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81,000, and of sheep, mostly of improved breeds, 90,000. It is estimated that upwards of 20,000 swine are fed. Honey and wax are regular articles of exportation. There is no game besides hares and rabbits, but a great quantity of wild-fowl and poultry, especially geese. The fisheries are productive. The only minerals are freestone, chalk, and limestone. There are no manufacturing establishments; the peasantry however are industrious operatives under their own roofs, and make their own woollen and linen yarn, stockings, and clothing. The townspeople prepare leather and manufacture brandy. Gloves are made at Odense, and woollens and linens are printed at Svendborg. The exports of Fünen consist of corn, pease, brandy, apples, horses, oxen, butter, salted meat, tallow, hides, hops, linen, honey, and wax. Odense, which by its canal has a direct access to the sea, is the great trading mart of the island. There is a good road from Middelfahrt to this town; but the roads are in general very bad. The people of Fünen are, like their neighbours, somewhat indolent and shy of work, as well as phlegmatic: they are however an honest, sound-hearted race. Their religion is the Lutheran.

The principal towns in Fünen are Odense, the capital and episcopal residence, pleasantly situated, and reputed to be the most antient town in Denmark; in 55° 25' N. lat., and 10° 22′ E. long. It has about 1100 houses, and 8600 inhabitants. Here are a royal palace, built by Frederick IV., a townhall, four churches (of which that of St. Canute is a noble Gothic pile, erected eight centuries ago, and containing the mausolea of St. Canute, Erichslaf, John, and Christian III., kings of Denmark and Norway), a chapter seminary, gymnasium, theatre, two public libraries, hospital, house of correction, &c. Assens, on the western coast, at the entrance into the Little Belt, another old town, has an indifferent harbour, a townhall, one church, about 350 houses, and 2330 inhabitants. Bogense, on the north coast, the smallest town in the province, has one church, about 250 houses, and 1000 inhabitants. Kierteminde, beautifully situated on a bight of the Great Belt, which is crossed by a large wooden bridge, has one church, a school, two hospitals, about 260 houses, and 1500 inhabitants. Middelfahrt, on the Little Belt, has a town hall, church, hospital, school, about 240 houses, and 1300 inhabitants, and a ferry about a mile across to Snoghoi on the Jutland coast. Svendborg, the chief town of the bailiwick of this name, is at the south-eastern extremity of Fünen, on an arm of the Baltic which separates that island from Taasing; in 55° 5' N. lat. and 10° 38' E. long. It has two eburches, a townhall, three schools, about 350 houses, and 3400 inhabitants, and exports much grain, &c. Nyeborg, a fortified town on the eastern coast, contains the remains of the palace in which the kings of Denmark held their courts and national diets, with a church, townhall, several schools, a hospital and an infirmary, about 300 houses, and 2900 inhabitants. The Swedes were totally defeated by the Danes under its walls in 1659. And lastly, Faaborg, in the south-west, is a small town with about 260 houses and 1500 inhabitants, a handsome church, &c., and a good harbour on an arm of the Little Belt, protected at its entrance by the three islands of Lyöe, Avernaröe, and Biömöe.

FUNERAL, the performance of the rites of sepulture or burial; generally supposed to be derived from the Latin funis, a torch, because, at least in the Roman times, funerals were sometimes performed by torch-light. Others derive the word from phonos (póvoc), 'slaughter,' as designating death.

The Egyptians are among the earliest people of whose religions ceremonies we have authentic accounts, more particularly in what related to their dead. Upon this occasion the parents and friends of the deceased put on mourning habits, and abstained from gaiety and entertainments. The mourning lasted from forty to seventy days, during which time the body was embalmed; and, when the process was completed, placed in a sort of chest, which was afterwards preserved either in their houses or in the sepulchres of their ancestors. Before the dead were allowed to be deposited in a tomb, they underwent a solemn judgment, upon an unfavourable issue of which they were deprived of the rite of burial.

The mourning customs of the antient Jews can only be collected from an examination of the Prophets and other parts P. C., No. 660.

of Scripture. That they sometimes burnt the body is clear; but burial in a sepulchre was the more general fashion. The circumstances attending the burial of the dead among the modern Jews are minutely detailed by D. Levi, in his Succinct Account' of their Rites and Ceremonies, p. 162170.

