derived meaning “to beat out.” In Syriac the verb means “to make firm,” and is the direct source of the Gr. στερέωμα and the Lat. firmamentum. In ancient astronomy the firmament was the eighth sphere containing the fixed stars surrounding the seven spheres of the planets.

FIRMAN (an adaptation of the Per. fermān, a mandate or patent, cognate with the Sanskrit pramāna, a measure, authority), an edict of an oriental sovereign, used specially to designate decrees, grants, passports, &c., issued by the sultan of Turkey and signed by one of his ministers. A decree bearing the sultan’s sign-manual and drawn up with special formalities is termed a hatti-sherif, Arabic words meaning a line, writing or command, and lofty, noble. A written decree of an Ottoman sultan is also termed an irade, the word being taken from the Arab. irādā, will, volition, order.

FIRMICUS, MATERNUS JULIUS, a Latin writer, who lived in the reign of Constantine and his successors. About the year 346 he composed a work entitled De erroribus profanarum religionum, which he inscribed to Constantius and Constans, the sons of Constantine, and which is still extant. In the first part (chs. 1-17) he attacks the false objects of worship among the Oriental cults; in the second (chs. 18-29) he discusses a number of formulae and rites connected with the mysteries. The whole tone of the work is fanatical and declamatory rather than argumentative, and is thus in such sharp contrast with the eight books on astronomy (Libri VIII. Matheseos) bearing the same author’s name, that the two works have usually been attributed to different writers. Mommsen (Hermes vol. 29, pp. 468-472) has, however, shown that the astronomy—a work interfused with an urbane Neoplatonic spirit—was composed about 336 and not in 354 as was formerly held. When we add to this the similarity of style, and the fact that each betrays a connexion with Sicily, there is the strongest reason for claiming the same author for the two books, though it shows that in the 4th century acceptance of Christianity did not always mean an advance in ethical standpoint.

The Christian work is preserved in a Palatine MS. in the Vatican library. It was first printed at Strassburg in 1562, and has been reprinted several times, both separately and along with the writings of Minucius Felix, Cyprian or Arnobius. The most correct editions are those by Conr. Bursian (Leipzig, 1856), and by C. Halm, in his Minucius Felix (Corp. Scr. Eccl. Lat. ii.), (Vienna, 1867). The Neoplatonist work was first printed by Aldus Manutius in 1501, and has often been reprinted. For full discussions see G. Ebert, Gesch. der chr. lat. Litt., ed. 1889, p. 129 ff.; O. Bardenhewer, Patrologie, ed. 1901, p. 354.

FIRMINY, a town of central France in the department of Loire, 8 m. S.W. of St Etienne by rail. Pop. (1906) 15,778. It has important coal mines known since the 14th century and extensive manufactures of iron and steel goods, including railway material, machinery and cannon. Fancy woollen hosiery is also manufactured.

FIRST-FOOT, in British folklore, especially that of the north and Scotland, the first person who crosses the threshold on Christmas or New Year’s Eve. Good or ill luck is believed to be brought the house by First-Foot, and a female First-Foot is regarded with dread. In Lancashire a light-haired man is as unlucky as a woman, and it became a custom for dark-haired males to hire themselves out to “take the New Year in.” In Worcestershire luck is ensured by stopping the first carol-singer who appears and leading him through the house. In Yorkshire it must always be a male who enters the house first, but his fairness is no objection. In Scotland first-footing was always more elaborate than in England, involving a subsequent entertainment.

FIRST OF JUNE, Battle of the. By this name we call the great naval victory won by Lord Howe over the French fleet of Admiral Villaret-Joyeuse, on the 1st of June 1794. No place name can be given to it, because the battle was fought 429 m. to the west of Ushant.

