941, 1022 Great famines in India, in which entire provinces and 1033
were depopulated and man was driven to cannibalism.
1005 Famine in England.
1016 Famine throughout Europe.
1064-1072 Seven years' famine in Egypt.
1148-1159 Eleven years' famine in India.
1162 Universal famine.
1344-1345 Great famine in India, when the Mogul emperor was unable to
obtain the necessaries for his household. The famine continued for
years and thousands upon thousands of people perished of want.
1396-1407 The Durga Devi famine in India, lasting twelve years.
1586 Famine in England which gave rise to the Poor Law system.
1661 Famine in India, when not a drop of rain fell for two years.
1769-1770 Great famine in Bengal, when a third of the population
(10,000,000 persons) perished.
1783 The Chalisa famine in India, which extended from the eastern edge
of the Benares province to Lahore and Jammu.
1790-1792 The Doji Bara, or skull famine, in India, so-called because
the people died in such numbers that they could not be buried.
According to tradition this was one of the severest famines ever
known. It extended over the whole of Bombay into Hyderabad and
affected the northern districts of Madras. Relief works were first
opened during this famine in Madras.
1838 Intense famine in North-West Provinces (United Provinces) of
India; 800,000 perished.
1846-1847 Famine in Ireland, due to the failure of the potato-crop.
Grants were made by parliament amounting to L10,000,000.
1861 Famine in North-West India.
1866 Famine in Bengal and Orissa; one million perished.
1869 Intense famine in Rajputana; one million and a half perished. The
government initiated the policy of saving life.
1874 Famine in Behar, India. Government relief in excess of the needs
of the people.
1876-1878 Famine in Bombay, Madras and Mysore; five millions perish.
Relief insufficient.
1877-1878 Severe famine in north China. Nine and a half millions said
to have perished.
1887-1889 Famine in China.
1891-1892 Famine in Russia.
1897 Famine in India. Government policy of saving life successful.
Mansion House fund L550,000.
1899-1901 Famine in India. One million people perished. Estimated loss
to India L50,000,000. The government spent L10,000,000 on relief, and
at one time there were 4,500,000 people on the relief works.
1905 Famine in Russia.
_Famines in India._--Owing to its tropical situation and its almost
entire dependence upon the monsoon rains, India is more liable than any
other country in the world to crop failures, which upon occasion deepen
into famine. Every year sufficient rain falls in India to secure an
abundant harvest if it were evenly distributed over the whole country;
but as a matter of fact the distribution is so uneven and so uncertain
that every year some district suffers from insufficient rainfall. In
fact, famine is, to all intents and purposes, endemic in India, and is a
problem to reckon with every year in some portion of that vast area. The
people depend so entirely upon agriculture, and the harvest is so
entirely destroyed by a single monsoon failure, that wherever a total
failure occurs the landless labourer is immediately thrown out of work
and remains out of work for the whole year. The question is thus one of
lack of employment, rather than lack of food. The food is there, perhaps
at a slightly enhanced price, but the unemployed labourer has no money
to buy it. The problem is very much the same as that met by the British
Poor Law system. Every year in England a poor rate of some L22,000,000
is expended for a population of 40 millions; while it is only in an
exceptional year in India that L10,000,000 are spent on a population of
300 millions.
Famines seem to recur in India at periodical intervals, which have been
held to be in some way dependent on the sun-spot period. Every five or
ten years the annual scarcity widens its area and becomes a recognized
famine; every fifty or a hundred years whole provinces are involved,
loss of life becomes widespread, and a great famine is recorded. In the
140 years since Warren Hastings initiated British rule in India, there
have been nineteen famines and five severe scarcities. For the period
preceding British rule the records have not been so well preserved, but
there is ample evidence to show that famine was just as frequent in its
incidence and infinitely more deadly in its effects under the native
rulers of India. In the great Bengal famine of 1769-1770, which occurred
shortly after the foundation of British rule, but while the native
officials were still in power, a third of the population, or ten
millions out of thirty millions, perished. From this it may be guessed
what occurred in the centuries under Mogul rule, when for years there
was no rain, when famine lasted for three, four or twelve years, and
entire cities were left without an inhabitant. In the famine of 1901,
the worst of recent years, the loss of life in British districts was 3%
of the population affected, as against 33% in the Bengal famine of 1770.
The native rulers of India seem to have made no effort to relieve the
sufferings of their subjects in times of famine; and even down to 1866
the British government had no settled famine policy. In that year the
Orissa famine awakened the public conscience, and the commission
presided over by Sir George Campbell laid down the lines upon which
subsequent famine-relief was organized. In the Rajputana famine of 1869
the humane principle of saving every possible life was first
enunciated. In the Behar famine of 1874 this principle was even carried
to an extreme, the cost was enormous, and the people were in danger of
being pauperized. The resulting reaction caused a regrettable loss of
life in the Madras and Bombay famine of 1876-1878; and the Famine
Commission of 1880, followed by those of 1898 and 1901, laid down the
principle that every possible life must be saved, but that the wages on
relief works must be so regulated in relation to the market rate of
wages as not to undermine the independence of the people. The experience
gained in the great famines of 1898 and 1901 has been garnered by these
commissions, and stored up in the "famine codes" of each separate
province, where rules are provided for the treatment of famine directly
a crop failure is seen to be probable. The first step is to open test
works; and directly they show the necessity, regular relief works are
established, in which the people may earn enough to keep them from
starvation, until the time comes to sow the next crop.
As a result of the severe famine of 1878-1879, Lord Lytton's government
instituted a form of insurance against famine known as the Famine
Insurance Grant. A sum of Rs. 1,500,000 was to be yearly set aside for
purposes of famine relief. This scheme has been widely misunderstood; it
has been assumed that an entirely separate fund was created, and that in
years when the specified sum was not paid into this fund, the purpose of
the government was not carried out. But Sir John Strachey, the author of
the scheme, explains in his book on India that the original intention
was nothing more than the annual application of surplus revenue, of the
indicated amount, to purposes of famine relief; and that when the
country was free from famine, this sum should be regularly devoted to
the discharge of debt, or to the prevention of debt which would
otherwise have been incurred for the construction of railways and
canals. The sum of 1-1/2 crores is regularly set aside for this purpose,
and is devoted as a rule to the construction of protective irrigation
works, and for investigating and preparing new projects falling under
the head of protective works.
The measures by which the government of India chiefly endeavours to
reduce the liability of the country to famine are the promotion of
railways; the extension of canal and well irrigation; the reclamation of
waste lands, with the establishment of fuel and fodder reserves; the
introduction of agricultural improvements; the multiplication of
industries; emigration; and finally the improvement where necessary of
the revenue and rent systems. In times of famine the function of the
railways in distributing the grain is just as important as the function
of the irrigation-canals in increasing the amount grown. There is always
enough grain within the boundaries of India for the needs of the people;
the only difficulty is to transport it to the tract where it is required
at a particular moment. Owing to the extension of railways, in the
famines of 1898 and 1901 there was never any dearth of food in any
famine-stricken tract; and the only difficulty was to find enough
rolling-stock to cope with the demand. Irrigation protects large tracts
against famine, and has immensely increased the wheat output of the
Punjab; the Irrigation Commission of 1903 recommended the addition of
6-1/2 million acres to the irrigated area of India, and that
recommendation is being carried out at an annual cost of 1-1/2 millions
sterling for twenty years, but at the end of that time the list of works
that will return a lucrative interest on capital will be practically
exhausted. Local conditions do not make irrigation everywhere possible.
