which, on treatment with phosphorus pentachloride, yielded furfurane.
Furfurane is insoluble in water and possesses a characteristic smell. It
does not react with sodium or with phenylhydrazine, but yields
dye-stuffs with isatin and phenanthrenequinone. It reacts violently with
hydrochloric acid, producing a brown amorphous substance. Methyl and
phenyl derivatives have been prepared by C. Paal (_Ber._, 1884, 17, p.
915). Paal prepared acetonyl acetophenone by condensing sodium
acetoacetate with phenacylbromide, and this substance on dehydration
yields [alpha][alpha]'-phenylmethylfurfurane, the acetonyl acetophenone
probably reacting in the tautomeric "enolic" form,
CH3.CO.CHNa.COOR + C6H5.CO.CH2Br = CH3.CO.CH(CH2COC6H5).COOR.
This ester readily hydrolyses, and the acid formed yields acetonyl
acetophenone (by loss of carbon dioxide), which then on dehydration
yields the furfurane derivative, thus
CH--CH CH--CH
// \\ // \\
CH3.C C.C6H5 = H2O + CH3.C C.C6H5.
\ / \___ ___/
OH OH O
L. Knorr (_Ber._, 1889, 22, p. 158) obtained diacetosuccinic ester by
condensing sodium acetoacetate with iodine, and by dehydrating the ester
he prepared [alpha][alpha]'-dimethylfurfurane [beta][beta]'-dicarboxylic
acid (carbopyrotritaric acid), which on distillation yields
[alpha][alpha]'-dimethylfurfurane as a liquid boiling at 94 deg. C. Paal
also obtained this compound by using monochloracetone in the place of
phenacylbromide. By the distillation of mucic acid or isosaccharic acid,
furfurane-[alpha]-carboxylic acid (pyromucic acid), C4H3O.CO2H, is
obtained; it crystallizes in needles or leaflets, and melts at 134 deg.
C.
_Furfurol_ (furol), C4H3O.CHO, is the aldehyde of pyromucic acid, and is
formed on distilling bran, sugar, wood and most carbohydrates with
dilute sulphuric acid, or by distilling the pentoses with hydrochloric
acid. It is a colourless liquid which boils at 162 deg. C., and is
moderately soluble in water; it turns brown on exposure to air and has a
characteristic aromatic smell. It shows all the usual properties of an
aldehyde, forming a bisulphite compound, an oxime and a hydrazone;
whilst it can be reduced to the corresponding furfuryl alcohol by means
of sodium amalgam, and oxidized to pyromucic acid by means of silver
oxide. It also shows all the condensation reactions of benzaldehyde
(q.v.); condensing with aldehydes and ketones in the presence of caustic
soda to form more complex aldehydes and ketones with unsaturated side
chains, such as furfuracrolein, C4H3O.CH:CH.CHO, and furfuracetone,
C4H3O.CH:CH.CO.CH3. With alcoholic potassium cyanide It changes to
furoin, C4H3O.CHOH.CO.C4H3O, which can be oxidized to furil,
C4H3O.CO.CO.C4H3O, whilst alcoholic potash converts it into furfuryl
alcohol. With fatty acids and acid anhydrides it gives the "Perkin"
reaction (see CINNAMIC ACID). Furfurol is shown to have its aldehydic
group in the a position, by conversion into furfurpropionic acid,
C4H3O.CH2.CH2.CO2H, which on oxidation by bromine water and subsequent
reduction of the oxidized product is converted into n-pimelic acid,
HO2C(CH2)5CO2H. Furfurol in minute quantities can be detected by the red
colour it forms with a solution of aniline acetate.
Furfurane--[alpha][alpha]'-dicarboxylic acid or dehydromucic acid,
C4H2O(CO2H)2, is formed when mucic acid is heated with hydrochloric
acid at 100 deg. C. On being heated, it loses carbon dioxide and gives
pyromucic acid. By digesting acetoacetic ester with sodium succinate
and acetic anhydride, methronic acid, C8H8O5, is obtained; for the
constitution of this acid, see L. Knorr, _Ber._, 1889, 22, p. 152, and
R. Fittig, Ann., 1889, 259, p. 166.
Di- and tetrahydrofurfurane compounds are also known (see A. Lipp,
Ber., 1889, 22, p. 1196; W.H. Perkin, junr. _Journ. Chem. Soc._, 1899,
57, p. 944; and S. Ruhemann, ibid., 1896, 69, p. 1383).
FURIES (Lat. _Furiae_, also called DIRAE), in Roman mythology an
adaptation of the Greek Erinyes (q.v.), with whom they are generally
identical. A special aspect of them in Virgil is that of agents employed
by the higher gods to stir up mischief, strife and hatred upon earth.
Mention may here be made of an old Italian deity Furina (or Furrina),
whose worship fell early into disuse, and who was almost forgotten in
the time of Varro. By the mythologists of Cicero's time the name was
connected with the verb _furere_ and the noun _furia_, which in the
plural (not being used in the singular in this sense) was accepted as
the equivalent of the Greek Erinyes. But it is more probably related to
_furvus_, _fuscus_, and signifies one of the spirits of darkness, who
watched over men's lives and haunted their abodes. This goddess had her
own special priest, a grove across the Tiber where Gaius Gracchus was
slain, and a festival on the 25th of July. Authorities differ as to the
existence of more than one goddess called Furina, and their identity
with the Forinae mentioned in two inscriptions found at Rome (_C.I.L._
vi. 422 and 10,200).
FURLONG (from the O. Eng. _furlang_, i.e. "furrow-long"), a measure of
length, originally the length of a furrow in the "common field" system.
As the field in this system was generally taken to be a square, 10 acres
in extent, and as the acre varied in different districts and at
different times, the "furlong" also varied. The side of a square
containing 10 statute acres is 220 yds. or 40 poles, which was the
usually accepted length of the furlong. This is also the length of
{1/8}th of the statute mile. "Furlong" was as early as the 9th century
used to translate the Latin _stadium_, 1/8th of the Roman mile.
FURNACE, a contrivance for the production and utilization of heat by the
combustion of fuel. The word is common to all the Romance tongues,
appearing in more or less modified forms of the Latin _fornax_. But in
all those languages the word has a more extended meaning than in
English, as it covers every variety of heating apparatus; while here, in
addition to furnaces proper, we distinguish other varieties as _ovens_,
_stoves_ and _kilns_. The first of these, in the form _Ofen_, is used in
German as a general term like the French _four_; but in English it has
been restricted to those apparatus in which only a moderate temperature,
usually below a red heat, is produced in a close chamber. Our bakers'
ovens, hot-air ovens or stoves, annealing ovens for glass or metal, &c.,
would all be called _fours_ in French and _Ofen_ in German, in common
with furnaces of all kinds. Stove, an equivalent of oven, is from the
German _Stube_, i.e. a heated room, and is commonly so understood; but
is also applied to open fire-places, which appears to be somewhat of a
departure from the original signification.