The funeral rites of the Greeks and Romans have been collected with great research by Guichard in his Funé railles, et diverses Manières d'ensevelir des Romains, Grecs, et autres Nations,' 4to., Lyon, 1581; by Meursius, in his treatise 'De Funere Græcorum et Romanorum,' 12mo., Hag. Com. 1604; by Gutherius, De Jure Manium, seu de Ritu, More, et Legibus prisci Funeris,' 12mo., Par., 1613, reprinted in 4to., 1615, and again in 8vo., Lips., 1671; and by Kirchman, De Funeribus Romanorum Libri IV.,' 12mo., Hamb., 1605, and Lugd. Bat., 1672. See also the Ceremonies Funèbres de toutes Nations,' par le Sr. Maret, 12mo., Par., 1677.

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In the religious creed both of the Greeks and Romans, sepulture was peculiarly an act of piety toward the dead, without which it was supposed the departed spirit could not reach a place of rest. To be deprived of the proper rites was considered the greatest misfortune. The funeral rites of the Greeks and Romans were in many respects similar, and among both nations the practice prevailed of burning the dead and collecting the ashes in urns. In the case of public funerals, according to Servius's Commentary on Virgil, the deceased was kept seven or eight days, and every day washed with hot water, or sometimes with oil, that in case he were only in a slumber he might be waked; and at stated intervals his friends meeting made a shout with the same view: this was called conclamatio. On the seventh day, if no signs of life appeared, he was dressed and placed on a couch in the vestibule, with the feet outwards, as if about to take his departure. In the course of these seven days, an altar was raised near the bed-side, called acerra, on which the friends offered incense. The scene here described is frequently represented in antient bas-reliefs. (See the Townley Marbles, vol. ii., pp. 167, 228, &c.) On the seventh day the last conclamatio' ended, when the couch and body were carried to the rostra, where the nearest of kin pronounced the funeral oration, and afterwards to the funeral pile. The body having been consumed, the ashes were gathered, inclosed in an urn, and finally laid in the sepulchre or tomb. An apotheosis or canonization was frequently part of the funeral ceremony of the emperor.

The Magi among the Medes and Persians neither burned nor buried their dead, but left them to birds of prey or dogs. (Herod. i., 140; Strabo, 735, 746.) Chardin, in his Travels,' vol. ii., p. 186, has given a full description of a modern Persian cemetery; and Niebuhr describes the Parsees near Bombay as still exposing their dead after the antient fashion mentioned in Herodotus. (Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung, ii., 50.) Tacitus, in his treatise 'De Moribus Germanorum,' (c. 27) notices the simplicity of the funerals among the antient Germans. Like the Romans, they burned their dead. The things which a German valued most were his arms and his horse: these were added to the funeral pile, with a persuasion that the deceased would have the same pursuits in his new state of existence.

In the tomb of Childeric, king of the Franks, his spear, his sword, with his other warlike weapons, and even his horse's head, were found. (See Montfaucon, Monumens de la Monarchie Françoise, tom. i., p. 10.)

Lafitau, Charlevoix, and other travellers describe the same notions of a future state and the same funeral ceremonies as prevalent among the savages of America. Dr. Robertson (Hist. of Amer., vol. ii., b. 4) says, as they imagine that departed spirits begin their career anew in the world whither they are gone, they bury together with the bodies of the dead, their bow, their arrows, and other weapons used in hunting or war; they deposit in their tomb the skins or stuffs of which they make garments, Indian corn, venison, domestic utensils, and whatever is reckoned among the necessaries in their simple mode of life.

For the funeral rites of the early Christians, the reader may consult Gretser De Funere Christiano,' 4to., Ingolst., 1611; and he may learn the customs of a later period from Durand, who wrote his 'Rationale Divinorum Officiorum' in the twelfth century.

Brand, in his Popular Antiquities,' vol. ii., p. 139 to 212, has much upon the English ceremonials, beginning with VOL. XI.-D

Watching with the Dead,' called in the north of England | the Lake-Wake; he then proceeds with Laying out or streaking the Body;' setting salt or candles upon it; funeral entertainments; sin-eaters; mortuaries; following the corpse to the grave, and carrying evergreens, torches and lights at funerals; black used in mourning; the pall and under-bearers; doles and donations to the poor at funerals; church-yards; garlands in churches; and strewing flowers upon graves.