As five-sixths of the whole population of India are dependent upon the
land, any failure, of agriculture becomes a national calamity. If there
were more industries and manufactures in India, the dependence on the
land would not be so great and the liability to lack of occupation would
not be so uniform in any particular district. The remedy for this is the
extension of factories and home industries; but European capital is
difficult to obtain in India, and the native capitalist prefers to hoard
his rupees. The extension of industries, therefore, is a work of time.
It is sometimes alleged by native Indian politicians that famines are
growing worse under British rule, because India is becoming exhausted by
an excessive land revenue, a civil service too expensive for her needs,
military expenditure on imperial objects, and the annual drain of some
L15,000,000 for "home charges." The reply to this indictment is that the
British land revenue is L16,000,000 annually, whereas Aurangzeb's over a
smaller area, allowing for the difference in the value of the rupee, was
L110,000,000; though the Indian Civil Service is expensive, its cost is
more than covered by the fact that India, under British guarantee,
obtains her loans at 3-1/2% as against 10% or more paid by native
rulers; though India has a heavy military burden, she pays no
contribution to the British navy, which protects her seaboard from
invasion; the drain of the home charges cannot be very great, as India
annually absorbs 6 millions sterling of the precious metals; in
1899-1900, a year of famine, the net imports of gold and silver were 130
millions. Finally, it is estimated by the census commissioners that in
the famine of 1901 three million people died in the native states and
only one million in British territory.
See Cornelius Walford, "On the Famines of the World, Past and Present"
(_Journal of the Statistical Society_, 1878-1879); Romesh C. Dutt,
_Famines in India_ (1900); Robert Wallace, _Famine in India_ (1900);
George Campbell, _Famines in India_ (1769-1788); _Chronological List
of Famines for all India_ (Madras Administration Report, 1885); J.C.
Geddes, _Administrative Experience in Former Famines_ (1874);
_Statistical Atlas of India_ (1895); F.H.S. Merewether, _Through the
Famine Districts of India_ (1898); G.W. Forrest, _The Famine in India_
(1898); E.A.B. Hodgetts, _In the Track of the Russian Famine_ (1892);
W.B. Steveni, _Through Famine-stricken Russia_ (1892); Vaughan Nash,
_The Great Famine_ (1900); Lady Hope, _Sir Arthur Cotton_ (1900);
_Lord Curzon in India_ (1905); T.W. Holderness, _Narrative of the
Famine of 1896-1897_ (c. 8812 of 1898); the Indian Famine Commission
reports of 1880, 1898 and 1900; report of the Indian Irrigation
Commission (1901-1903); C.W. McMinn, _Famine Truths, Half-Truths,
Untruths_ (1902); Theodore Morison, _Indian Industrial Organization_
(1906).
FAN (Lat. _vannus_; Fr. _eventail_), in its usually restricted meaning,
a light implement used for giving motion to the air in order to produce
coolness to the face; the word is, however, also applied to the
winnowing fan, for separating chaff from grain, and to various
engineering appliances for ventilation, &c. _Ventilabrum_ and
_flabellum_ are names under which ecclesiastical fans are mentioned in
old inventories. Fans for cooling the face have been in use in hot
climates from remote ages. A bas-relief in the British Museum represents
Sennacherib with female figures carrying feather fans. They were
attributes of royalty along with horse-hair fly-flappers and umbrellas.
Examples may be seen in plates of the Egyptian sculptures at Thebes and
other places, and also in the ruins of Persepolis. In the museum of
Boulak, near Cairo, a wooden fan handle showing holes for feathers is
still preserved. It is from the tomb of Amenhotep, of the 18th dynasty,
17th century B.C. In India fans were also attributes of men in
authority, and sometimes sacred emblems. A heart-shaped fan, with an
ivory handle, of unknown age, and held in great veneration by the
Hindus, was given to King Edward VII. when prince of Wales. Large
punkahs or screens, moved by a servant who does nothing else, are in
common use in hot countries, and particularly India.
Fans were used in the early middle ages to keep flies from the sacred
elements during the celebrations of the Christian mysteries. Sometimes
they were round, with bells attached--of silver or silver gilt. Notices
of such fans in the ancient records of St Paul's, London, Salisbury
cathedral and many other churches exist still. For these purposes they
are no longer used in the Western church, though they are retained in
some Oriental rites. The large feather fans, however, are still carried
in the state processions of the supreme pontiff in Rome, though not used
during the celebration of the mass. The fan of Queen Theodolinda (7th
century) is still preserved in the treasury of the cathedral of Monza.
Fans made part of the bridal outfit, or _mundus muliebris_, of Roman
ladies.
Folding fans had their origin in Japan, and were imported thence to
China. They were in the shape still used--a segment of a circle of paper
pasted on a light radiating framework of bamboo, and variously
decorated, some in colours, others of white paper on which verses or
sentences are written. It is a compliment in China to invite a friend
or distinguished guest to write some sentiment on your fan as a memento
of any special occasion, and this practice has continued. A fan that has
some celebrity in France was presented by the Chinese ambassador to the
comtesse de Clauzel at the coronation of Napoleon I. in 1804. When a
site was given in 1635, on an artificial island, for the settlement of
Portuguese merchants in Nippo in Japan, the space was laid out in the
form of a fan as emblematic of an object agreeable for general use. Men
and women of every rank both in China and Japan carry fans, even
artisans using them with one hand while working with the other. In China
they are often made of carved ivory, the sticks being plates very thin
and sometimes carved on both sides, the intervals between the carved
parts pierced with astonishing delicacy, and the plates held together by
a ribbon. The Japanese make the two outer guards of the stick, which
cover the others, occasionally of beaten iron, extremely thin and light,
damascened with gold and other metals.
Fans were used by Portuguese ladies in the 14th century, and were well
known in England before the close of the reign of Richard II. In France
the inventory of Charles V. at the end of the 14th century mentions a
folding ivory fan. They were brought into general use in that country by
Catherine de'Medici, probably from Italy, then in advance of other
countries in all matters of personal luxury. The court ladies of Henry
VIII.'s reign in England were used to handling fans. A lady in the
"Dance of Death" by Holbein holds a fan. Queen Elizabeth is painted with
a round feather fan in her portrait at Gorhambury; and as many as
twenty-seven are enumerated in her inventory (1606). Coryat, the English
traveller, in 1608 describes them as common in Italy. They also became
of general use from that time in Spain. In Italy, France and Spain fans
had special conventional uses, and various actions in handling them grew
into a code of signals, by which ladies were supposed to convey hints or
signals to admirers or to rivals in society. A paper in the _Spectator_
humorously proposes to establish a regular drill for these purposes.
The chief seat of the European manufacture of fans during the 17th
century was Paris, where the sticks or frames, whether of wood or ivory,
were made, and the decorations painted on mounts of very carefully
prepared vellum (incorrectly called _chicken skin_)--a material stronger
and tougher than paper, which breaks at the folds. Paris makers exported
fans unpainted to Madrid and other Spanish cities, where they were
decorated by native artists. Many were exported complete; of old fans
called Spanish a great number were in fact made in France. Louis XIV.
issued edicts at various times to regulate the manufacture. Besides fans
mounted with parchment, Dutch fans of ivory were imported into Paris,
and decorated by the heraldic painters in the process called "Vernis
Martin," after a famous carriage painter and inventor of colourless lac
varnish. Fans of this kind belonging to Queen Victoria and the baroness
de Rothschild were exhibited in 1870 at Kensington. A fan of the date of
1660, representing sacred subjects, is attributed to Philippe de
Champagne, another to Peter Oliver in England in the 17th century. Cano
de Arevalo, a Spanish painter of the 17th century, devoted himself to
fan painting. Some harsh expressions of Queen Christina to the young
ladies of the French court are said to have caused an increased
ostentation in the splendour of their fans, which were set with jewels
and mounted in gold. Rosalba Carriera was the name of a fan painter of
celebrity in the 17th century. Le Brun and Romanelli were much employed
during the same period. Klingstet, a Dutch artist, enjoyed a
considerable reputation in the latter part of the 17th and the first
thirty years of the 18th century.