Furnaces are constructed according to many different patterns with
varying degrees of complexity in arrangement; but all may be considered
as combining three essential parts, namely, the fire-place in which the
fuel is consumed, the heated chamber, laboratory, hearth or working bed,
as it is variously called, where the heat is applied to the special work
for which the furnace is designed, and the apparatus for producing rapid
combustion by the supply of air under pressure to the fire. In the
simplest cases the functions of two or more of these parts may be
combined into one, as in the smith's forge, where the fire-place and
heating chamber are united, the iron being placed among the coals, only
the air for burning being supplied under pressure from a blowing engine
by a second special contrivance, the tuyere, tuiron, twyer or
blast-pipe; but in the more refined modern furnaces, where great economy
of fuel is an object, the different functions are distributed over
separate and distinct apparatus, the fuel being converted into gas in
one, dried in another, and heated in a third, before arriving at the
point of combustion in the working chamber of the furnace proper.
Furnaces may be classified according as the products of combustion are
employed (1) only for heating purposes, or (2) both for heating and
bringing about some chemical change. The furnaces employed for
steam-raising or for heating buildings are invariably of the first
type (see BOILER and HEATING), while those employed in metallurgy are
generally of the second. The essential difference in construction is
that in the first class the substances heated do not come into contact
with either the fuel or the furnace gases, whereas in the second they
do. Metallurgical furnaces of the first class are termed crucible,
muffle or retort furnaces, and of the second shaft and reverberatory
furnaces. The following is a detailed subdivision:--
(1) Fuel and substance in contact.
(a) Height of furnace greater than diameter = shaft furnaces.
([alpha]) No blast = kilns.
([beta]) With blast = blast furnaces.
(b) Height not much greater than diameter = hearth furnaces.
(2) Substance heated by products of combustion = reverberatory
furnaces.
(a) Charge not melted = roasting or calcining furnaces.
(b) Charge melted = melting furnaces.
(3) Substance is not directly heated by the fuel or by the products
of combustion.
(a) Heating chamber fixed and forming part of furnace = muffle
furnaces.
(b) Crucible furnaces.
(c) Retort furnaces.
Another classification may be based upon the nature of the heating
agent, according as it is coal (or some similar combustible) oil, gas or
electricity. In this article the general principles of metallurgical
furnaces will be treated; the subject of gas- and oil-heated furnaces is
treated in the article Fuel, and of the electric furnace in the article
Electrometallurgy. For special furnaces reference should be made to the
articles on the industry concerned, e.g. GLASS, GAS, S MANUFACTURE, &c.
_Shaft, Blast and Hearth Furnaces._--The blast furnace in its simplest
form is among the oldest, if not the oldest, of metallurgical
contrivances. In the old copper-smelting district of Arabia Petraea,
clay blast-pipes dating back to the earlier dynasties of ancient Egypt
have been found buried in slag heaps; and in India the native smiths and
iron-workers continue to use furnaces of similar types. These, when
reduced to their most simple expression, are mere basin-shaped hollows
in the ground, containing ignited charcoal and the substances to be
heated, the fire being urged by a blast of air blown in through one or
more nozzles from a bellows at or near the top. They are essentially the
same as the smith's forge. This class of furnace is usually known as an
open fire or hearth, and is represented in a more advanced stage of
development by the Catalan, German and Walloon forges formerly used in
the production of malleable iron.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Elevation of Catalan Forge.]
Fig. 1 represents a Catalan forge. The cavity in the ground is
represented by a pit of square or rectangular section lined with brick
or stone of a kind not readily acted on by heat, about 1-1/2 or 2 ft.
deep, usually somewhat larger above than below, with a tuyere or
blast-pipe of copper penetrating one of the walls near the top, with a
considerable downward inclination, so that the air meets the fuel some
way down. In iron-smelting the ore is laid in a heap upon the fuel
(charcoal) filling up the hearth, and is gradually brought to the
metallic state by the reducing action of the carbon monoxide formed at
the tuyere. The metal sinks through the ignited fuel, forming, in the
hearth, a spongy mass or ball, which is lifted out by the smelters at
the end of each operation, and carried to the forge hammer. The earthy
matters form a fusible glass or slag melt, and collect at the lowest
point of the hearth, whence they are removed by opening a hole pierced
through the front wall at the bottom. The active portion of such a
furnace is essentially that above the blast-pipe, the function of the
lower part being merely the collection of the reduced metal; the fire
may therefore be regarded as burning in an unconfined space, with the
waste of a large amount of its heating power. By continuing the walls
of the hearth above the tuyere, into a shaft or stack either of the
same or some other section, we obtain a furnace of increased capacity,
but with no greater power of consuming fuel, in which the material to
be treated can be heated up gradually by loading it into the stack,
alternately with layers of fuel, the charge descending regularly to
the point of combustion, and absorbing a proportion of the heat of the
flame that went to waste in the open fire. This principle is capable
of very wide extension, the blast furnace being mainly limited in
height by the strength the column of materials or "burden" has to
resist crushing, under the weight due to the head adopted, and the
power of the blowing engine to supply blast of sufficient density to
overcome the resistance of the closely packed materials to the free
passage of the spent gases. The consuming power of the furnace or the
rate at which it can burn the fuel supplied is measured by the number
of tuyeres and their section.
The development of blast furnaces is practically the development of
iron-smelting. The profile has been very much varied at different times.
The earliest examples were square or rectangular in horizontal section,
but the general tendency of modern practice is to substitute round
sections, their construction being facilitated by the use of specially
moulded bricks which have entirely superseded the sandstone blocks
formerly used. The vertical section, on the other hand, is subject to
considerable variation according to the work to which the furnace is
applied. Where the operation is simply one of fusion, as in the
iron-founder's cupola, in which there is no very great change in volume
in the materials on their descent to the tuyeres, the stack is nearly or
quite straight-sided; but when, as is the case with the smelting of iron
ores with limestone flux, a large proportion of volatile matter has to
be removed in the process, a wall of varying inclination is used, so
that the body of the furnace is formed of two dissimilar truncated
cones, joined by their bases, the lower one passing downwards into a
short, nearly cylindrical, position. For further consideration of this
subject see IRON AND STEEL.
_Hearth furnaces_ are employed in certain metallurgical operations, e.g.
in the air-reduction process for smelting lead ores. The principle is
essentially that of the Catalan forge. Such furnaces are very wasteful,
and have little to recommend them (see Schnabel, Metallurgy, 1905, vol.
1. p. 409).
_Reverberatory Furnaces._--Blast furnaces are, from the intimate contact
between the burden to be smelted and the fuel, the least wasteful of
heat; but their use supposes the possibility of obtaining fuel of good
quality and free from sulphur or other substances likely to deteriorate
the metal produced. In all cases, therefore, where it is desired to do
the work out of contact with the solid fuel, the operation of burning or
heat-producing must be performed in a special fire-place or combustion
chamber, the body of flame and heated gas being afterwards made to act
upon the surface of the material exposed in a broad thin layer in the
working bed or laboratory of the furnace by reverberation from the low
vaulted roof covering the bed. Such furnaces are known by the general
name of reverberatory or reverbatory furnaces, also as air or wind
furnaces, to distinguish them from those worked with compressed air or
blast.
Originally the term cupola was used for the reverberatory furnace, but
in the course of time it has changed its meaning, and is now given to a
small blast furnace such as that used by iron-founders--reverberatory
smelting furnaces in the same trade being called air furnaces.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Longitudinal section of Reverberatory Furnace.]