Strutt's Manners and Customs,' and Gough's 'Sepulchral Monuments of Great Britain,' are other works to which the reader may refer for the antient funeral rites of England.

vicinity are mines of excellent coal, and some alum and vitriol works, as well as extensive vineyards. Large quantities of grain and tobacco are grown about Fünfkirchen, and much rape-seed is raised for making oil. The trade of the town is chiefly in the produce of the country, and in leather, which is manufactured here, and in great request throughout Hungary. There are mineral springs and baths. Some have supposed that the Roman colony Serbinum was planted on this spot. It was in the hands of the Turks from 1543 to 1686, and is the place of assembly for the provincial states.

FUNGI. Under this name botanists comprehend not only the various races of mushrooms, toadstools, and similar productions, but a large number of microscopic plants forming the appearances called mouldiness, mildew, smut, rust, brand, dry-rot, &c. Notice has been occasionally taken of these plants under their respective heads; in this place some general account will be given of them as a large natural order.

Funeral entertainments, called siliccrnia and conc ferales by the Romans, are of very antient date. They are still kept up in the north of England, and are there called arvals or arvils. Among some extracts from the Berkeley Manuscripts, we read that From the death of Maurice, the fourth Lord Berkeley, which happened June 8th, 1368, until his interment, the reeve of his manor of Hinton spent Nothing can well be more different than the extremes of three quarters and seven bushels of beans in fatting one development of Fungi, if the highest and the lowest forms hundred geese towards his funeral, and divers other reeves are contrasted; as for example, the large fleshy Boleti, which of manors the like, in geese, ducks, and other poultry.' inhabit the trunks of trees, and the microscopic mouldWalsingham, speaking of those who attended Richard II.'s plants, composed of threads much too delicate to be distinfuneral at Langley, in 1399, says, 'Nec erat qui eos in-guished by the naked eye. Nevertheless, it turns out upon vitaret ad prandium post laborem.' (Hist., p. 405.) Shak- inquiry that the latter is only a simple form of the former, speare has a well-known allusion to these feasts in Hamlet, or, in other words, that a Boletus is merely an enormous act i., sc. 2: aggregation of the vegetable tissue constituting a Mucor, developed upon the same plan, subject to the same influences, possessing a similar chemical character, and propagating by means which are altogether analogous.

'The funeral baked ments

Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.'

FUNERAL ORATIONS, discourses at funerals, are of great antiquity. The second book of Thucydides (c. 35, &c.) contains the laboured harangue delivered by Pericles at the solemn funeral ceremony instituted in honour of those Athenians who fell at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war; and other similar orations are extant in Greek. Augustus, at the early age of twelve, performed this office for his grandmother, and afterwards, when emperor, for the young Marcellus. Tacitus tells us that Nero pronounced a funeral oration over his wife Poppaa. Funeral orations were equally common over Christian martyrs; and Durand, in his Rationale,' already referred to, says, 'Ceterum priusquam corpus humo injecta contegatur, defunctus oratione funebri laudabatur. Fuller, in his Appeal of injured Innocence,' (part iii., p. 75,) and Misson, in his Travels in England,' show the continuance of this practice to the close of the seventeenth century. Gay alludes to it in his 'Dirge :'

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Twenty good shillings in a rag I laid,

Be ten the parson's for his sermon paid.'

The practice of delivering what may be properly called funeral orations, that is, addresses over the grave or at the interment of the dead by laymen, is common among the French, and is not unfrequent on great occasions among the people of the United States.

FUNERAL SHOWS or GAMES frequently followed public funerals among the Greeks and Romans. An early example of this occurs in the funeral games celebrated by Achilles in honour of Patroclus. (Homer, Iliad.) As the dead were supposed to be delighted with blood, various animals, especially such as the deceased had been fond of, were slaughtered at the pile, and thrown into it; and, in still ruder times, captives or slaves. Among the Romans, gladiators, called bustuarii, were made to fight. Junius Brutus exhibited gladiators at his father's funeral; and the Adelphi' of Terence, at a later period, was produced for the first time at the funeral of Lucius Emilius Paulus.