The revocation of the edict of Nantes drove many fan-makers out of
France to Holland and England. The trade in England was well established
under the Stuart sovereigns. Petitions were addressed by the fan-makers
to Charles II. against the importation of fans from India, and a duty
was levied upon such fans in consequence. This importation of Indian
fans, according to Savary, extended also to France. During the reign of
Louis XV. carved Indian and China fans displaced to some extent those
formerly imported from Italy, which had been painted on swanskin
parchment prepared with various perfumes.
During the 18th century all the luxurious ornamentation of the day was
bestowed on fans as far as they could display it. The sticks were made
of mother-of-pearl or ivory, carved with extraordinary skill in France,
Italy, England and other countries. They were painted from designs of
Boucher, Watteau, Lancret and other "genre" painters; Hebert, Rau,
Chevalier, Jean Boquet, Mme. Verite, are known as fan-painters. These
fashions were followed in most countries of Europe, with certain
national differences. Taffeta and silk, as well as fine parchment, were
used for the mounts. Little circles of glass were let into the stick to
be looked through, and small telescopic glasses were sometimes contrived
at the pivot of the stick. They were occasionally mounted with the
finest point lace. An interesting fan (belonging to Madame de Thiac in
France), the work of Le Flamand, was presented by the municipality of
Dieppe to Marie Antoinette on the birth of her son the dauphin. From the
time of the Revolution the old luxury expended on fans died out. Fine
examples ceased to be exported to England and other countries. The
painting on them represented scenes or personages connected with
political events. At a later period fan mounts were often prints
coloured by hand. The events of the day mark the date of many examples
found in modern collections. Among the fan-makers of modern days the
names of Alexandre, Duvelleroy, Fayet, Vanier became well known in
Paris; and the designs of Charles Conder (1868-1909) have brought his
name to the front in this art. Painters of distinction often design and
paint the mounts, the best designs being figure subjects. A great
impulse was given to the manufacture and painting of fans in England
after the exhibition which took place at South Kensington in 1870.
Modern collections of fans take their date from the emigration of many
noble families from France at the time of the Revolution. Such objects
were given as souvenirs, and occasionally sold by families in straitened
circumstances. A large number of fans of all sorts, principally those of
the 18th century, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, &c., have
been bequeathed to the South Kensington (Victoria and Albert) Museum.
The sticks of folding fans are called in French _brins_, the two outer
guards _panaches_, and the mount _feuille_.
See also Blondel, _Histoire des eventails_ (1875); Octave Uzanne,
_L'eventail_ (1882); and especially G. Wooliscroft Rhead, _History of
the Fan_ (1909). (J. H. P.*)
FANCY (a shortened form, dating from the 15th century, of "fantasy,"
which is derived through the O. Fr. _fantasie_, modern _fantaisie_. from
the Latinized form of the Gr. [Greek: phantasia, phantasein, phainein],
to show), display, showing forth, as a philosophical term, the
presentative power of the mind. The word "fancy" and the older form
"fantasy," which is now chiefly used poetically, was in its early
application synonymous with imagination, the mental faculty of creating
representations or images of things not present to the senses; it is
more usually, in this sense, applied to the lighter forms of the
imagination. "Fancy" also commonly means inclination, whim, caprice. The
more learned form "phantasy," as also such words as "phantom" and
"phantasm," is chiefly confined to visionary imaginings.
FANG (FAN, FANWE, PANWE, PAHOUIN, PAOUEN, MPANGWE), a powerful African
people occupying the Gabun district north of the Ogowe river in French
Congo. Their name means "men." They call themselves Pa^{n}we, Fa^{n}we
and Fa^{n} with highly nasalized n. They are a finely-made race of
chocolate colour; some few are very dark, but these are of slave origin.
They have bright expressive oval faces with prominent cheek-bones. Many
of them file their teeth to points. Their hair, which is woolly, is worn
by the women long, reaching below the nape of the neck. The men wear it
in a variety of shapes, often building it up over a wooden base. The
growth of the hair appears abundant, but that on the face is usually
removed. Little clothing is worn; the men wear a bark waist-cloth, the
women a plantain girdle, sometimes with a bustle of dried grass. A chief
wears a leopard's skin round the shoulders. Both sexes tattoo and paint
the body, and delight in ornaments of every kind. The men, whose sole
occupations are fighting and hunting, all carry arms--muskets, spears
for throwing and stabbing, and curious throwing-knives with blades
broader than they are long. Instead of bows and arrows they use
crossbows made of ebony, with which they hunt apes and birds. In battle
the Fang used to carry elephant hide shields; these have apparently been
discarded.
When first met by T.E. Bowdich (1815) the Paamways, as he calls the
Fang, were an inland people inhabiting the hilly plateaus north of the
Ogowe affluents. Now they have become the neighbours of the Mpongwe
(q.v.) of Glass and Libreville on the Komo river, while south of the
Gabun they have reached the sea at several points. Their original home
is probably to be placed somewhere near the Congo. Their language,
according to Sir R. Burton, is soft and sweet and a contrast to their
harsh voices, and the vocabularies collected prove it to be of the
Bantu-Negroid linguistic family. W. Winwood Reade (_Sketch Book_, i. p.
108) states that "it is like Mpongwe (a pure Bantu idiom) cut in half;
for instance, _njina_ (gorilla) in Mpongwe is _nji_ in Fan." The plural
of the tribal name is formed in the usual Bantu way, Ba-Fang.
Morally the Fang are superior to the negro. Mary Kingsley writes: "The
Fan is full of fire, temper, intelligence and go, very teachable, rather
difficult to manage, quick to take offence, and utterly indifferent to
human life." This latter characteristic has made the Fang dreaded by all
their neighbours. They are noted cannibals, and ferocious in nature.
Prisoners are badly treated and are often allowed to starve. The Fang
are always fighting, but the battles are not bloody. After the fall of
two or three warriors the bodies are dragged off to be devoured, and
their friends disperse. Burton says that their cannibalism is limited to
the consumption of slain enemies; that the sick are not devoured; and
that the dead are decently buried, except slaves, whose bodies are
thrown into the forest. Mary Kingsley, on the other hand, believed their
cannibalism was not limited. She writes: "The Fan is not a cannibal for
sacrificial motives, like the negro. He will eat his next door
neighbour's relation and sell his own deceased to his next door
neighbour in return, but he does not buy slaves and fatten them up for
his table as some of the middle Congo tribes do. He has no slaves, no
prisoners of war, no cemeteries, so you must draw your own conclusions."
Among certain tribes the aged alone are permitted to eat human flesh,
which is _taboo_ for all others. There is no doubt that the cannibalism
of the Fang is diminishing before the advance of civilization. Apart
from their ferocity, the Fang are an agreeable and industrious people.