The French people were suffering much distress from the bad harvest of the previous year, and a great convoy of merchant ships laden with corn was expected from America. Admiral Vanstabel of the French navy had been sent to escort it with two ships of the line in December of 1793. He sailed with his charge from the Chesapeake on the 11th of April 1794. On the previous day six French ships of the line left Brest to meet Vanstabel in mid ocean. The British force designed to intercept the convoy was under Lord Howe, then in command of the channel fleet. He sailed from Spithead on the 2nd of May with 34 sail of the line and 15 smaller vessels, having under his charge nearly a hundred merchant ships which were to be seen clear of the Channel. On the 4th, when off the Lizard, the convoy was sent on its way protected by 8 line of battle ships and 6 or 7 frigates. Two of the line of battle ships were to accompany them throughout the voyage. The other six under Rear-admiral Montagu were to go as far as Cape Finisterre, and were then to cruise on the look-out for the French convoy between Cape Ortegal and Belle Isle. These detachments reduced the force under Lord Howe’s immediate command to 26 of the line and 7 frigates. On the 5th of May he was off Ushant, and sent frigates to reconnoitre the harbour of Brest. They reported to him that the main French fleet, which was under the command of Villaret-Joyeuse, and was of 25 sail of the line, was lying at anchor in the roads. Howe then sailed to the latitude on which the convoy was likely to be met with, knowing that if the French admiral came out it would be to meet the ships with the food and cover them from attack. To seek the convoy was therefore the most sure way of forcing Villaret-Joyeuse to action. Till the 18th the British fleet continued cruising in the Bay of Biscay. On the 19th Lord Howe returned to Ushant and again reconnoitred Brest. It was then seen that Villaret-Joyeuse had gone to sea. He had sailed with his whole force on the 16th and had passed close to the British fleet on the 17th, unseen in a fog. On the 19th the French admiral was informed by the “Patriote” (74) that Nielly had fallen in with, and had captured, the British frigate “Castor” (32), under Captain Thomas Troubridge, together with a convoy from Newfoundland. On the same day Villaret-Joyeuse captured part of a Dutch convoy of 53 sail from Lisbon. On the 19th a frigate detached by Admiral Montagu joined Howe. It brought information that Montagu had recaptured part of the Newfoundland convoy, and had learnt that Nielly was to join Vanstabel at sea, and that their combined force would be 9 sail of the line. Montagu himself had steered to cruise on the route of the convoy between the 45th and 47th degrees of north latitude. Howe now steered to meet his subordinate who, he considered, would be in danger from the main French fleet. On the 21st he recaptured some of the Dutch ships taken by Villaret-Joyeuse. From them he learnt that on the 19th the French fleet had been in latitude 47° 46′ N. and in longitude 11° 22′ N. and was steering westward. Judging that Montagu was too far to the south to be in peril from Villaret-Joyeuse, and considering him strong enough to perform the duty of intercepting the convoy, Lord Howe decided to pursue the main French fleet. The wind was changeable and the weather hazy. It was not till the 28th of May at 6.30 A.M. that the British fleet caught sight of the enemy in 47° 34′ N. and 13° 39′ W.

The wind was from the south-east, and the French were to windward. Villaret-Joyeuse bore down to a distance of 10 m. from the British, and then hauled to the wind on the port tack. It was difficult for the British fleet to force an action from leeward if the French were unwilling to engage. Lord Howe detached a light squadron of four ships, the “Bellerophon” (74), “Russel” (74), “Marlborough” (74), and “Thunderer” (74) under Rear-admiral Thomas Pasley, to attack the rear of the French line. Villaret-Joyeuse stood on and endeavoured to work to windward. In the course of the afternoon Rear-admiral Pasley’s ships began to come up with the last of the French line, the “Révolutionnaire” (110). A partial action took place which went on till after dark; other British vessels joined. The “Révolutionnaire” was so damaged that she was compelled to leave her fleet, and the British “Audacious” (74) was also crippled and compelled to return to port. The “Révolutionnaire” was accompanied by another liner. During the night the two fleets continued on the same course, and next day Howe renewed his attempts to force an action from leeward. He tacked his fleet in succession—his first ship tacking first and the rest in order—in the hope that he would be able to cut through the French rear and gain the weather-gage. Villaret-Joyeuse then turned all his ships together and again headed in the same direction as the British. This movement brought him nearer the British fleet, and another partial action took place between the van of each force. Seeing that the French admiral was not disposed to charge home, Howe at noon once more ordered his fleet to tack in succession. His signal was poorly obeyed by the van, and his object, which was to cut through the French line, was not at once achieved. But the admiral himself finally set an example by tacking his flagship, the “Queen Charlotte” (100), and passing through the French, two ships from the end of their line. He was followed by his fleet, and Villaret-Joyeuse, seeing the peril of the ships in his rear, wore all his ships together to help them. Both forces had been thrown into considerable confusion by these movements, but the British had gained the weather-gage. Villaret-Joyeuse was able to save the two ships cut off, but he had fallen to leeward and the power to force on a battle had passed to Lord Howe. During the 30th the fleets lost sight of one another for a time. The French, who had four ships crippled, had been joined by four others, and were again 26 in number, including the “Patriote.”