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Reverberatory Furnace (horizontal section).]
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Reverberatory Furnace (elevation at flue end).]
Figs. 2, 3 and 4 represent a reverberatory furnace such as is used for
the fusion of copper ores for regulus, and may be taken as generally
representing its class. The fire-place A is divided from the working
bed B by a low wall C known as the fire bridge, and at the opposite
end there is sometimes, though not invariably, a second bridge of less
height called the flue bridge D. A short diagonal flue or up-take E
conveys the current of spent flame to the chimney F, which is of
square section, diminishing by steps at two or three different
heights, and provided at the top with a covering plate or damper G,
which may be raised or lowered by a chain reaching to the ground, and
serves for regulating the speed of the exhaust gases, and thereby the
draught of air through the fire. Where several furnaces are connected
with the same chimney stack, the damper takes the form of a sliding
plate in the mouth of the connecting flue, so that the draught in one
may be modified without affecting the others. The fire bridge is
partially protected against the intense heat of the body of flame
issuing through the fire arch by a passage to which the air has free
access. The material to be melted is introduced into the furnace from
the hoppers HH through the charging holes in the roof. When melted the
products separate on the bed (which is made of closely packed sand or
other infusible substances), according to their density; the lighter
earthy matters forming an upper layer of slag are drawn out by the
slag hole K at the flue end into an iron wagon or bogie, while the
metal subsides to the bottom of the bed, and at the termination of the
operation is run out by the tap hole L into moulds or granulated into
water. The opposite opening M is the working door, through which the
tool for stirring the charge is introduced. It is covered by a plate
suspended to a lever, similar to that seen in the end elevation (fig.
4) in front of the slag hole.
According to the purposes to which they are applied, reverberatory
furnaces may be classed into two groups, namely, fusion or melting
furnaces, and calcining or wasting furnaces, also called calciners. The
former have a very extended application in many branches of industry,
being used by both founders and smelters in the fusion of metals; in the
concentration of poor metallic compounds by fusion into regulus; in the
reduction of lead and tin ores; for refining copper and silver; and for
making malleable iron by the puddling processes and welding. Calcining
furnaces have a less extended application, being chiefly employed in the
conversion of metallic sulphides into oxides by continued exposure to
the action of air at a temperature far below that of fusion, or into
chlorides by roasting with common salt. As some of these substances (for
example, lead sulphide and copper pyrites) are readily fusible when
first heated, but become more refractory as part of the sulphur is
dissipated and oxygen takes its place, it is important that the heat
should be very carefully regulated at first, otherwise the mass may
become clotted or fritted together, and the oxidizing effect of the air
soon ceases unless the fritted masses be broken small again. This is
generally done by making the bed of the furnace very long in proportion
to its breadth and to the fire-grate area, which may be the more easily
done as a not inconsiderable amount of heat is given out during the
oxidation of the ore--such increased length being often obtained by
placing two or even three working beds one above the other, and allowing
the flame to pass over them in order from below upwards. Such calciners
are used especially in roasting zinc blende into zinc oxide, and in the
conversion of copper sulphides into chlorides in the wet extraction
process. In some processes of lead-smelting, where the minerals treated
contain sand, the long calciner is provided with a melting bottom close
to the fire-place, so that the desulphurized ore leaves the furnace as a
glassy slag or silicate, which is subsequently reduced to the metallic
state by fusion with fluxes in blast furnaces. Reverberatory furnaces
play an important part in the manufacture of sodium carbonate;
descriptions and illustrations are given in the article ALKALI
MANUFACTURE.
_Muffle, Crucible and Retort Furnaces._--A third class of furnaces is so
arranged that the work is done by indirect heating; that is, the
material under treatment, whether subjected to calcination, fusion or
any other process, is not brought in contact either with fuel or flame,
but is raised to the proper temperature by exposure in a chamber heated
externally by the products of combustion. These are known as muffle or
chamber furnaces; and by supposing the crucibles or retorts to represent
similar chambers of only temporary duration, the ordinary pot melting
air furnaces, and those for the reduction of zinc ores or the
manufacture of coal gas, may be included in the same category. These are
almost invariably air furnaces, though sometimes air under pressure is
used, as, for example, in the combustion of small anthracitic coal,
where a current of air from a fan-blower is sometimes blown under the
grate to promote combustion. Types of muffle furnaces are figured in the
article ANNEALING, HARDENING AND TEMPERING.
_Furnace Materials._--The materials used in the construction of furnaces
are divisible into two classes, namely, ordinary and refractory or
fire-resisting. The former are used principally as casing, walls,
pillars or other supporting parts of the structure, and includes
ordinary red or yellow bricks, clay-slate, granite and most building
stones; the latter are reserved for the parts immediately in contact
with the fuel and flame, such as the lining of the fire-place, the
arches, roof and flues, the lower part if not the whole of the chimney
lining in reverberatory furnaces, and the whole of the internal walls of
blast furnaces. Among such substances are fireclay and firebricks,
certain sandstones, silica in the form of ganister, and Dinas stone and
bricks, ferric oxide and alumina, carbon (as coke and graphite),
magnesia, lime and chromium oxide--their relative importance being
indicated by their order, the last two or three indeed being only of
limited use.
The most essential point in good fireclays, or in the bricks or other
objects made from them, is the power of resisting fusion at the highest
heat to which they may be exposed. This supposes them to be free from
metallic oxides forming easily fusible compounds with silica, such as
lime or iron, the presence of the former even in comparatively small
proportion being very detrimental. As clays they must be sufficiently
plastic to be readily moulded, but at the same time possess sufficient
stiffness not to contract too strongly in drying, whereby the objects
produced would be liable to be warped or cracked before firing. In most
cases, however, the latter tendency is guarded against, in making up the
paste for moulding, by adding to the fresh clay a certain proportion of
burnt material of the same kind, such as old bricks or potsherds, ground
to a coarse powder. Coke dust or graphite is used for the same purpose
in crucible making (see FIREBRICK).
The most highly valued fireclays are derived from the Coal Measures.
Among the chief localities are the neighbourhood of Stourbridge in
Worcestershire and Stannington near Sheffield, which supply most of
the materials for crucibles used in steel and brass melting, and the
pots for glass houses; Newcastle-on-Tyne and Glenboig near Glasgow,
where heavy blast furnace and other firebricks, gas retorts, &c., are
made in large quantities. Coarse-grained but very strong firebricks
are also made of the waste of china clay works.
In Belgium the clay raised at Andenne is very largely used for making
retorts for zinc furnaces. The principal French fireclays are derived
from the Tertiary strata in the south, and more nearly resemble
porcelain clays than those of the Coal Measures. They give wares of
remarkably fine texture and surface, combined with high refractory
character.
In Germany, Ips and Passau on the Danube, and Gross Almerode in Hesse,
are the best known localities producing fireclay goods, the crucibles
from the last-mentioned place, known as Hessian crucibles, going all
over the world. These, though not showing a great resistance to
extreme heat, are very slightly affected by sudden alternations in
heating, as they may be plunged cold into a strongly heated furnace
without cracking, a treatment to which French and Stourbridge pots
cannot be subjected with safety.