They are skilful workers in iron and have a curious coinage called
_bikei_, little iron imitation axeheads tied up in bundles called
_ntet_, ten to a bundle; these are used chiefly in the purchase of
wives. They are energetic traders and are skilled in pottery and in
gardening. Their religion appears to be a combination of primitive
animism and ancestor worship, with a belief in sympathetic magic.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Paul du Chaillu, _Explorations in Equatorial Africa_
(1861); Sir R. Burton, "A Day with the Fans," _Transactions of
Ethnological Society_, new series, vols. 3-4; Mary Kingsley, _Travels
in West Africa_ (1897); Oscar Lenz, _Skizzen aus West Africa_ (1878);
R.E. Dennett, _Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort_ (1898); William
Winwood Reade, _The African Sketch Book_ (1873); and (chiefly) A.L.
Bennett, "Ethnographical Notes on the Fang," _Journ. Anthr. Inst._
N.S., ii. p. 66, and L. Martron in _Anthropos_, t. i. (1906), fasc. 4.
FANO (anc. _Fanum Fortunae_, q.v.), a town and episcopal see of the
Marches, Italy, in the province of Pesaro and Urbino, 8 m. S.E. of the
former by rail, and 46 ft. above sea-level, on the N.E. coast of Italy.
Pop. (1901), town 10,535, commune 24,730. The cathedral has a 13th
century portal, but the interior is unimportant. The vestibule of S.
Francesco contains the tombs of some members of the Malatesta family. S.
Croce and S. Maria Nuova contain works by Giovanni Santi, the father of
Raphael; the latter has also two works by Perugino, the predella of one
of which is attributed to Raphael. S. Agostino contains a painting of S.
Angelo Custode ("the Guardian Angel"), which is the subject of a poem by
Robert Browning. The fine Gothic Palazzo della Ragione (1299) has been
converted into a theatre. The palace of the Malatesta, with fine
porticos and Gothic windows, was much damaged by an earthquake in 1874.
S. Michele, built against the arch of Augustus, is an early Renaissance
building (1475-1490), probably by Matteo Nuzio of Fano, with an ornate
portal. The facade has an interesting relief showing the colonnade added
by Constantine as an upper storey to the arch of Augustus and removed in
1463.
Fano in the middle ages passed through various political vicissitudes,
and in the 14th century became subject to the Malatesta. In 1458 Pius
II. added it to the states of the Church. Julius II. established here in
1514 the first printing press with movable Arabic type. The harbour was
restored by Paul V. but is now unimportant.
FANSHAWE, SIR RICHARD, Bart. (1608-1666), English poet and ambassador,
son of Sir Henry Fanshawe, remembrancer of the exchequer, of Ware Park,
Hertfordshire, and of Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Smith or Smythe, was
born early in June 1608, and was educated in Cripplegate by the famous
schoolmaster, Thomas Farnaby. In November 1623 he was admitted
fellow-commoner of Jesus College, Cambridge, and in January 1626 he
entered the Inner Temple; but the study of the law being distasteful to
him he travelled in France and Spain. On his return, an accomplished
linguist, in 1635, he was appointed secretary to the English embassy at
Madrid under Lord Aston. At the outbreak of the Civil War he joined the
king, and while at Oxford in 1644 married Anne, daughter of Sir John
Harrison of Balls, Hertfordshire. About the same time he was appointed
secretary at war to the prince of Wales, with whom he set out in 1645
for the western counties, Scilly, and afterwards Jersey. He compounded
in 1646 with the parliamentary authorities, and was allowed to live in
London till October 1647, visiting Charles I. at Hampton Court. In 1647
he published his translation of the _Pastor Fido_ of Guarini, which he
reissued in 1648 with the addition of several other poems, original and
translated. In 1648 he was appointed treasurer to the navy under Prince
Rupert. In November of this year he was in Ireland, where he actively
engaged in the royalist cause till the spring of 1650, when he was
despatched by Charles II. on a mission to obtain help from Spain. This
was refused, and he joined Charles in Scotland as secretary. On the 2nd
of September 1650 he had been created a baronet. He accompanied Charles
in the expedition into England, and was taken prisoner at the battle of
Worcester on the 3rd of September 1651. After a confinement of some
weeks at Whitehall, he was allowed, with restrictions, and under the
supervision of the authorities, to choose his own place of residence. He
published in 1652 his _Selected Parts of Horace_, a translation
remarkable for its fidelity, felicity and elegance. In 1654 he completed
translations of two of the comedies of the Spanish poet Antonio de
Mendoza, which were published after his death, _Querer per solo querer:
To Love only for Love's Sake_, in 1670, and _Fiestas de Aranjuez_ in
1671. But the great labour of his retirement was the translation of the
_Lusiad_, by Camoens published in 1655. It is in ottava rima, with the
translation prefixed to it of the Latin poem _Furor Petroniensis_. In
1658 he published a Latin version of the _Faithful Shepherdess_ of
Fletcher.
In April 1659 Fanshawe left England for Paris, re-entered Charles's
service and accompanied him to England at the Restoration, but was not
offered any place in the administration. In 1661 he was returned to
parliament for the university of Cambridge, and the same year was sent
to Portugal to negotiate the marriage between Charles II. and the
infanta. In January 1662 he was made a privy councillor of Ireland, and
was appointed ambassador again to Portugal in August, where he remained
till August 1663. He was sworn a privy councillor of England on the 1st
of October. In January 1664 he was sent as ambassador to Spain, and
arrived at Cadiz in February of that year. He signed the first draft of
a treaty on the 17th of December, which offered advantageous concessions
to English trade, but of which one condition was that it should be
confirmed by his government before a certain date. In January 1666
Fanshawe went to Lisbon to procure the adherence of Portugal to this
agreement. He returned to Madrid, having failed in his mission, and was
almost immediately recalled by Clarendon on the plea that he had
exceeded his instructions. He died very shortly afterwards before
leaving Madrid, on the 26th of June 1666. He had a family of fourteen
children, of whom five only survived him, Richard, the youngest,
succeeding as second baronet and dying unmarried in 1694.
As a translator, whether from the Italian, Latin, Portuguese or Spanish,
Fanshawe has a considerable reputation. His _Pastor Fido_ and his
_Lusiad_ have not been superseded by later scholars, and his rendering
of the latter is praised by Southey and Sir Richard Burton. As an
original poet also the few verses he has left are sufficient evidence of
exceptional literary talent.
AUTHORITIES.--_Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe_, written in 1676 and
published 1829 (from an inaccurate transcript); these were reprinted
from the original manuscript and edited by H.C. Fanshawe (London,
1907); article in the _Dict. of Nat. Biography_ and authorities there
quoted; _Biographia Brit._ (Kippis); _Original Letters of Sir R.F._ (2
vols., 1724), the earlier edition of 1702 with portrait being only
vol. i. of this edition; _Notes Genealogical and Historical of the
Fanshawe Family_ (1868-1872); funeral sermon by H. Bagshaw; _Nicholas
Papers_ (Camden Society); _Quarterly Review_, xxvii. 1; _Macmillan's
Mag._ lvii. 279; _Camoen's Life and Lusiads_, by Sir F. Burton, i.
135; Clarendon's _State Papers, Calendars of State Papers,
Autobiography and Hist. of the Rebellion_; _Athenaeum_ (1883), i. 121;
_Add. MSS. British Museum_, 15,228 (poems); _Harl. MSS. Brit. Mus._
7010 (letters). (P. C. Y.)