FÜNFKIRCHEN (in Hungarian Pecs, and in the national records Quinque Ecclesiæ), an old town in the county of Baranya in Hungary, and the seat of provincial administration, consists of a single street built at the foot of the lofty Mount Metshek, and at the edge of a rich and extensive valley, in 46° 5' N. lat. and 18° 16' E. long. Sovman, the Turkish sultan, who resided here, was wont to call it the Paradise of the Earth. The number of houses is about 2000, and the population is about 11,500. This town contains several handsome buildings, an episcopal palace, an ecclesiastical seminary, a gymnasium, a cathedral | standing on high ground (the site of a Roman castellum), and said to be the oldest in Hungary, a fine, massivelybuilt church of the Jesuits, several churches, some of which re formerly Turkish mosques, a public library and cabit of coins, two monasteries, two hospitals, &c. In the

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Viewed with reference to their whole extent, the plants of this order may be described as cellular or filamentous bodies, having a concentric mode of development, often when full grown almost amorphous, absorbing oxygen and exhaling carbonic acid, and propagating either by means of microscopic granules, which are lodged in particular receptacles, or by a dissolution of their whole tissue.

That they are cellular or filamentous may be easily ascertained by examining them with even an indifferent microscope; perhaps they might be even simply described as cellular, for their filamentous tissue seems nothing but cells drawn out. Sometimes, as in the genus Uredo, they consist of spheroidal cells, having little connection with each other, each cell containing propagating matter, and all separating from each other in the form of a fine powder when ripe: the smut in corn is of this nature; or, as in Cylindrosporium, the cells are truncated cylinders not adhering, so far as we can see, and separating in like manner when ripe. In plants of a more advanced organization, as the genus Monilia, the constituent cells are connected in series, which preserve their spherical form, and also contain their own reproductive matter; while in such plants as Aspergillas the cells partly combine into threads forming a stem, and partly preserve their spheroidal form for the fructification (fig. 24). From adhering in simple series, the structure of Fungi advances to a combination of such series into strata, whence result the various kinds of dry-rot, thick leathery expansions developing amidst decaying timber; a more complicated form is thence produced in the form of puff-balls, truflles, sclerotiums, and the like, in which a figure approaching that of a sphere is the result, the reproductive cells being indiscriminately confused in the interior of such plants; and finally, the organization is so much complicated, that, independently of a mere aggregation of tissue, we find envelopes of various kinds for the protection of the propagating mass, as in Agaricus and Geastrum, and special receptacles for the propagating matter, as in Boletus and numerous others.

It is probable however that in all Fungi, and certain that in most of them, the first development of the plant consists in what we here call a filamentous matter, which radiates from the centre formed by the spore (or seed), and that all the cellular spheroidal appearances are subsequently developed, more especially with a view to the dispersion of the species. We purposely say dispersion, not multiplication; for it is certain that the filamentous matter is quite as capable of multiplying a fungus as the cellular or spheroidal. This is partly proved by the common mushroom (Agaricus campestris), whose filamentous matter is commonly sold, under the name of spawn, for the artificial multiplication of that species in gardens: and more completely by some recent experiments of M. Audouin, who found that the

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Botrytis Bassiana would inoculate caterpillars and other larvæ as readily by minute portions of its spawn as by its spores or seedlike spheroidal particles. Although, however, there seems so much reason to ascribe the presence of a ilamentous spawn to all Fungi, yet it is seldom seen by the ordinary observer; for it develops out of sight, under ground, in the midst of the decaying matter on which Fungi so often appear, or through the very substance of living matter; and it is only the aggregation of spheroidal matter which we see. It would appear that for the growth of the former darkness is necessary, and that the latter is stimulated into existence by the action of a feeble quantity of light. To apply to these parts familiar and equivalent names, we should say that the stalk or stem radiates in dark damp situations, where it is buried from sight, and that the spheroidal part or fructification alone is able to develop beneath the light of day. The spawn of the mushroom is its stem, the mushroom itself is the fructification of the plant. It is generally believed that spiral cells are unknown in Fungi; Corda however, in his recent microscopical work on these plants (Icones Fungorum hucusque cognitorum, Prag. 1837), figures them in the genus Trichia, calling them elaters, and thus assigning them a nature analogous to that of the organs known by the same name in Jungermanniacea and Marchantiaceæ.