Plumbago or graphite is largely used in the production of crucibles, not
in the pure state but in admixture with fireclay; the proportion of the
former varies with the quality from 25 to nearly 50%. These are the most
enduring of all crucibles, the best lasting out 70 or 80 meltings in
brass foundries, about 50 with bronze, and 8 to 10 in steel-melting.
Silica is used in furnace-building in the forms of sand, ganister, a
finely ground sandstone from the Coal Measures of Yorkshire, and the
analogous substance known as Dinas clay, which is really nearly pure
silica, containing at most about 2-1/2% of bases. Dinas clay is found at
various places in the Vale of Neath in South Wales, in the form of a
loose disintegrated sandstone, which is crushed between rollers, mixed
with about 1% of lime, and moulded into bricks that are fired in kilns
at a very high temperature. These bricks are specially used for the
roof, fire arches, and other parts subjected to intense heat in
reverberatory steel-melting furnaces, and, although infusible under
ordinary conditions, are often fairly melted by the heat without fluxing
or corrosion after a certain amount of exposure. Ganister, a slightly
plastic siliceous sand, is similarly used for the lining of Bessemer
steel converters; it is found in the neighbourhood of Sheffield.
Alumina as a refractory material is chiefly used in the form of bauxite,
but its applications are somewhat special. It has been found to stand
well for the linings of rotatory puddling furnaces, where, under
long-continued heating, it changes into a substance as hard and
infusible as natural emery. In the Paris Exhibition of 1878 bricks very
hard and dense in character, said to be of pure alumina, were exhibited
by Muller & Co. of Paris, as well as bricks of magnesia, the latter
being specially remarkable for their great weight. They are intended for
use at the extreme temperatures obtainable in steel furnaces, or for the
melting of platinum before the oxy-hydrogen blowpipe. For the latter
purpose, however, lime is generally used; but as this substance has only
small stability, it is usually bedded in a casing of firebrick. Oxide of
chromium and chrome iron ore have been proposed as refractory crucible
materials. The former may be used as a bed for melting platinum in the
same way as lime or magnesia, without affecting the quality of the
metal.
Ferric oxide, though not strictly infusible, is largely used as a
protecting lining for furnaces in which malleable iron is made, a
portion of the ore being reduced and recovered in the process. In an
oxidizing atmosphere it is indifferent to silica, and therefore
siliceous bricks containing a considerable proportion of ferric oxide,
when used in flues of boilers, brewers' coppers, &c. and similar
situations, are perfectly fire-resisting so long as the heated gas
contains a large proportion of unconsumed air. The red firebricks known
as Windsor bricks, which are practically similar in composition to soft
red sandstone, are of this character.
The electric furnace has led to the discovery of several important
materials, which have been employed as furnace linings. Carborundum
(q.v.) was applied by Engels in 1899, firebricks being washed with
carborundum paste and then baked. Siloxicon, a compound of carbon,
silicon and oxygen, formed from carbon and silica in the electric
furnace, was patented by E.G. Acheson in 1903. It is very refractory,
and is applied by mixing with water and some bond, such as sodium
silicate or gas-tar. An amorphous, soft silicon carbide, also formed in
the electric furnace, was patented by B. Talbot in 1899. For basic
linings, magnesia crystallized in the electric furnace is being
extensively used, replacing dolomite to some extent (see E. Kilburn
Scott, "Refractory Materials for Furnace Linings," _Faraday Soc._, 1906,
p. 289).
_Furnace Construction._--In the construction of furnaces provision has
to be made for the unequal expansion of the different parts under the
effect of heat. This is especially necessary in the case of
reverberatory furnaces, which are essentially weak structures, and
therefore require to be bound together by complicated systems of tie
rods and uprights or buck staves. The latter are very commonly made of
old flat bottom rails, laid with the flat of the flange against the
wall. Puddling furnaces are usually entirely cased with iron plates,
and blast furnaces with hoops round each course of the stack, or in
those of thinner constructions the firebrick work is entirely enclosed
in a wrought iron casing or jacket. Such parts as may be subjected to
extreme heat and the fretting action of molten material, as the tuyere
and slag breasts of blast furnaces, and the fire bridges and bed
plates of reverberatory furnaces, are often made in cast iron with
double walls, a current of water or air being kept circulating through
the intermediate space. In this way the metal, owing to its high
conductivity and low specific heat as compared to that of water, is
kept at a temperature far below its melting point if the water is
renewed quickly enough. It is of course necessary in such cases that
the circulation shall be perfectly free, in order to prevent the
accumulation of steam under pressure in the interior of the casting.
This method has received considerable extension, notably in
furnace-smelting of iron ores containing manganese, where the entire
hearth is often completely water-cased, and in some lead furnaces
where no firebrick lining is used, the lower part of the furnace stack
being a mere double iron box cooled by water sufficiently to keep a
coating of slag adhering to the inner shell which prevents the metal
from being acted upon.
_Mechanical Furnaces._--The introduction and withdrawal of the charges
in fusion furnaces is effected by gravitation, the solid masses of raw
ore, fuel and flux being thrown in at the top, and flowing out of the
furnace at the taphole or slag run at the bottom. Vertical kilns, such
as those used for burning limestone, are worked in a similar
manner--the raw stone going in at the top, and the burnt product
falling through holes in the bottom when allowed to do so. With
reverberatory calciners, however, where the work is done upon a
horizontal bed, a considerable amount of hand labour is expended in
raking out the charge when finished, and in drawing slags from fusion
furnaces; and more particularly in the puddling process of refining
iron the amount of manual exertion required is very much greater. To
diminish the item of expenditure on this head, various kinds of
mechanical furnaces have been adopted, all of which can be classified
under three heads of gravitating furnaces, mechanical stirrers and
revolving furnaces.
1. In _gravitating furnaces_ the bed is laid at a slope just within
the angle of repose of the charge, which is introduced at the upper
end, and is pushed down the slope by fresh material, when necessary,
in the contrary direction to the flame which enters at the lower end.
Gerstenhofer's pyrites burner is a furnace of this class. It has a
tall vertical chamber heated from below, and traversed by numerous
narrow horizontal cross bars at different heights. The ore in fine
powder is fed in at the top, through a hopper, in a regular thin
stream, by a pair of rollers, and in falling lodges on the flats of
the bars, forming a talus upon each of the height corresponding to the
angle of rest of the material, which is, however, at short intervals
removed to lower levels by the arrival of fresh ore from above. In
this way a very large surface is exposed to the heat, and the ore, if
containing sufficient sulphur to maintain the combustion, is perfectly
burned when it arrives at the bottom; if, however, it is imperfectly
sized or damp, or if it contains much earthy matter, the result is not
very satisfactory. There are many other furnaces in which the same
principle is utilized.
2. _Mechanical stirrers_ constitute a second division of mechanical
furnaces, in which the labour of rabbling or stirring the charges is
performed by combinations of levers and wheel-work taking motion from
a rotating shaft, and more or less perfectly imitating the action of
hand labour. They are almost entirely confined to puddling furnaces.