FANTAN, a form of gambling highly popular among the Chinese. The game is
simple. A square is marked in the centre of an ordinary table, or a
square piece of metal is laid on it, the sides being marked 1, 2, 3 and
4. The banker puts on the table a double handful of small coins--in
China "cash"--or similar articles, which he covers with a metal bowl.
The players bet on the numbers, setting their stakes on the side of the
square which bears the number selected. When all have staked, the bowl
is removed, and the banker or croupier with a small stick removes coins
from the heap, four at a time, till the final batch is reached. If it
contains four coins, the backer of No. 4 wins; if three, the backer of
No. 3 wins, and so on. Twenty-five per cent is deducted from the stake
by the banker, and the winner receives five times the amount of his
stake thus reduced. In Macao, the Monte Carlo of China, play goes on day
and night, every day of the week, and bets can be made from 5 cents to
500 dollars, which are the limits.
Fantan is also the name of a card game, played with an ordinary pack, by
any number of players up to eight. The deal decided, the cards are dealt
singly, any that are left over forming a stock, and being placed face
downwards on the table. Each player contributes a fixed stake or "ante."
The first player can enter if he has an ace; if he has not he pays an
"ante" and takes a card from the stock; the second player is then called
upon and acts similarly till an ace is played. This (and the other aces
when played) is put face upwards on the table, and the piles are built
up from the ace to the king. The pool goes to the player who first gets
rid of all his cards. If a player fails to play, having a playable card,
he is fined the amount of the ante for every card in the other players'
hands.
FANTASIA (Italian for "fantasy," a causing to be seen, from Greek,
[Greek: phainein], to show), a name in music sometimes loosely used for
a composition which has little structural form, and appears to be an
improvization; and also for a combination or medley of familiar airs
connected together with original passages of more or less brilliance.
The word, however, was originally applied to more formal compositions,
based on the madrigal, for several instruments. Fantasias appear as
distinct compositions in Bach's works, and also joined to a fugue, as in
the "Great Fantasia and Fugue" in A minor, and the "Fantasia cromatica"
in D minor. Brahms used the name for his shorter piano pieces. It is
also applied to orchestral compositions "not long enough to be called
symphonic poems and not formal enough to be called overtures" (Sir C.
Hubert Parry, in Grove's _Dictionary of Music_, ed. 1906). The Italian
word is still used in Tunis, Algeria and Morocco, with the meaning of
"showing off," for an acrobatic exhibition of horsemanship by the
Arabs. The riders fire their guns, throw them and their lances into the
air, and catch them again, standing or kneeling in the saddle, all at a
full gallop.
FANTI, MANFREDO (1806-1865), Italian general, was born at Carpi and
educated at the military college of Modena. In 1831 he was implicated in
the revolutionary movement organized by Ciro Menotti (see FRANCIS IV.,
of Modena), and was condemned to death and hanged in effigy, but escaped
to France, where he was given an appointment in the French corps of
engineers. In 1833 he took part in Mazzini's abortive attempt to invade
Savoy, and in 1835 he went to Spain to serve in Queen Christina's army
against the Carlists. There he remained for thirteen years,
distinguishing himself in battle and rising to a high staff appointment.
But on the outbreak of the war between Piedmont and Austria in 1848 he
hurried back to Italy, and although at first his services were rejected
both by the Piedmontese government and the Lombard provisional
government, he was afterwards given the command of a Lombard brigade. In
the general confusion following on Charles Albert's defeat on the Mincio
and his retreat to Milan, where the people rose against the unhappy
king, Fanti's courage and tact saved the situation. He was elected
member of the Piedmontese chamber in 1849, and on the renewal of the
campaign he again commanded a Lombard brigade under General Ramorino.
After the Piedmontese defeat at Novara (23rd of March) peace was made,
but a rising broke out at Genoa, and Fanti with great difficulty
restrained his Lombards from taking part in it. But he was suspected as
a Mazzinian and a soldier of fortune by the higher Piedmontese officers,
and they insisted on his being court-martialled for his operations under
Ramorino (who had been tried and shot). Although honourably acquitted,
he was not employed again until the Crimean expedition of 1855. In the
second Austrian war in 1859 Fanti commanded the 2nd division, and
contributed to the victories of Palestro, Magenta and San Martino. After
the peace of Villafranca he was sent to organize the army of the Central
Italian League (composed of the provisional governments of Tuscany,
Modena, Parma and Romagna), and converted it in a few months into a
well-drilled body of 45,000 men, whose function was to be ready to
intervene in the papal states on the outbreak of a revolution. He showed
statesmanlike qualities in steering a clear course between the
exaggerated prudence of Baron Ricasoli, who wished to recall the troops
from the frontier, and the impetuosity of Garibaldi, his
second-in-command, who was anxious to invade Romagna prematurely, even
at the risk of Austrian intervention. Fanti's firmness led to
Garibaldi's resignation. In January 1860 Fanti became minister of war
and marine under Cavour, and incorporated the League's army in that of
Piedmont. In the meanwhile Garibaldi had invaded Sicily with his
Thousand, and King Victor Emmanuel decided at last that he too must
intervene; Fanti was given the chief command of a strong Italian force
which invaded the papal states, seized Ancona and other fortresses, and
defeated the papal army at Castelfidardo, where the enemy's commander,
General Lamoriciere, was captured. In three weeks Fanti had conquered
the Marche and Umbria and taken 28,000 prisoners. When the army entered
Neapolitan territory the king took the chief command, with Fanti as
chief of the staff. After defeating a large Neapolitan force at Mola and
organizing the siege operations round Gaeta, Fanti returned to the war
office at Turin to carry out important army reforms. His attitude in
opposing the admission of Garibaldi's 7000 officers into the regular
army with their own grades made him the object of great unpopularity for
a time, and led to a severe reprimand from Cavour. On the death of the
latter (7th of June 1861) he resigned office and took command of the
VII. army corps. But his health had now broken down, and after four
years' suffering he died in Florence on the 5th of April 1865. His lose
was greatly felt in the war of 1866.
See Carandini, _Vita di M. Fanti_ (Verona, 1872); A. Di Giorgio, _Il
Generale M. Fanti_ (Florence, 1906). (L. V.*)
FANTI, a nation of Negroes, inhabiting part of the seaboard of the Gold
Coast colony, British West Africa, and about 20,000 sq. m. of the
interior. They number about a million. They have many traditions of
early migrations. It seems probable that the Fanti and Ashanti were
originally one race, driven from the north-east towards the sea by more
powerful races, possibly the ancestors of Fula and Hausa. There are many
words in Fanti for plants and animals not now existing in the country,
but which abound in the Gurunsi and Moshi countries farther north. These
regions have been always haunted by slave-raiders, and possibly these
latter may have influenced the exodus. At any rate, the Fanti were early
driven into the forests from the open plains and slopes of the hills.
The name Fanti, an English version of _Mfantsi_, is supposed to be
derived from _fan_, a wild cabbage, and _ti_, _di_ or _dz_, to eat; the
story being that upon the exile of the tribe the only available food was
some such plant. They are divided into seven tribes, obviously totemic,
and with rules as to exogamy still in force. (1) _Kwonna_, buffalo; (2)
_Etchwi_, leopard; (3) _Eso_, bush-cat; (4) _Nitchwa_, dog; (5) _Nnuna_,
parrot; (6) _Ebradzi_, lion; and (7) _Abrutu_, corn-stalk; these names
are obsolete, though the meanings are known. The tribal marks are three
gashes in front of the ear on each side in a line parallel to the
jaw-bone. The Fanti language has been associated by A.B. Ellis with the
Ashanti speech as the principal descendant of an original language,
possibly the Tshi (pronounced Tchwi), which is generally considered as
the parent of Ashanti, Fanti, Akim, Akwapim and modern Tshi.