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a heath in Italy? Let any one take a few different kinds o seeds and commit them all to the ground in the same place; above ground and then perish, others will make an attempt some will spring up and flourish, others will just appear to germinate. This, an every-day event, is a sufficient explanation of the fact elicited by M. Dutrochet's experiment. Every kind of seed has something specific in its nature, in some special combination of heat, light and moisture, to be consequence of which it requires particular kinds of soil, and roused into a state of vegetation. As to the presence of the seeds of the Botrytis and Monilia in the vessels in which M. Dutrochet's experiments were conducted, it is perfectly easy to conceive that the seeds of such common plants exist everywhere suspended in the air or adhering to the cleanest vessels; they are so numerous as to baffle all powers of calculation; they are so minute as only to become so generally dispersed that it is difficult to conceive a place visible when aggregated in masses of many thousands, and in which they may not be reasonably supposed to exist. The very general existence of dry-rot is no weak evidence of this; but upon that subject we have already made what Fungi are among the most numerous of all plants in reobservations we have thought necessary. [DRY-ROT.] has as yet attempted to form an estimate of their numbers. gard to genera and species, so abundant indeed that no one The concentric growth of the filamentous stem or spawn Fries somewhere asserts that he had discovered above 2000 of Fungi may generally be witnessed in damp cellars, when within the compass of a square furlong in Sweden; even the they begin to grow without impediment upon the walls or European species of microscopic Fungi are but little known, decaying wood. Nothing is more common in such situa- if we are to judge from the numerous new kinds introduced tions than to see a beautiful white flocculent matter, which into Corda's recent work; and as for those which inhabit thing. It is generally asserted that they are uncommon in a breath almost will dissipate, spreading from a centre the tropics, our knowledge of them amounts to little or nonearly equally in all directions; such appearances, formerly called byssi, have been ascertained to be the spawn of va- tropical countries, but it is doubtful whether this is true, and rious kinds of Fungi, the fructification of which is probably at all events it appears from the evidence of a recent travelThey usually prefer damp, dark, unventilated places, such never developed. Evidence of the existence of a similar ler in that island that they are extremely abundant in Java. as cellars, vaults, the parts beneath decaying bark, the holmode of growth may be found when the spawn itself is not visible, as in fields where Fungi so often spring up in circles or rings; this arises from their stem having originally lows of trees, the denser parts of woods and forests, or any are most especially averse to dryness and bright light. Even spread circularly from its point of origin, and thrown up its decaying matter placed in a damp and shaded situation; and fructuication at the circumference of the circle so formed. Unlike other plants, Fungi, instead of purifying the air by when they appear upon the live leaves of trees, the stems of wet season of the year, late in the autumn, or in damp and robing it of its carbonic acid and restoring the oxygen, corn, or in similar situations, it is either at the damp and v.diate it by exhaling carbonic acid and absorbing oxygen. This has been proved experimentally by Dr. Marcet shaded places; and M. Audouin has shown experimentally of Geneva; and (Lindley, Intr. Bot., ed. 2, p. 324) will that when live insects are attacked by them it is only when probably explain the cause of Fungi being so universally they are confined iu damp unventilated places. (See Comples destitute of green colouring matter, which we know re-rendus, 2nd half-year, 1837.) In stations favourable to their sults from the decomposition of carbonic acid. It affords, multiplication they often commit extensive ravages, attackno doubt, an additional argument to those who believe ing and destroying timber, and producing decay in all kinds that Fungi are an intermediate kingdom between plants of vegetable matter of a soft and succulent nature; nor is it and animals; an idea which, like that of believing them to dead matter that their ravages are confined. They someto be atoms of vegetable matter combined by the ex- times fix themselves upon live insects, producing great havoc piring forces of nature,' we do not think it necessary among the silkworms in the manufactories of Italy, and are seriously to discuss. That they are not equivocally gene- probably the cause of a more extensive destruction of such name of mildew and blight they commit excessive damage rated is sufficiently proved by each species having its own animals than we at present have any idea of. Under the particular kind of seed or spore: a provision that would be perfectly unnecessary if the species sprang up out of decay- among living plants, as the farmer and orchardist know too ing matter by the mere action of particular combinations of well to their cost. external forces. To assert the existence of fortuitous creations in this class of plants is contrary not only to analogy but to the plainest evidence. The experimental observer may indeed discover that Fungi will regularly develop in one kind of chemical mixture and not in another: Dutrochet, for example, found that, if he acidulated a weak solution of white of egg, different species of Monilia rapidly formed upon it; while, if he rendered such a solution slightly alkaline, the genus Botrytis made its appearance, and that the solution in its simple state, neither alkalescent nor acidulated, produced no Fungi-a remarkable circumstance enough. But it would be too much to infer from such an experiment, that invisible germs of a filamentous plant may be created by the chemical action of an acid or an alkali on organic matter dissolved in water, and that they develop by virtue of the vital action which would be the necessary attribute of this chemico-organic molecular compound: on the contrary, the experiment only showed that the seeds of Fungi, like those of other plants, require special soils in which to grow; that Botrytis will not grow in acid mucilage, nor Monilia in Falkaline, nor either in mucilage in a neuter state. This is only what happens in plants of a more highly organized