3. _Revolving furnaces_, the third and most important division of
mechanical furnaces, are of two kinds. The first of these resemble an
ordinary reverberatory furnace by having a flat bed which, however,
has the form of a circular disk mounted on a central shaft, and
receives a slow movement of rotation from a water-wheel or other
motor, so that every part of the surface is brought successively under
the action of the fire, the charge being stirred and ultimately
removed by passing under a series of fixed scraper arms placed above
the surface at various points. Brunton's calciner, used in the
"burning" of the pyritic minerals associated with tin ore, is a
familiar example of this type. The hearth may either rotate on an
inclined axis, so that the path of its surface is oblique to that of
the flame, or the working part may be a hollow cylinder, between the
fireplace and flue, with its axis horizontal or nearly so, whose inner
surface represents the working bed, mounted upon friction rollers, and
receiving motion from a special steam-engine by means of a central
belt of spur gearing. Furnaces of the second kind were first used in
alkali works for the conversion of sulphate into carbonate of sodium
in the process known as black ash fusion, but have since been applied
to other processes. As calciners they are used in tin mines and for
the chlorination of silver ores. Mechanical furnaces are figured in
the article ALKALI MANUFACTURE.
_Use of Heated Air._--The calorific intensity of fuel is found to be
very considerably enhanced, if the combustion be effected with air
previously heated to any temperature between that of boiling water and
a dull red heat, the same effect being observed both with solid and
gaseous fuel. The latter, especially when brought to the burning point
at a high temperature, produces a heat that can be resisted by the
most refractory substances only, such as silica, alumina and magnesia.
This is attained in the regenerative furnace of Siemens, detailed
consideration of which belongs more properly to the subject of iron.
_Economy of Waste Heat._--In every system of artificial heating, the
amount of heat usefully applied is but a small proportion of that
developed by combustion. Even under the most advantageous application,
that of evaporation of water in a steam boiler where the gases of the
fire have to travel through a great length of flues bounded by thin
iron surfaces of great heat-absorbing capacity, the temperature of the
current at the chimney is generally much above that required to
maintain an active draught in the fireplace; and other tubes
containing water, often in considerable numbers, forming the so-called
fuel economizers, may often be interposed between the boiler and the
chimney with marked advantage as regards saving of fuel. In
reverberatory and air furnaces used in the different operations of
iron manufacture, where an extremely high temperature has to be
maintained in spaces of comparatively small extent, such as the beds
of puddling, welding and steel-melting furnaces, the temperature of
the exhaust gases is exceedingly high, and if allowed to pass directly
into the chimney they appear as a great body of flame at the top. It
is now general to save a portion of this heat by passing the flame
through flues of steam boilers, air-heating apparatus, or both--so
that the steam required for the necessary operations of the forge and
heated blast for the furnace itself may be obtained without further
expenditure of fuel. The most perfect method of utilizing the waste
heat hitherto applied is that of the Siemens regenerator, in which the
spent gases are made to travel through chambers, known as regenerators
or recuperators of heat, containing a quantity of thin firebricks
piled into a cellular mass so as to offer a very large heat-absorbing
surface, whereby their temperature is very considerably reduced, and
they arrive at the chimney at a heat not exceeding 300 or 400 degrees.
As soon as the bricks have become red hot, the current is diverted to
an adjacent chamber or pair of chambers, and the acquired heat is
removed by a current of cool gas or air passing towards the furnace,
where it arrives at a temperature sufficiently high to ensure the
greatest possible heating effect in combustion.
In iron-smelting blast furnaces the waste gases are of considerable
fuel value, and may render important services if properly applied.
Owing to the conditions of the work, which require the maintenance of
a sensibly reducing atmosphere, they contain a very notable proportion
of carbonic oxide, and are drawn off by large wrought iron tubes near
the top of the furnace and conveyed by branch pipes to the different
boilers and air-heating apparatus, which are now entirely heated by
the combustion of such gases, or mixed with air and exploded in gas
engines. Formerly they were allowed to burn to waste at the mouth of a
short chimney place above the furnace top, forming a huge body of
flame, which was one of the most striking features of the Black
Country landscape at night.
_Laboratory and Portable Furnaces._--Small air-furnaces with hot
plates or sand bath flues were formerly much employed in chemical
laboratories, as well as small blast furnaces for crucibles heated
with charcoal or coke. The use of such furnaces has very considerably
diminished, owing to the general introduction of coal-gas for heating
purposes in laboratories, which has been rendered possible by the
invention of the Bunsen burner, in which the mixture of air and gas
giving the least luminous but most powerfully heating flame is
effected automatically by the effluent gas. These burners, or
modifications of them, have also been applied to muffle furnaces,
which are convenient when only a few assays have to be made--the
furnace being a mere clay shell and soon brought to a working
temperature; but the fuel is too expensive to allow of their being
used habitually or on a large scale. Petroleum, or rather the heavy
oils obtained in tar refineries, having an equal or superior heating
power to coal-gas, may also be used in laboratories for producing high
temperatures. The oil is introduced in a thin stream upon a series of
inclined and channelled bars, where it is almost immediately
volatilized and burnt by air flowing in through parallel orifices.
Furnaces of this kind may be used for melting cast iron or bronze in
small quantities, and were employed by H. Sainte Claire Deville in
experiments in the metallurgy of the platinum group of metals.
Sefstrom's blast furnace, used in Sweden for the assay of iron ores,
is a convenient form of portable furnace applied to melting in
crucibles. It consists of a sheet-iron cylinder about 8 or 9 in. in
diameter, within which is fixed one of smaller size lined with
fireclay. The space between the two cylinders serves as a heater and
distributor for the blast, which is introduced through the nozzle at
the bottom, and enters the furnace through a series of several small
tuyeres arranged round the inner lining. Charcoal is the fuel used,
and the crucibles stand upon the bottom of the clay lining. When a
large body of fuel is required, the cylinder can be lengthened by an
iron hoop which fits over the top ring. Deville's portable blast
furnace is very similar in principle to the above, but the body of the
furnace is formed of a single cast iron cylinder lined with fireclay,
closed below by a cast iron plate perforated by a ring of small
holes--a hemispherical basin below forming the air-heating chamber.
FURNEAUX, TOBIAS (1735-1781), English navigator, was born at Swilly near
Plymouth on the 21st of August 1735. He entered the royal navy, and was
employed on the French and African coasts and in the West Indies during
the latter part of the Seven Years' War (1760-1763). He served as second
lieutenant of the "Dolphin" under Captain Samuel Wallis on the latter's
voyage round the globe (August 1766-May 1768); was made a commander in
November 1771; and commanded the "Adventure" which accompanied Captain
Cook (in the "Resolution") in Cook's second voyage. On this expedition
Furneaux was twice separated from his leader (February 8-May 19, 1773;
October 22, 1773-July 14, 1774, the date of his return to England). On
the former occasion he explored a great part of the south and east
coasts of Tasmania, and made the earliest British chart of the same.