The average Fanti is of a dull brown colour, of medium height, with
negroid features. Some of the women, when young, are quite pretty. The
women use various perfumes, one of the most usual being prepared from
the excrement of snakes. There are no special initiatory rites for the
youthful Fanti, only a short seclusion for girls when they reach the
marriageable age. Marriage is a mere matter of sale, and the maidens are
tricked out in all the family finery and walk round the village to
indicate that they are ready for husbands. The marriages frequently end
in divorce. Polygamy is universally practised. The care of the children
is left exclusively to the mothers, who are regarded by the Fanti with
deep veneration, while little attention is paid to the fathers. Wives
never eat with their husbands, but always with the children. The
rightful heir in native law is the eldest nephew, i.e. the eldest
sister's eldest son, who invariably inherits wives, children and all
property. As to tenure of land, the source of ownership of land is
derived from the possession of the chief's "stool," which is, like the
throne of a king, the symbol of authority, and not even the chief can
alienate the land from the stool. Females may succeed to property, but
generally only when the acquisition of such property is the result of
their succeeding to the stool of a chief. The Fanti are not permanent
cultivators of the soil. Three or at most five years will cover the
period during which land is continuously cultivated. The commonest
native dishes are palm-oil chop, a bowl of palm oil, produced by boiling
freshly ground palm nuts, in which a fowl or fish is then cooked; and
_fufu_, "white," a boiled mash of yams or plantains. The Fanti have a
taste for shark-flesh, called locally "stink-fish." It is sliced up and
partly sun-dried, and is eaten in a putrid state. The Fanti are skilful
sailors and fishermen, build excellent canoes, and are expert weavers.
Pottery and goldsmithery are trades also followed. Their religion is
fetishism, every Fanti having his own "fetish" or familiar spirit, but
there is a belief in a beneficent Creative Being. Food is offered the
dead, and a ceremony of purification is said to be indulged in at
funerals, the bearers and mourners plunging into the sea or river after
the interment.
See _Journal of Anthropological Institute of Great Britain_, vol. 26,
pp. 128 et seq.; A.B. Ellis, _The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold
Coast_ (London, 1887).
FANTIN-LATOUR, IGNACE HENRI JEAN THEODORE (1836-1904), French artist,
was born at Grenoble on the 14th of January 1836. He studied first with
his father, a pastel painter, and then at the drawing school of Lecoq de
Boisbaudran, and later under Couture. He was the friend of Ingres,
Dalacroix, Corot, Courbet and others. He exhibited in the Salon of 1861,
and many of his more important canvases appeared on its walls in later
years, though 1863 found him with Harpignies, Monet, Legros and Whistler
in the Salon des Refuses. Whistler introduced him to English artistic
circles, and he lived for some time in England, many of his portraits
and flower pieces being in English galleries. He died on the 28th of
August 1904. His portrait groups, arranged somewhat after the manner of
the Dutch masters, are as interesting from their subjects as they are
from the artistic point of view. "_Hommage a Delacroix_" showed
portraits of Whistler and Legros, Baudelaire, Champfleury and himself;
"_Un Atelier a Batignolles_" gave portraits of Monet, Manet, Zola and
Renoir, and is now in the Luxembourg; "_Un Coin de table_" presented
Verlaine, Rimbaud, Camille Peladan and others; and "_Autour du Piano_"
contained portraits of Chabrier, D'Indy and other musicians. His
paintings of flowers are perfect examples of the art, and form perhaps
the most famous section of his work in England. In his later years he
devoted much attention to lithography, which had occupied him as early
as 1862, but his examples were then considered so revolutionary, with
their strong lights and black shadows, that the printer refused to
execute them. After "_L'Anniversaire_" in honour of Berlioz in the Salon
of 1876, he regularly exhibited lithographs, some of which were
excellent examples of delicate portraiture, others being elusive and
imaginative drawings illustrative of the music of Wagner (whose cause he
championed in Paris as early as 1864), Berlioz, Brahms and other
composers. He illustrated Adolphe Jullien's _Wagner_ (1886) and
_Berlioz_ (1888). There are excellent collections of his lithographic
work at Dresden, in the British Museum, and a practically complete set
given by his widow to the Louvre. Some were also exhibited at South
Kensington in 1898-1899, and at the Dutch gallery in 1904.
A catalogue of the lithographs of Fantin-Latour was drawn up by
Germain Hediard in _Les Maitres de la lithographie_ (1898-1899). A
volume of reproductions, in a limited edition, was published (Paris,
1907) as _L'Oeuvre lithographique de Fantin-Latour_. See A. Jullien,
_Fantin-Latour, sa vie et ses amities_ (Paris, 1909).
FANUM FORTUNAE (mod. _Fano_), an ancient town of Umbria, Italy, at the
point where the Via Flaminia reaches the N.E. coast of Italy. Its name
shows that it was of Roman origin, but of its foundation we know
nothing. It is first mentioned, with Pisaurum and Ancona, as held by
Julius Caesar in 49 B.C. Augustus planted a colony there, and round it
constructed a wall (of which some remains exist), as is recorded in the
inscription on the triple arch erected in his honour at the entrance to
the town (A.D. 9-10), which is still standing. Vitruvius tells us that
there was, during Augustus's lifetime, a temple in his honour and a
temple of Jupiter, and describes a basilica of which he himself was the
architect. The arch of Augustus bears a subsequent inscription in honour
of Constantine, added after his death by L. Turcius Secundus, _corrector
Flaminiae et Piceni_, who also constructed a colonnade above the arch.
Several Roman statues and heads, attributable to members of the
Julio-Claudian dynasty, were found in the convent of S. Filippo in 1899.
These and other objects are now in the municipal museum (E. Brizio in
_Notizie degli scavi_, 1899, 249 seq.). Of the temple of Fortune from
which the town took its name no traces have been discovered. (T. As.)
FAN VAULT, in architecture, a method of vaulting used in the
Perpendicular style, of which the earliest example is found in the
cloisters of Gloucester cathedral, built towards the close of the 14th
century. The ribs are all of one curve and equidistant, and their
divergency, resembling that of an open fan, has suggested the name. One
of the finest examples, though of later date (1640), is the vault over
the staircase of Christ Church, Oxford. For the origin of its
development see Vault.
FARABI [Abu Nasr Muhammad ibn Tarkhan ul-Farabi] (ca. 870-950), Arabian
philosopher, was born of Turkish stock at Farab in Turkestan, where also
he spent his youth. Thence he journeyed to Bagdad, where he learned
Arabic and gave himself to the study of mathematics, medicine and
philosophy, especially the works of Aristotle. Later he went to the
court of the Hamdanid Saif addaula, from whom he received a warm welcome
and a small pension. Here he lived a quiet if not an ascetic life. He
died in Damascus, whither he had gone with his patron. His works are
very clear in style, though aphoristic rather than systematic in the
treatment of subjects. Unfortunately the success of Avicenna seems to
have led to the neglect of much of his work. In Europe his compendium of
Aristotle's _Rhetoric_ was published at Venice, 1484. Two of his smaller
works appear in _Alpharabii opera omnia_ (Paris, 1638), and two are
translated in F.A. Schmolders' _Documcnta philosophiae Arabum_ (Bonn,
1836). More recently Fr. Dieterici has published at Leiden: _Alfarabi's
philosophische Abhandlungen_ (1890; German trans. 1892); _Alfarabi's
Abhandlung des Musterstaats_ (1895; German trans. with an essay "Uber
den Zusammenhang der arabischen und griechischen Philosophie," 1900);
_Die Staatsleitung von Alfarabi_ in German, with an essay on "Das Wesen
der arabischen Philosophie" (1904).