The 31st of May passed without a hostile meeting and in thick weather, but by the evening the British were close to windward of the French. As Howe, who had not full confidence in all his captains, did not wish for a night battle, he waited till the following morning, keeping the French under observation by frigates. On the 1st of June they were in the same relative positions, and at about a quarter past eight Howe bore down on the French, throwing his whole line on them at once from end to end, with orders to pass through from windward to leeward, and so to place the British ships on the enemy’s line of retreat. It was a very bold departure from the then established methods of fighting, and most honourable in a man of sixty-eight, who had been trained in the old school. Its essential merit was that it produced a close mêlée, in which the better average gunnery and seamanship of the British fleet would tell. Lord Howe’s orders were not fully obeyed by all his captains, but a signal victory was won,—six of the French line of battle ships were taken, and one, the “Vengeur,” sunk. The convoy escaped capture, having passed over the spot on which the action of the 20th May was fought, on the following day, and it anchored at Brest on the 3rd of June. Its safe arrival went far to console the French for their defeat. The failure to stop it was forgotten in England in the pleasure given by the victory.

See James’s Naval History, vol. i. (1837); and Tronde, Batailles navales de la France (1867).

(D. H.)

FIRTH, CHARLES HARDING (1857- ), British historian, was born at Sheffield on the 16th of March 1857, and was educated at Clifton College and at Balliol College, Oxford. At his university he took the Stanhope prize for an essay on the marquess Wellesley in 1877, became lecturer at Pembroke College in 1887, and fellow of All Souls College in 1901. He was Ford’s lecturer in English history in 1900, and became regius professor of modern history at Oxford in succession to F. York Powell in 1904. Firth’s historical work was almost entirely confined to English history during the time of the Great Civil War and the Commonwealth; and although he is somewhat overshadowed by S.R. Gardiner, a worker in the same field, his books are of great value to students of this period. The chief of them are: Life of the Duke of Newcastle (1886); Scotland and the Commonwealth (1895); Scotland and the Protectorate (1899); Narrative of General Venables (1900); Oliver Cromwell (1900); Cromwell’s Army (1902); and the standard edition of Ludlow’s Memoirs (1894). He also edited the Clarke Papers (1891-1901), and Mrs Hutchinson’s Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson (1885), and wrote an introduction to the Stuart Tracts (1903), besides contributions to the Dictionary of National Biography. In 1909 he published The Last Years of the Protectorate.

FIRTH, MARK (1819-1880), English steel manufacturer and philanthropist, was born at Sheffield on the 25th of April 1819, the son of a steel smelter. At the age of fourteen Mark, with his brother, left school to join their father in the foundry where he was employed, and ten years later the three together started a six-hole furnace of their own. The venture proved successful, and besides an extensive home business, they soon established a large American connexion. Their huge Norfolk works were erected at Sheffield in 1849, and still greater were afterwards acquired at Whittington in Derbyshire and others at Clay Wheels near Wadsley. The manufacture of steel blocks for ordnance was the principal feature of their business, and they produced also shot and heavy forgings. They also installed a plant for the production of steel cores for heavy guns, and for some time they supplied nearly all the metal used for gun making by the British government and a large proportion of that used by the French. On the death of his father in 1848 Mark Firth became the head of the firm. In 1869 he built and endowed “Mark Firth’s Almshouses” at Ranmoor near Sheffield, and in 1875, when mayor, he presented to his native place a freehold park of thirty-six acres. He founded and endowed Firth College, for lectures and classes in connexion with the extension of university education, which was opened in 1879. He died on the 28th of November 1880, and was accorded a public funeral.