Most of his names here survive; Cook, visiting this shore-line on his
third voyage, confirmed Furneaux's account and delineation of it (with
certain minor criticisms and emendations), and named after him the
islands in Banks Straits, opening into Bass's Straits, and the group now
known as the Low Archipelago. After the "Adventure" was finally
separated from the "Resolution" off New Zealand in October 1773,
Furneaux returned home alone, bringing with him Omai of Ulaietea. This
first South Sea Islander seen in the British Isles returned to his home
with Cook in 1776-1777. Furneaux was made a captain in 1775, and
commanded the "Syren" in the British attack of the 28th of June 1776
upon Charleston, South Carolina. His successful efforts to introduce
domestic animals and potatoes into the South Sea Islands are worthy of
note. He died at Swilly on the 19th of September 1781.
See Hawkesworth's _Narrative of Wallis' Voyage_; Captain Cook's
_Narrative of his Second Voyage_; also T. Furneaux's life by Rev.
Henry Furneaux in the _Dictionary of National Biography_.
FURNES (Flem. _Veurne_), an old-fashioned little town amid the dunes
near the coast in West Flanders, Belgium, about 26 m. S.W. of Bruges.
Pop. (1904) 6099. It is the centre of a considerable area extending to
the French frontier, and its market is an important one for the disposal
of corn, stock, hops and dairy produce. During the Norman raids Furnes
was destroyed, and the present town was built by Baldwin Bras de Fer,
first count of Flanders, about the year 870. At the height of the
prosperity of the Flemish communes in the 14th century there were
dependent on the barony of Furnes not fewer than fifty-two rich
villages, but these have all disappeared, partly no doubt as the
consequence of repeated French invasions down to the end of the 18th
century, but chiefly through the encroachment of the sea followed by the
accumulation of sand along the whole of this portion of the coast.
Furnes contains many curious old houses and the church of St Walburga,
which is a fine survival of the 13th century with some older portions.
The old church and buildings, grouped round the Grand Place, which is
the scene of the weekly market, present a quaint picture which is
perhaps not to be equalled in the country. Near Furnes on the seashore
is the fashionable bathing place called La Panne.
Furnes one day a year becomes a centre of attraction to all the people
of Flanders. This is the last Sunday in July, when the fete of Calvary
and the Crucifixion is celebrated. Of all popular festivities in Belgium
this is the nearest approach to the old Passion Play. The whole story of
Christ is told with great precision by means of succeeding groups which
typify the different phases of the subject. The people of Furnes pose as
Roman soldiers or Jewish priests, as the apostles or mere spectators,
while the women put on long black veils so that they may figure in the
procession as the just women.
FURNESS, HORACE HOWARD (1833- ), American Shakespearian scholar, was
born in Philadelphia on the 2nd of November 1833, being the son of
William Henry Furness (1802-1896) minister of the First Unitarian church
in that city, a powerful preacher and writer. He graduated at Harvard in
1854, and was admitted to the bar in 1859, but soon devoted himself to
the study of Shakespeare. He accumulated a collection of illustrative
material of great richness and extent, and brought out in 1871 the first
volume of a new Variorum edition, designed to represent and summarize
the conclusions of the best authorities in all languages--textual,
critical and annotative. The volumes appeared as follows: _Romeo and
Juliet_ (1871); _Macbeth_ (1873) (revised edition, 1903); _Hamlet_ (2
vols., 1877); _King Lear_ (1880); _Othello_ (1886); _The Merchant of
Venice_ (1888); _As You Like It_ (1890); _The Tempest_ (1892); _A
Midsummer Night's Dream_ (1895); _The Winter's Tale_ (1898); _Much Ado
about Nothing_ (1899); _Twelfth Night_ (1901); _Love's Labour's Lost_
(1904). The edition has been generally accepted as a thorough and
scholarly piece of work; its chief fault is that, beginning with
_Othello_ (1858), the editor used the First Folio text as his basis,
while in others he makes the text of the Cambridge (Globe) editors his
foundation. His wife, Helen Kate Furness (1837-1883), compiled _A
Concordance to the Poems of Shakespeare_ (1872).
FURNESS, a district of Lancashire, England, separated from the major
portion of the county by Morecambe Bay. It is bounded S.E. by this inlet
of the Irish Sea, S.W. by the sea, W. by the Duddon estuary and
Cumberland, and N. and E. by Westmorland. Its area is about 250 sq. m.
It forms the greater part of the North Lonsdale parliamentary division
of Lancashire, and contains the parliamentary borough of
Barrow-in-Furness. The surface is almost entirely hilly. The northern
half is included in the celebrated Lake District, and contains such
eminences as the Old Man of Coniston and Wetherlam. Apart from the
Duddon, which forms part of the western boundary, the principal rivers
are the Leven and Crake, flowing southward into a common estuary in
Morecambe Bay. The Leven drains Windermere and the Crake Coniston Lake.
The usage of the term "Lake District," however, tends to limit the name
of Furness in common thought to the district south of the Lakes, where
several of the place-names are suffixed with that of the district, as
Barrow-in-Farness, Dalton-in-Furness, Broughton-in-Furness. Between the
Duddon and Morecambe Bay lies Walney Island, 8 m. in length, and in the
shallow strait between it and the mainland are several smaller islands.
That part of Furness which forms a peninsula between the Leven estuary
and Morecambe Bay, and the Duddon estuary, is rich in hematite iron ore,
which has been worked from very early times. It was known and smelted by
British and Romans, and by the monks of Furness Abbey and Conishead
Priory, both in the district. It was owing to the existence of this ore
that the town of Barrow grew up in the 19th century; at first as a port
from which the ore was exported to South Wales, while later furnaces
were established on the spot, and acquired additional importance on the
introduction of the Bessemer process, which requires a non-phosphoric
ore such as is found here. The hematite is also worked at Ulverston,
Askam, Dalton and elsewhere, but the furnaces now depend in part upon
ore imported from Spain. The supposed extension of the ore under the
sands of the Duddon estuary led to the construction of a sea wall to
facilitate the working. The district is served by the main line of the
Furness railway, from Carnforth (junction with the London &
North-Western railway), passing the pleasant watering-place of Grange,
and approximately following the coast by Ulverston, Dalton and Barrow,
with branches to Lake Side, Windermere, and to Coniston.
Furness Abbey.
Apart from its industrial importance and scenic attractions, Furness has
an especial interest on account of its famous abbey. The ruins of this,
beautifully situated in a wooded valley, are extensive, and mainly of
fine transitional Norman and Early English date, acquiring additional
picturesqueness from the warm colour of the red sandstone of which they
are built. The abbey of Furness, otherwise Furdenesia or the further
_nese_ (promontory), which was dedicated to St Mary, was founded in 1127
by a small body of monks belonging to the Benedictine order of Savigny.