For Farabi's life see McG. de Slane's translation of Ibn Khallikan
(vol. 3, pp. 307 ff.); and for further information as to his works M.
Steinschneider's article in the _Memoires de l'Academie_ (St
Petersburg, serie 7, tom. 13, No. 4, 1869); and C. Brockelmann's
_Gesch. der arab. Litteratur_, vol. i. (Weimar, 1898), pp. 210-213.
(G. W. T.)
FARADAY, MICHAEL (1791-1867), English chemist and physicist, was born at
Newington, Surrey, on the 22nd of September 1791. His parents had
migrated from Yorkshire to London, where his father worked as a
blacksmith. Faraday himself became apprenticed to a bookbinder. The
letters written to his friend Benjamin Abbott at this time give a lucid
account of his aims in life, and of his methods of self-culture, when
his mind was beginning to turn to the experimental study of nature. In
1812 Mr Dance, a customer of his master, took him to hear four lectures
by Sir Humphry Davy. Faraday took notes of these lectures, and
afterwards wrote them out in a fuller form. Under the encouragement of
Mr Dance, he wrote to Sir H. Davy, enclosing these notes. "The reply was
immediate, kind and favourable." He continued to work as a journeyman
bookbinder till the 1st of March 1813, when he was appointed assistant
in the laboratory of the Royal Institution of Great Britain on the
recommendation of Davy, whom he accompanied on a tour through France,
Italy and Switzerland from October 1813 to April 1815. He was appointed
director of the laboratory in 1825; and in 1833 he was appointed
Fullerian professor of chemistry in the institution for life, without
the obligation to deliver lectures. He thus remained in the institution
for fifty-four years. He died at Hampton Court on the 25th of August
1867.
Faraday's earliest chemical work was in the paths opened by Davy, to
whom he acted as assistant. He made a special study of chlorine, and
discovered two new chlorides of carbon. He also made the first rough
experiments on the diffusion of gases, a phenomenon first pointed out by
John Dalton, the physical importance of which was more fully brought to
light by Thomas Graham and Joseph Loschmidt. He succeeded in liquefying
several gases; he investigated the alloys of steel, and produced several
new kinds of glass intended for optical purposes. A specimen of one of
these heavy glasses afterwards became historically important as the
substance in which Faraday detected the rotation of the plane of
polarization of light when the glass was placed in the magnetic field,
and also as the substance which was first repelled by the poles of the
magnet. He also endeavoured with some success to make the general
methods of chemistry, as distinguished from its results, the subject of
special study and of popular exposition. See his work on _Chemical
Manipulation_.
But Faraday's chemical work, however important in itself, was soon
completely overshadowed by his electrical discoveries. The first
experiment which he has recorded was the construction of a voltaic pile
with seven halfpence, seven disks of sheet zinc, and six pieces of paper
moistened with salt water. With this pile he decomposed sulphate of
magnesia (first letter to Abbott, July 12, 1812). Henceforward, whatever
other subjects might from time to time claim his attention, it was from
among electrical phenomena that he selected those problems to which he
applied the full force of his mind, and which he kept persistently in
view, even when year after year his attempts to solve them had been
baffled.
His first notable discovery was the production of the continuous
rotation of magnets and of wires conducting the electric current round
each other. The consequences deducible from the great discovery of H.C.
Oersted (21st July 1820) were still in 1821 apprehended in a somewhat
confused manner even by the foremost men of science. Dr W.H. Wollaston
indeed had formed the expectation that he could make the conducting wire
rotate on its own axis, and in April 1821 he came with Sir H. Davy to
the laboratory of the Royal Institution to make an experiment. Faraday
was not there at the time, but coming in afterwards he heard the
conversation on the expected rotation of the wire.
In July, August and September of that year Faraday, at the request of R.
Phillips, the editor of the _Annals of Philosophy_, wrote for that
journal an historical sketch of electromagnetism, and he repeated almost
all the experiments he described. This led him in the beginning of
September to discover the method of producing the continuous rotation of
the wire round the magnet, and of the magnet round the wire. He did not
succeed in making the wire or the magnet revolve on its own axis. This
first success of Faraday in electro-magnetic research became the
occasion of the most painful, though unfounded, imputations against his
honour. Into these we shall not enter, referring the reader to the _Life
of Faraday_, by Dr Bence Jones.
We may remark, however, that although the fact of the tangential force
between an electric current and a magnetic pole was clearly stated by
Oersted, and clearly apprehended by A.M. Ampere, Wollaston and others,
the realization of the continuous rotation of the wire and the magnet
round each other was a scientific puzzle requiring no mean ingenuity for
its original solution. For on the one hand the electric current always
forms a closed circuit, and on the other the two poles of the magnet
have equal but opposite properties, and are inseparably connected, so
that whatever tendency there is for one pole to circulate round the
current in one direction is opposed by the equal tendency of the other
pole to go round the other way, and thus the one pole can neither drag
the other round and round the wire nor yet leave it behind. The thing
cannot be done unless we adopt in some form Faraday's ingenious
solution, by causing the current, in some part of its course, to divide
into two channels, one on each side of the magnet, in such a way that
during the revolution of the magnet the current is transferred from the
channel in front of the magnet to the channel behind it, so that the
middle of the magnet can pass across the current without stopping it,
just as Cyrus caused his army to pass dryshod over the Gyndes by
diverting the river into a channel cut for it in his rear.
We must now go on to the crowning discovery of the induction of electric
currents.
In December 1824 he had attempted to obtain an electric current by means
of a magnet, and on three occasions he had made elaborate but
unsuccessful attempts to produce a current in one wire by means of a
current in another wire or by a magnet. He still persevered, and on the
29th of August 1831 he obtained the first evidence that an electric
current can induce another in a different circuit. On the 23rd of
September he writes to his friend R. Phillips: "I am busy just now again
on electromagnetism, and think I have got hold of a good thing, but
can't say. It may be a weed instead of a fish that, after all my labour,
I may at last pull up." This was his first successful experiment. In
nine more days of experimenting he had arrived at the results described
in his first series of "Experimental Researches" read to the Royal
Society on the 24th of November 1841. By the intense application of his
mind he had thus brought the new idea, in less than three months from
its first development, to a state of perfect maturity.
During his first period of discovery, besides the induction of electric
currents, Faraday established the identity of the electrification
produced in different ways; the law of the definite electrolytic action
of the current; and the fact, upon which he laid great stress, that
every unit of positive electrification is related in a definite manner
to a unit of negative electrification, so that it is impossible to
produce what Faraday called "an absolute charge of electricity" of one
kind not related to an equal charge of the opposite kind. He also
discovered the difference of the capacities of different substances for
taking part in electric induction. Henry Cavendish had before 1773
discovered that glass, wax, rosin and shellac have higher specific
inductive capacities than air, and had actually determined the numerical
ratios of these capacities, but this was unknown both to Faraday and to
all other electricians of his time, since Cavendish's _Electrical
Researches_ remained unpublished till 1879.