FIRŪZABAD, a town of Persia, in the province of Fars, 72 m. S. of Shiraz, in 28° 51′ N. Pop. about 3000. It is situated in a fertile plain, 15 m. long and 7 m. broad, well watered by the river Khoja which flows through it from north to south. The town is surrounded by a mud wall and ditch. Three or four miles north-west of the town are the ruins of the ancient city and of a large building popularly known as the fire-temple of Ardashir, and beyond them on the face of the rock in the gorge through which the river enters the plain are two Sassanian bas-reliefs.

The river leaves the plain by a narrow gorge at the southern end, and according to Persian history it was there that Alexander the Great, when unable to capture the ancient city, built a dike across the gorge, thus damming up the water of the river and turning the plain into a lake and submerging the city and villages. The lake remained until the beginning of the 3rd century, when Ardashir, the first Sassanian monarch, drained it by destroying the dike. He built a new city, called it Gūr, and made it the capital of one of the five great provinces or divisions of Fars. Firuz (or Peroz, q.v.), one of Ardashir’s successors, called the district after his name Firūzabad (“the abode of Firuz”), but the name of the city remained Gūr until Azud ed Dowleh (Adod addaula) (949-982) changed it to its present name. He did this because he frequently resided at Gūr, and the name meaning also “a grave” gave rise to unpleasant allusions, for instance, “People who go to Gūr (grave) never return alive; our king goes to Gūr (the town) several times a year and is not dead yet.”

The district has twenty villages and produces much wheat and rice. It is said that the rice of Firūzabad bears sixty-fold.

(A. H.-S.)

FIRŪZKŪH, a small province of Persia, with a population of about 5000, paying a yearly revenue of about £500. Its chief place is a village of the same name picturesquely situated in a valley of the Elburz, about 90 m. east of Teheran, at an elevation of 6700 ft. and in 35° 46′ N. and 52° 48′ E. It has post and telegraph offices and a population of 2500. A precipitous cliff on the eastern side of the valley is surmounted by the ruins of an ancient fort popularly ascribed to Alexander the Great.

FISCHART, JOHANN (c. 1545-1591), German satirist and publicist, was born, probably at Strassburg (but according to some accounts at Mainz), in or about the year 1545, and was educated at Worms in the house of Kaspar Scheid, whom in the preface to his Eulenspiegel he mentions as his “cousin and preceptor.” He appears to have travelled in Italy, the Netherlands, France and England, and on his return to have taken the degree of doctor juris at Basel. From 1575 to 1581, within which period most of his works were written, he lived with, and was probably associated in the business of, his sister’s husband, Bernhard Jobin, a printer at Strassburg, who published many of his books. In 1581 Fischart was attached, as advocate to the Reichskammergericht (imperial court of appeal) at Spires, and in 1583, when he married, was appointed Amtmann (magistrate) at Forbach near Saarbrücken. Here he died in the winter of 1590-1591. Fischart wrote under various feigned names, such as Mentzer, Menzer, Reznem, Huldrich Elloposkleros, Jesuwalt Pickhart, Winhold Alkofribas Wüstblutus, Ulrich Mansehr von Treubach, and Im Fischen Gilt’s Mischen; and it is partly owing to this fact that there is doubt whether some of the works attributed to him are really his. More than 50 satirical works, however, both in prose and verse, remain authentic, among which are—Nachtrab oder Nebelkräh (1570), a satire against one Jakob Rabe, who had become a convert to the Roman Catholic Church; Von St Dominici des Predigermönchs und St Francisci Barfüssers artlichem Leben (1571), a poem with the expressive motto “Sie haben Nasen und riechen’s nit” (Ye have noses and smell it not), written to defend the Protestants against certain wicked accusations, one of which was that Luther held communion with the devil; Eulenspiegel Reimensweis (written 1571, published 1572); Aller Praktik Grossmutter (1572), after Rabelais’s Prognostication Pantagrueline; Flöh Haz, Weiber Traz (1573), in which he describes a battle between fleas and women; Affentheuerliche und ungeheuerliche Geschichtschrift vom Leben, Rhaten und Thaten der ... Helden und Herren Grandgusier Gargantoa und Pantagruel, also after Rabelais (1575, and again under the modified title, Naupengeheurliche Geschichtklitterung, 1577); Neue künstliche Figuren biblischer Historien (1576); Anmahnung zur christlichen Kinderzucht (1576); Das glückhafft Schiff von Zürich (1576, republished 1828, with an introduction by the poet Ludwig Uhland), a poem commemorating the adventure of a company of Zürich arquebusiers, who sailed from their native town to Strassburg in one day, and brought, as a proof of this feat, a kettleful of Hirsebrei (millet), which had been cooked in Zürich, still warm into Strassburg, and intended to illustrate the proverb “perseverance overcomes all difficulties”; Podagrammisch Trostbüchlein (1577); Philosophisch Ehzuchtbüchlein (1578); the celebrated Bienenkorb des heiligen römischen Immenschwarms, &c., a modification of the Dutch De roomsche Byen-Korf, by Philipp Marnix of St Aldegonde, published in 1579 and reprinted in 1847; Der heilig Brotkorb (1580), after Calvin’s Traité des reliques; Das vierhörnige Jesuiterhütlein, a rhymed satire against the Jesuits (1580); and a number of smaller poems. To Fischart also have been attributed some “Psalmen und geistliche Lieder” which appeared in a Strassburg hymn-book of 1576.