In 1124 they had settled at Tulketh, near Preston, but migrated in 1127
to Furness under the auspices of Stephen, count of Boulogne, afterwards
king, at that time lord of the liberty of Furness. In 1148 the
brotherhood joined the Cistercian order. Stephen granted to the monks
the lordship of Furness, and his charter was confirmed by Henry I.,
Henry II. and subsequent kings. The abbot's power throughout the
lordship was almost absolute; he had a market and fair at Dalton, was
free from service to the county and wapentake, and held a sheriff's
tourn. By a succession of gifts the abbey became one of the richest in
England and was the largest Cistercian foundation in the kingdom. At the
Dissolution its revenues amounted to between L750 and L800 a year,
exclusive of meadows, pastures, fisheries, mines, mills and salt works,
and the wealth of the monks enabled them to practise a regal
hospitality. The abbot was one of the twenty Cistercian abbots summoned
to the parliament of 1264, but was not cited after 1330, as he did not
hold of the king _in capite per baroniam_. The abbey founded several
offshoot houses, one of the most important being Rushen Abbey in the
Isle of Man. In 1535 the royal commissioners visited the abbey and
reported four of its inmates, including the abbot, for incontinence. In
1536 the abbot was charged with complicity in the Pilgrimage of Grace,
and on the 7th of April 1537, under compulsion, surrendered the abbey to
the king. A few monks were granted pensions, and the abbot was endowed
with the profits of the rectory of Dalton, valued at L33, 6s. 8d. per
annum. In 1540 the estates and revenues were annexed by act of
parliament to the Duchy of Lancaster. About James I.'s reign the site
and territories were alienated to the Prestons of Preston-Patrick, from
whom they descended to the dukes of Devonshire.
Conishead Priory, near Ulverston, an Augustinian foundation of the reign
of Henry II., has left no remains, but of the priory of Cartmel (1188)
the fine church is still in use. It is a cruciform structure of
transitional Norman and later dates, its central tower having the upper
storey set diagonally upon the lower. The chancel contains some superb
Jacobean carved oak screens, with stalls of earlier date.
FURNISS, HARRY (1854- ), British caricaturist and illustrator, was
born at Wexford, Ireland, of English and Scottish parents. He was
educated in Dublin, and in his schooldays edited a _Schoolboy's Punch_
in close imitation of the original. He came to London when he was
nineteen, and began to draw for the illustrated papers, being for some
years a regular contributor to the _Illustrated London News_. His first
drawing in _Punch_ appeared in 1880, and he joined its staff in 1884. He
illustrated Lucy's "Diary of Toby, M.P.," in _Punch_, where his
political caricatures became a popular feature. Among his other
successes were a series of "Puzzle Heads," and his annual "Royal Academy
guy'd." In _Royal Academy Antics_ (1890) he published a volume of
caricatures of the work of leading artists. He resigned from the staff
of _Punch_ in 1894, produced for a short time a weekly comic paper _Lika
Joko_, and in 1898 began a humorous monthly, _Fair Game_; but these were
short-lived. Among the numerous books he illustrated were James Payn's
_Talk of the Town_, Lewis Carroll's _Sylvie and Bruno_, Gilbert a
Beckett's _Comic Blackstone_, G.E. Farrow's _Wallypug Book_, and his own
novel, _Poverty Bay_ (1905). _Our Joe, his great Fight_ (1903), was a
collection of original cartoons. His volume of reminiscences,
_Confessions of a Caricaturist_ (1901), was followed by _Harry Furniss
at Home_ (1904). In 1905 he published _How to draw in Pen and Ink_, and
produced the first number of _Harry Furniss's Christmas Annual_.
FURNITURE (from "furnish," Fr. _fournir_), a general term of obscure
origin, used to describe the chattels and fittings required to adapt
houses and other buildings for use. Wood, ivory, precious stones,
bronze, silver and gold have been used from the most ancient times in
the construction or for the decoration of furniture. The kinds of
objects required for furniture have varied according to the changes of
manners and customs, as well as with reference to the materials at the
command of the workman, in different climates and countries. Of really
ancient furniture there are very few surviving examples, partly by
reason of the perishable materials of which it was usually constructed;
and partly because, however great may have been the splendour of Egypt,
however consummate the taste of Greece, however luxurious the life of
Rome, the number of household appliances was very limited. The chair,
the couch, the table, the bed, were virtually the entire furniture of
early peoples, whatever the degree of their civilization, and so they
remained until the close of what are known in European history as the
middle ages. During the long empire-strewn centuries which intervened
between the lapse of Egypt and the obliteration of Babylon, the
extinction of Greece and the dismemberment of Rome and the great
awakening of the Renaissance, household comfort developed but little.
The Ptolemies were as well lodged as the Plantagenets, and peoples who
spent their lives in the open air, going to bed in the early hours of
darkness, and rising as soon as it was light, needed but little
household furniture.
Indoor life and the growth of sedentary habits exercised a powerful
influence upon the development of furniture. From being splendid, or at
least massive, and exceedingly sparse and costly, it gradually became
light, plentiful and cheap. In the ancient civilizations, as in the
periods when our own was slowly growing, household plenishings, save in
the rudest and most elementary forms, were the privilege of the
great--no person of mean degree could have obtained, or would have dared
to use if he could, what is now the commonest object in every house, the
chair (q.v.). Sparse examples of the furniture of Egypt, Nineveh, Greece
and Rome are to be found in museums; but our chief sources of
information are mural and sepulchral paintings and sculptures. The
Egyptians used wooden furniture carved and gilded, covered with splendid
textiles, and supported upon the legs of wild animals; they employed
chests and coffers as receptacles for clothes, valuables and small
objects generally. Wild animals and beasts of the chase were carved upon
the furniture of Nineveh also; the lion, the bull and the ram were
especially characteristic. The Assyrians were magnificent in their
household appointments; their tables and couches were inlaid with ivory
and precious metals. Cedar and ebony were much used by these great
Eastern peoples, and it is probable that they were familiar with
rosewood, walnut and teak. Solomon's bed was of cedar of Lebanon. Greek
furniture was essentially Oriental in form; the more sumptuous varieties
were of bronze, damascened with gold and silver. The Romans employed
Greek artists and workmen and absorbed or adapted many of their
mobiliary fashions, especially in chairs and couches. The Roman tables
were of splendid marbles or rare woods. In the later ages of the empire,
in Rome and afterwards in Constantinople, gold and silver were
plentifully used in furniture; such indeed was the abundance of these
precious metals that even cooking utensils and common domestic vessels
were made of them.
The architectural features so prominent in much of the medieval
furniture begin in these Byzantine and late Roman thrones and other
seats. These features became paramount as Pointed architecture became
general in Europe, and scarcely less so during the Renaissance. Most of
the medieval furniture, chests, seats, trays, &c., of Italian make were
richly gilt and painted. In northern Europe carved oak was more
generally used. State seats in feudal halls were benches with ends
carved in tracery, backs panelled or hung with cloths (called cloths of
estate), and canopies projecting above. Bedsteads were square frames,
the testers of panelled wood, resting on carved posts. Chests of oak
carved with panels of tracery, or of Italian cypress (when they could be
imported), were used to hold and to carry clothes, tapestries, &c., to
distant castles and manor houses; for house furniture, owing to its
scarcity and cost, had to be moved from place to place. Copes and other
ecclesiastical vestments were kept in chests with ornamental lock plates
and iron hinges. The splendour of most feudal houses depended on
pictorial tapestries which could be packed and carried from place to
place. Wardrobes were rooms fitted for the reception of dresses, as well
as for spices and other valuable stores. Excellent carving in relief was
executed on caskets, which were of wood or of ivory, with painting and
gilding, and decorated with delicate hinge and lock metal-work. The
general subjects of sculpture were taken from legends of the saints or
from metrical romances. Renaissance art made a great change in
architecture, and this change was exemplified in furniture. Cabinets
(q.v.) and panelling took the outlines of palaces and temples. In
Florence, Rome, Venice, Milan and other capitals of Italy, sumptuous
cabinets, tables, chairs, chests, &c., were made to the orders of the
native princes. Vasari (_Lives of Painters_) speaks of scientific
diagrams and mathematical problems illustrated in costly materials, by
the best artists of the day, on furniture made for the Medici family.