The first period of Faraday's electrical discoveries lasted ten years.
In 1841 he found that he required rest, and it was not till 1845 that he
entered on his second great period of research, in which he discovered
the effect of magnetism on polarized light, and the phenomena of
diamagnetism.
Faraday had for a long time kept in view the possibility of using a ray
of polarized light as a means of investigating the condition of
transparent bodies when acted on by electric and magnetic forces. Dr
Bence Jones (_Life of Faraday_, vol. i. p. 362) gives the following note
from his laboratory book on the 10th of September 1822:--
"Polarized a ray of lamplight by reflection, and endeavoured to
ascertain whether any depolarizing action (was) exerted on it by water
placed between the poles of a voltaic battery in a glass cistern; one
Wollaston's trough used; the fluids decomposed were pure water, weak
solution of sulphate of soda, and strong sulphuric acid; none of them
had any effect on the polarized light, either when out of or in the
voltaic circuit, so that no particular arrangement of particles could
be ascertained in this way."
Eleven years afterwards we find another entry in his notebook on the 2nd
of May 1833 (_Life_, by Dr Bence Jones, vol. ii. p. 29). He then tried
not only the effect of a steady current, but the effect on making and
breaking contact.
"I do not think, therefore, that decomposing solutions or substances
will be found to have (as a consequence of decomposition or
arrangement for the time) any effect on the polarized ray. Should now
try non-decomposing bodies, as solid nitre, nitrate of silver, borax,
glass, &c., whilst solid, to see if any internal state induced, which
by decomposition is destroyed, i.e. whether, when they cannot
decompose, any state of electrical tension is present. My borate of
glass good, and common electricity better than voltaic."
On the 6th of May he makes further experiments, and concludes: "Hence I
see no reason to expect that any kind of structure or tension can be
rendered evident, either in decomposing or non-decomposing bodies, in
insulating or conducting states."
At last, in 1845, Faraday attacked the old problem, but this time with
complete success. Before we describe this result we may mention that in
1862 he made the relation between magnetism and light the subject of his
very last experimental work. He endeavoured, but in vain, to detect any
change in the lines of the spectrum of a flame when the flame was acted
on by a powerful magnet.
This long series of researches is an instance of his persistence. His
energy is shown in the way in which he followed up his discovery in the
single instance in which he was successful. The first evidence which he
obtained of the rotation of the plane of polarization of light under the
action of magnetism was on the 13th of September 1845, the transparent
substance being his own heavy glass. He began to work on the 30th of
August 1845 on polarized light passing through electrolytes. After three
days he worked with common electricity, trying glass, heavy optical
glass, quartz, Iceland spar, all without effect, as on former trials. On
the 13th of September he worked with lines of magnetic force. Air,
flint, glass, rock-crystal, calcareous spar were examined, but without
effect.
"Heavy glass was experimented with. It gave no effects when the _same
magnetic poles_ or the _contrary_ poles were on opposite sides (as
respects the course of the polarized ray), nor when the same poles
were on the same side either with the constant or intermitting
current. But when contrary magnetic poles were on the same side there
was an effect produced on the polarized ray, and thus magnetic force
and light were proved to have relations to each other. This fact will
most likely prove exceedingly fertile, and of great value in the
investigation of the conditions of natural force."
He immediately goes on to examine other substances, but with "no
effect," and he ends by saying, "Have got enough for to-day." On the
18th of September he "does an excellent day's work." During September he
had four days of work, and in October six, and on the 6th of November he
sent in to the Royal Society the nineteenth series of his "Experimental
Researches," in which the whole conditions of the phenomena are fully
specified. The negative rotation in ferro-magnetic media is the only
fact of importance which remained to be discovered afterwards (by M.E.
Verdet in 1856).
But his work for the year was not yet over. On the 3rd of November a new
horseshoe magnet came home, and Faraday immediately began to experiment
on the action in the polarized ray through gases, but with no effect.
The following day he repeated an experiment which had given no result on
the 6th of October. A bar of heavy glass was suspended by silk between
the poles of the new magnet. "When it was arranged, and had come to
rest, I found I _could_ affect it by the magnetic forces and give it
position." By the 6th of December he had sent in to the Royal Society
the twentieth, and on the 24th of December the twenty-first, series of
his "Researches," in which the properties of diamagnetic bodies are
fully described. Thus these two great discoveries were elaborated, like
his earlier one, in about three months.
The discovery of the magnetic rotation of the plane of polarized light,
though it did not lead to such important practical applications as some
of Faraday's earlier discoveries, has been of the highest value to
science, as furnishing complete dynamical evidence that wherever
magnetic force exists there is matter, small portions of which are
rotating about axes parallel to the direction of that force.
We have given a few examples of the concentration of his efforts in
seeking to identify the apparently different forces of nature, of his
far-sightedness in selecting subjects for investigation, of his
persistence in the pursuit of what he set before him, of his energy in
working out the results of his discoveries, and of the accuracy and
completeness with which he made his final statement of the laws of the
phenomenon.
These characteristics of his scientific spirit lie on the surface of his
work, and are manifest to all who read his writings. But there was
another side of his character, to the cultivation of which he paid at
least as much attention, and which was reserved for his friends, his
family and his church. His letters and his conversation were always full
of whatever could awaken a healthy interest, and free from anything that
might rouse ill-feeling. When, on rare occasions, he was forced out of
the region of science into that of controversy, he stated the facts and
let them make their own way. He was entirely free from pride and undue
self-assertion. During the growth of his powers he always thankfully
accepted a correction, and made use of every expedient, however humble,
which would make his work more effective in every detail. When at length
he found his memory failing and his mental powers declining, he gave up,
without ostentation or complaint, whatever parts of his work he could no
longer carry on according to his own standard of efficiency. When he was
no longer able to apply his mind to science, he remained content and
happy in the exercise of those kindly feelings and warm affections which
he had cultivated no less carefully than his scientific powers.
The parents of Faraday belonged to the very small and isolated Christian
sect which is commonly called after Robert Sandeman. Faraday himself
attended the meetings from childhood; at the age of thirty he made
public profession of his faith, and during two different periods he
discharged the office of elder. His opinion with respect to the relation
between his science and his religion is expressed in a lecture on mental
education delivered in 1854, and printed at the end of his _Researches
in Chemistry and Physics_.
"Before entering upon the subject, I must make one distinction which,
however it may appear to others, is to me of the utmost importance.
High as man is placed above the creatures around him, there is a
higher and far more exalted position within his view; and the ways are
infinite in which he occupies his thoughts about the fears, or hopes,
or expectations of a future life. I believe that the truth of that
future cannot be brought to his knowledge by any exertion of his
mental powers, however exalted they may be; that it is made known to
him by other teaching than his own, and is received through simple
belief of the testimony given. Let no one suppose for an instant that
the self-education I am about to commend, in respect of the things of
this life, extends to any considerations of the hope set before us, as
if man by reasoning could find out God. It would be improper here to
enter upon this subject further than to claim an absolute distinction
between religious and ordinary belief. I shall be reproached with the
weakness of refusing to apply those mental operations which I think
good in respect of high things to the very highest. I am content to
bear the reproach. Yet even in earthly matters I believe that 'the
invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly
seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal
power and Godhead'; and I have never seen anything incompatible
between those things of man which can be known by the spirit of man
which is within him and those higher things concerning his future,
which he cannot know by that spirit."