Fischart had studied not only the ancient literatures, but also those of Italy, France, the Netherlands and England. He was a lawyer, a theologian, a satirist and the most powerful Protestant publicist of the counter-reformation period; in politics he was a republican. Above all, he is a master of language, and was indefatigable with his pen. His satire was levelled mercilessly at all perversities in the public and private life of his time—at astrological superstition, scholastic pedantry, ancestral pride, but especially at the papal dignity and the lives of the priesthood and the Jesuits. He indulged in the wildest witticisms, the most abandoned caricature; but all this he did with a serious purpose. As a poet, he is characterized by the eloquence and picturesqueness of his style and the symbolical language he employed. Thirty years after Fischart’s death his writings, once so popular, were almost entirely forgotten. Recalled to the public attention by Johann Jakob Bodmer and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, it is only recently that his works have come to be a subject of investigation, and his position in German literature to be fully understood.

Freiherr von Meusebach, whose valuable collection of Fischart’s works has passed into the possession of the royal library in Berlin, deals in his Fischartstudien (Halle, 1879) with the great satirist. Fischart’s poetical works were published by Hermann Kurz in three volumes (Leipzig, 1866-1868); and selections by K. Goedeke (Leipzig, 1800) and by A. Hauffen in Kürschner’s Deutsche Nationalliteratur (Stuttgart, 1893); Die Geschichtklitterung and some minor writings appeared in Scheible’s Kloster, vols. 7 and 10 (Stuttgart, 1847-1848). Das glückhafft Schiff has been frequently reprinted, critical edition by J. Baechtold (1880). See for further biographical details, Erich Schmidt in the Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, vol. 7; A.F.C. Vilmar in Ersch and Gruber’s Encyclopaedie; W. Wackernagel, Johann Fischart von Strassburg und Basels Anteil an ihm (2nd ed., Basel, 1875); P. Besson, Étude sur Jean Fischart (Paris, 1889); and A. Hauffen, “Fischart-Studien” (in Euphorion, 1896-1909).