The great extent of the rule of Charles V. helped to give a uniform
training to artists from various countries resorting to Italy, so that
cabinets, &c., which were made in vast numbers in Spain, Flanders and
Germany, can hardly be distinguished from those executed in Italy.
Francis I. and Henry VIII. encouraged the revived arts in their
respective dominions. _Pietra dura_, or inlay of hard pebbles, agate,
lapis lazuli, and other stones, ivory carved and inlaid, carved and gilt
wood, marquetry or veneering with thin woods, tortoise-shell, brass,
&c., were used in making sumptuous furniture during the first period of
the Renaissance. Subjects of carving or relief were generally drawn from
the theological and cardinal virtues, from classical mythology, from the
seasons, months, &c. Carved altarpieces and woodwork in churches partook
of the change in style.
The great period of furniture in almost every country was, however,
unquestionably the 18th century. That century saw many extravagances in
this, as in other forms of art, but on the whole it saw the richest
_floraison_ of taste, and the widest sense of invention. This is the
more remarkable since the furniture of the 17th century has often been
criticized as heavy and coarse. The criticism is only partly justified.
Throughout the first three-quarters of the period between the accession
of James I. and that of Queen Anne, massiveness and solidity were the
distinguishing characteristics of all work. Towards the reign of James
II., however, there came in one of the most pleasing and elegant styles
ever known in England. Nearly a generation before then Boulle was
developing in France the splendid and palatial method of inlay which,
although he did not invent it, is inseparably associated with his name.
We owe it perhaps to the fact that France, as the neighbour of Italy,
was touched more immediately by the Renaissance than England that the
reign of heaviness came earlier to an end in that country than on the
other side of the Channel. But there is a heaviness which is pleasing as
well as one which is forbidding, and much of the furniture made in
England any time after the middle of the 17th century was highly
attractive. If English furniture of the Stuart period be not sought
after to the same extent as that of a hundred years later, it is yet
highly prized and exceedingly decorative. Angularity it often still
possessed, but generally speaking its elegance of form and richness of
upholstering lent it an attraction which not long before had been
entirely lacking. Alike in France and in England, the most attractive
achievements of the cabinetmaker belong to the 18th century--English
Queen Anne and early Georgian work is universally charming; the regency
and the reigns of Louis XV. and XVI. formed a period of the greatest
artistic splendour. The inspiration of much of the work of the great
English school was derived from France, although the gropings after the
Chinese taste and the earlier Gothic manner were mainly indigenous. The
French styles of the century, which began with excessive flamboyance,
closed before the Revolution with a chaste perfection of detail which is
perhaps more delightful than anything that has ever been done in
furniture. In the achievements of Riesener, David Rontgen, Gouthiere,
Oeben and Rousseau de la Rottiere we have the high-water mark of
craftsmanship. The marquetry of the period, although not always
beautiful in itself, was executed with extraordinary smoothness and
finish; the mounts of gilded bronze, which were the leading
characteristic of most of the work of the century, were finished with a
minute delicacy of touch which was until then unknown, and has never
been rivalled since. If the periods of Francis I. and Henry II., of
Louis XIV. and the regency produced much that was sumptuous and even
elegant, that of Louis XVI., while men's minds were as yet undisturbed
by violent political convulsions, stands out as, on the whole, the one
consummate era in the annals of furniture. Times of great achievement
are almost invariably followed directly by those in which no tall
thistles grow and in which every little shrub is magnified to the
dimensions of a forest tree; and the so-called "empire style" which had
begun even while the last monarch of the _ancien regime_ still reigned,
lacked alike the graceful conception and the superb execution of the
preceding style. Heavy and usually uninspired, it was nurtured in
tragedy and perished amid disaster. Yet it is a profoundly interesting
style, both by reason of the classical roots from which it sprang and
the attempt, which it finally reflected, to establish new ideas in every
department of life. Founded upon the wreck of a lingering feudalism it
reached back to Rome and Greece, and even to Egypt. If it is rarely
charming, it is often impressive by its severity. Mahogany, satinwood
and other rich timbers were characteristic of the style of the end of
the 18th century; rosewood was most commonly employed for the choicer
work of the beginning of the 19th. Bronze mounts were in high favour,
although their artistic character varied materially.
Previously to the middle of the 18th century the only cabinetmaker who
gained sufficient personal distinction to have had his name preserved
was Andre Charles Boulle; beginning with that period France and England
produced many men whose renown is hardly less than that of artists in
other media. With Chippendale there arose a marvellously brilliant
school of English cabinetmakers, in which the most outstanding names are
those of Sheraton, Heppelwhite, Shearer and the Adams. But if the school
was splendid it was lamentably short-lived, and the 19th century
produced no single name in the least worthy to be placed beside these
giants. Whether, in an age of machinery, much room is left for fine
individual execution may be doubted, and the manufacture of furniture
now, to a great extent, takes place in large factories both in England
and on the continent. Owing to the necessary subdivision of labour in
these establishments, each piece of furniture passes through numerous
distinct workshops. The master and a few artificers formerly
superintended each piece of work, which, therefore, was never far
removed from the designer's eye. Though accomplished artists are
retained by the manufacturers of London, Paris and other capitals, there
can no longer be the same relation between the designer and his work.
Many operations in these modern factories are carried on by machinery.
This, though an economy of labour, entails loss of artistic effect. The
chisel and the knife are no longer in such cases guided and controlled
by the sensitive touch of the human hand.
[Illustration: PLATE I.
FIG. 1.--Venetian Folding Chair of carved and gilt walnut, leather
back and seat; about 1530.
FIG. 2.--Oak Arm-chair. English, 17th century.
FIG. 3.--Arm-chair, solid seat, cane back; about 1660.
FIG. 4.--Arm-chair, stuffed back and seat; about 1650.
FIG. 5.--Painted and carved High-Back Chair; about 1660.
FIG. 6.--Carved Walnut Chairs. English, early 18th century. The
arm-chair is inlaid.
FIG. 7.--Walnut Chair; about 1710.
FIG. 8.--Carved Mahogany Chair in the style of Chippendale; 2nd half
of 18th century.
FIG. 9.--Carved Mahogany Arm-chair, in the style of Chippendale, with
ribbon pattern.
FIG. 10.--Carved and Inlaid Mahogany Chair, in the style of
Hepplewhite; late 18th century.
FIG. 11.--Mahogany Chair in the style of Sheraton; about 1780.
Fig. 12.--Painted and gilt Arm-chair with cane seat, in the style of
Adam; about 1790.
FIG. 13.--Arm-chair of carved and gilt wood with stuffed back, seat
and arms. French, Louis XV. style.
FIG. 14.--Mahogany Arm-chair. Empire style, early 19th century, said
to have belonged to the Bonaparte family.