Who ever saw the horned poppy of the sea-shore growing spontaneously in an inland field, the marsh marigold on a dry heath, or the reindeer lichen of Lapland on

The systematical arrangement of these plants has long exercised the ingenuity of botanists, who have to what are believed to be their natural relations. The contrived various schemes of classifying them according most celebrated of them is the mycological system of Fries. We cannot enter at any length into the details of this arrangement; but, as some difficulty attends the study of it, a short explanation of its fundamental principles may be useful. We shall therefore give a brief explanation of the leading features of this author's arrangement.

Fries in the first place divides the whole order into four Cohorts, distinguished by the following characters:is, the fungus opened out into a fructifying membrane, Cohort I. HYMENOMYCETES. A Hymenium present; that in which the spores (seeds) are placed, usually in the inside of asci (transparent simple cases). The texture wholly filamentous.

is, the fungus closed up; then perforated by a hole Cohort II. PYRENOMYCETES. A Perithecium present; that or irregular laceration, and enclosing a distinct kernel holding asci. Texture obscurely cellular; that of the stroma (receptacle) somewhat filamentous.

is, the fungus at first closed up and containing loose Cohort III. GASTEROMYCETES. A Peridium present; that D 2 spores, having no asci. The texture cellular.

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Cohort IV. CONIOMYCETES. Spores naked; that is, the fungus in its elementary state, eventually having the spores quite naked, although they may have been covered at first. The texture between filamentous and cellular; and the thallus often apparently absent. He then subdivides these cohorts each into four Orders, as follows:

Cohort I.-HYMENOMYCETES. Order 1. Pileati. The Hymenium on the under side and having asci (fig. 1, Agaricus).

Order 2. Elvellacei. The Hymenium on the upper side, and having asci (fig. 2, Morchella).

Order 3. Clavati. The Hymenium on both sides and having asci (fig. 3, Clavaria).

Order 4. Tremellini. Amorphous. The Hymenium confounded with the receptacle. Asci none. Membranous or gelatinous, with a filamentous texture (figs. 4, 5, Dacrymyces).

Order 1. Angiogastres. Spore-cases immersed in a recepOrder 2. Trichospermi. Spore cases naked, among filatacle distinct from the peridium. ments distinct from the peridium (figs. 17, 18, Scleroderma; fig. 13, 14, Areyria).

Cohort III.-GASTEROMYCETES.

Order 3. Trichodermacei. Spore-cases naked, covered by filaments constituting a peridium (figs. 15, 16, Spumaria).

Order 4. Sclerotiacei. Spore-cases immersed in a receptacle constituting the peridium (figs. 19, 20, Chato mium).

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Those who wish to become acquainted with this subject practically and in its details should consult, not any, but all of the following works:-Fries's Systema Mycologicum; Greville's Cryptogamic Flora; Neues System der Pilze; Corda's Icones; Endlichar's Genera Plantarum; and the last part of Hooker's British Flora. Sowerby's Fungi and Bulliard's Figures are standard works of reference for figures of these plants.

FUNGIA. [MADREPHYLLICA.]

FUNGIC ACID, an acid discovered by Braconnot in the juice of most Fungi. This acid exists partly in a free state in the periza nigra, and combined with potash in the boletus juglandis; it may be obtained from the juice of either of these vegetables by evaporating it to the consistence of a syrup, and treating it with alcohol. The portion insoluble in alcohol is the fungate of potash, which is to be decomposed by acetate of lead; the fungate of lead is to be decomposed by dilute sulphuric acid, or by hydrosulphuric acid, by which the lead is separated in the state of sulphate or sulphuret, and the fungic acid is left in solution.

This acid, when pure, is colourless, very sour, uncrystallizable, and deliquescent; with lime it forms a difficultly soluble salt, and with potash and soda deliquescent uncrystallizable salts; in these and some other properties it resembles impure malic acid. Some doubt exists as to whether it is a distinct acid.