FISCHER, EMIL (1852- ), German chemist, was born at Euskirchen, in Rhenish Prussia, on the 9th of October 1852, his father being a merchant and manufacturer. After studying chemistry at Bonn, he migrated to Strassburg, where he graduated as Ph.D. in 1874. He then acted as assistant to Adolf von Baeyer at Munich for eight years, after which he was appointed to the chair of chemistry successively at Erlangen (1882) and Würzburg (1885). In 1892 he succeeded A.W. von Hofmann as professor of chemistry at Berlin. Emil Fischer devoted himself entirely to organic chemistry, and his investigations are characterized by an originality of idea and readiness of resource which make him the master of this branch of experimental chemistry. In his hands no substance seemed too complex to admit of analysis or of synthesis; and the more intricate and involved the subjects of his investigations the more strongly shown is the conspicuous skill in pulling, as it were, atom from atom, until the molecule stood revealed, and, this accomplished, the same skill combined atom with atom until the molecule was regenerated. His forte was to enter fields where others had done little except break the ground; and his researches in many cases completely elucidated the problem in hand, and where the solution was not entire, his methods and results almost always contained the key to the situation.

In 1875, the year following his engagement with von Baeyer, he published his discovery of the organic derivatives of a new compound of hydrogen and nitrogen, which he named hydrazine (q.v.). He investigated both the aromatic and aliphatic derivatives, establishing their relation to the diazo compounds, and he perceived the readiness with which they entered into combination with other substances, giving origin to a wealth of hitherto unknown compounds. Of such condensation products undoubtedly the most important are the hydrazones, which result from the interaction with aldehydes and ketones. His observations, published in 1886, that such hydrazones, by treatment with hydrochloric acid or zinc chloride, yielded derivatives of indol, the pyrrol of the benzene series and the parent substance of indigo, were a valuable confirmation of the views advanced by his master, von Baeyer, on the subject of indigo and the many substances related to it. Of greater moment was his discovery that phenyl hydrazine reacted with the sugars to form substances which he named osazones, and which, being highly crystalline and readily formed, served to identify such carbohydrates more definitely than had been previously possible. He next turned to the rosaniline dyestuffs (the magenta of Sir W.H. Perkin), and in collaboration with his cousin Otto Fischer (b. 1852), then at Munich and afterwards professor at Erlangen, who has since identified himself mainly with the compounds of this and related groups, he published papers in 1878 and 1879 which indubitably established that these dyestuffs were derivatives of triphenyl methane. Fischer’s next research was concerned with compounds related to uric acid. Here the ground had been broken more especially by von Baeyer, but practically all our knowledge of the so-called purin group (the word purin appears to have been suggested by the phrase purum uricum) is due to Fischer. In 1881-1882 he published papers which established the formulae of uric acid, xanthine, caffeine, theobromine and some other compounds of this group. But his greatest work in this field was instituted in 1894, when he commenced his great series of papers, wherein the compounds above mentioned were all referred to a nitrogenous base, purin (q.v.). The base itself was obtained, but only after much difficulty; and an immense series of derivatives were prepared, some of which were patented in view of possible therapeutical applications.1 These researches were published in a collected form in 1907 with the title Untersuchungen in der Puringruppe (1882-1906). The first stage of his purin work successfully accomplished, he next attacked the sugar group. Here the pioneer work was again of little moment, and Fischer may be regarded as the prime investigator in this field. His researches may be taken as commencing in 1883; and the results are unparalleled in importance in the history of organic chemistry. The chemical complexity of these carbohydrates, and the difficulty with which they could be got into a manageable form—they generally appeared as syrups—occasioned much experimental difficulty; but these troubles were little in comparison with the complications due to stereochemical relations. However, Fischer synthesized fructose, glucose and a great number of other sugars, and having showed how to deduce, for instance, the formulae of the 16 stereoisomeric glucoses, he prepared several stereoisomerides, thereby completing a most brilliant experimental research, and simultaneously confirming the van’t Hoff theory of the asymmetric carbon atom (see Stereo-Isomerism). The study of the sugars brought in its train the necessity for examining the nature, properties and reactions of substances which bring about the decomposition known as fermentation (q.v.). Fischer attacked the problem presented by ferments and enzymes, and although we as yet know little of this complex subject, to Fischer is due at least one very important discovery, viz. that there exists some relation between the chemical constitution of a sugar and the ferment and enzyme which breaks it down. The magnitude of his researches in this field may be gauged by his collected papers, Untersuchungen über Kohlenhydrate und Fermente (1884-1908), pp. viii. + 912 (Berlin, 1909).