FUNGIN, the name given by Braconnot to the fleshy substance of mushrooms, purified by digestion in a hot weak solution of alkali: it is whitish, soft, insipid, and but little elastic. It is not acted upon by water, alcohol, ather, dilute sulphuric acid, potash, or soda; it is dissolved by hydrochloric acid when heated, and it decomposes and is decomposed by nitric acid; the results are much gas, oxalic acid, a bitter yellow matter, and two fatty substances, one of which resembles wax, and the other suet; the latter is most abundant. It is a highly nutritious substance, and in many of its properties it strongly resembles lignin.

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This furnace is much employed in the reduction of metals, and in the assaying of copper and various other ores. The fuel used is either coke or a mixture of coke and charcoal.

The above cut represents the blast furnace which Mr. Faraday states in his Chemical Manipulation to have been for some years in use in the laboratory of the Royal Institution.

The exterior consists of a blue pot eighteen inches in height and thirteen inches in external diameter at the top. A small blue pot, of seven and a half inches internal diameaperture of five inches. This, when put into the larger pot, ter at the top, had the lower part cut off, so as to leave an rested upon its lower external edge, the tops of the two being level. The interval between them, which gradually FUNICULAR CURVE. [CATENARY.] increased from the lower to the upper part, was filled with FUNNEL, a hollow conical vessel with a small pipe pulverized glass-blowers' pots, to which water enough had issuing from its apex; it is an instrument much used in been added to moisten the powder, which was pressed down common and domestic life for conveying fluids into vessels of small apertures, and in chemical operations it is used by sticks, so as to make the whole a compact mass. A round not only for this purpose but for the important one of filter-grate was then dropped into the furnace, of such a size that space beneath it therefore constituted the air-chamber, and ing. [FILTER] For the mere purpose of the transfer from it rested an inch above the lower edge of the inner pot: the one vessel to another of such fluids as do not act upon the part above it the body of the furnace. The former is metals, funnels are commonly made of copper, pewter, or 7 inches from the grate to the bottom, and the latter 74 tin plate, and this is especially the case when they are em- inches from the grate to the top; a horizontal hole, conical ployed for conveying powders into bottles. When how-in form, and 13 inch in diameter on the exterior, was cut ever they are employed by the chemist with acid, alkaline, through the outer pot, forming an opening into the airor such other solutions as dissolve or corrode the metals, chamber at the lower part, its use being to receive the then funnels are made of earthen or stone ware, or of glass. nozzle of the bellows. Care must be taken that the furnace When used for filtration, especially in smaller and nicer is perfectly dry before it is used. operations, those of glass are always to be preferred, and of that kind called ribbed funnels, which, on account of the channels that their construction admits of between the filter and the funnel, allow of the more ready passage of the filtered fluid.

FURIES. [EUMENIDES.] FURLONG. [MEASURES.] FURNACE. The common grate is the most familiar example of a furnace. It is constructed of iron, and of various forms. The fuel is kept in it only by bars, in order to throw the heat out into the room. Indeed this is its principal use; and although its heat is barely sufficient to melt thin plate silver, yet many chemical operations may be performed in the common stove, and its flat sides or cheeks

furnish a lower degree of heat, on which evaporation and digestion may be effected.

For the smaller operations in chemistry a great variety of furnaces have been invented: these it would be quite useless to describe. We shall therefore mention only a few of the more important and generally employed. The annexed figure represents a wind furnace: in this a very high temperature is produced without the use of bellows, by means of a powerful draught. The chimney of a wind furnace should be narrow and high; the furnace, represented as connected with and projecting from the chimney, should be of such a height as to allow the operator to look into it; it should be from 12 to 15 inches square, and furnished with moveable bars and a cover; every part exposed to the fire should be constructed of the most refractory bricks. When a very strong heat is required the air should be conveyed by pipes directly from without-door to the ash-pit.

The fuel employed is coke, and the furnace is used with a pair of double bellows mounted on an iron frame, the furnace being raised upon an iron stool so as to bring the aperture of the air-chamber to a level with the nozzle of the

bellows.

a

This furnace is sufficiently powerful to melt pure iron in crucible in 12 or 15 minutes, the fire having been previously lighted. It will effect the fusion of rhodium, and even in a crucible heated by it; all kinds of crucibles, including pieces of pure platinum have sunk together into one button the Cornish and the Hessian, soften, fuse, and become 'frothy in it.

The assay or cupelling furnace is a small furnace made of iron, lined with refractory clay, and containing a muflle

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