Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Fleury, Claude" to "Foraker" Volume 10, Slice 5
Part 27
FLOYD, JOHN BUCHANAN (1807-1863), American politician, was born at Blacksburg, Virginia, on the 1st of June 1807. He was the son of John Floyd (1770-1837), a representative in Congress from 1817 to 1829 and governor of Virginia from 1830 to 1834. After graduating at South Carolina College in 1826, the son practised law in his native state and at Helena, Arkansas, and in 1839 settled in Washington county, Virginia, which in 1847-1849 and again in 1853 he represented in the state legislature. Meanwhile, from 1849 to 1852, he was governor of Virginia, in which position he recommended to the legislature the enactment of a law laying an import tax on the products of such states as refused to surrender fugitive slaves owned by Virginia masters. In March 1857 he became secretary of war in President Buchanan's cabinet, where his lack of administrative ability was soon apparent. In December 1860, on ascertaining that Floyd had honoured heavy drafts made by government contractors in anticipation of their earnings, the president requested his resignation. Several days later Floyd was indicted for malversation in office, but the indictment was overruled on technical grounds. There is no proof that he profited by these irregular transactions; in fact he went out of the office financially embarrassed. Though he had openly opposed secession before the election of Lincoln, his conduct after that event, especially after his breach with Buchanan, fell under suspicion, and he was accused of having sent large stores of government arms to Southern arsenals in anticipation of the Civil War. In the last days of his term he apparently had such an intention, but during the year 1860 the Southern States actually received less than their full quota of arms. After the secession of Virginia he was commissioned a brigadier-general in the Confederate service. He was first employed in some unsuccessful operations in western Virginia, and in February 1862 became commander of the Confederate forces at Fort Donelson, from which he fled with his second in command, General Gideon J. Pillow, on the night of February 18, leaving General Simon B. Buckner to surrender to General Grant. A fortnight later President Davis relieved him of his command. He died at Abingdon, Virginia, on the 26th of August 1863.
FLOYER, SIR JOHN (1649-1734), English physician and author, was born at Hinters in Staffordshire, and was educated at Oxford. He practised in Lichfield, and it was by his advice that Dr Johnson, when a child, was taken by his mother to be touched by Queen Anne for the king's evil on the 30th of March 1714. He died on the 1st of February 1734. Floyer was an advocate of cold bathing, introduced the practice of counting the rate of the pulse-beats, and gave an early account of the pathological changes in the lungs associated with emphysema.
His writings include:--[Greek: Pharmako-Basanos]: _or the Touchstone of Medicines, discovering the virtues of Vegetables, Minerals and Animals, by their Tastes and Smells_ (2 vols., 1687); _The praeternatural State of animal Humours described by their sensible Qualities_ (1696); _An Enquiry into the right Use and Abuses of the hot, cold and temperate Baths in England_ (1697); _A Treatise of the Asthma_ (1st ed., 1698); _The ancient_ [Greek: Psychrolousia] _revived, or an Essay to prove cold Bathing both safe and useful_ (London, 1702; several editions 8vo; abridged, Manchester, 1844, 12mo); _The Physician's Pulse-watch_ (1707-1710); _The Sibylline Oracles, translated from the best Greek copies, and compared with the sacred Prophecies_ (1st ed., 1713); _Two Essays: the first Essay concerning the Creation, Aetherial Bodies, and Offices of good and bad Angels; the second Essay concerning the Mosaic System of the World_ (Nottingham, 1717); _An Exposition of the Revelations_ (1719); _An Essay to restore the Dipping of Infants in their Baptism_ (1722); _Medicina Gerocomica, or the Galenic Art of preserving old Men's Healths_ (1st ed., 1724); _A Comment on forty-two Histories described by Hippocrates_ (1726).
FLUDD, or FLUD, ROBERT [ROBERTUS DE FLUCTIBUS] (1574-1637), English physician and mystical philosopher, the son of Sir Thomas Fludd, treasurer of war to Queen Elizabeth in France and the Low Countries, was born at Milgate, Kent. After studying at St John's College, Oxford, he travelled in Europe for six years, and became acquainted with the writings of Paracelsus. He subsequently returned to Oxford, became a member of Christ Church, took his medical degrees, and ultimately became a fellow of the College of Physicians. He practised in London with success, though it is said that he combined with purely medical treatment a good deal of faith-healing. Following Paracelsus, he endeavoured to form a system of philosophy founded on the identity of physical and spiritual truth. The universe and all created things proceed from God, who is the beginning, the end and the sum of all things, and to him they will return. The act of creation is the separation of the active principle (light) from the passive (darkness) in the bosom of the divine unity (God). The universe consists of three worlds; the archetypal (God), the macrocosm (the world), the microcosm (man). Man is the world in miniature, all the parts of both sympathetically correspond and act upon each other. It is possible for man (and even for the mineral and the plant) to undergo transformation and to win immortality. Fludd's system may be described as a materialistic pantheism, which, allegorically interpreted, he put forward as containing the real meaning of Christianity, revealed to Adam by God himself, handed down by tradition to Moses and the patriarchs, and revealed a second time by Christ. The opinions of Fludd had the honour of being refuted by Kepler, Gassendi and Mersenne. Though rapt in mystical speculation, Fludd was a man of varied attainments. He did not disdain scientific experiments, and is thought by some to be the original inventor of the barometer. He was an ardent defender of the Rosicrucians, and De Quincey considers him to have been the immediate, as J.V. Andrea was the remote, father of freemasonry. Fludd died on the 8th of September 1637.
See J.B. Craven, _Robert Fludd, the English Rosicrucian_ (1902), where a list of his works is given; A.E. Waite, _The Real History of the Rosicrucians_ (1887); De Quincey, _The Rosicrucians and Freemasons_; J. Hunt, _Religious Thought in England_ (1870), i. 240 seq. His works were published in 6 vols., Oppenheim and Gouda, 1638.
FLUGEL, GUSTAV LEBERECHT (1802-1870), German orientalist, was born at Bautzen on the 18th of February 1802. He received his early education at the gymnasium of his native town, and studied theology and philology at Leipzig. Gradually he devoted his attention chiefly to Oriental languages, which he studied in Vienna and Paris. In 1832 he became professor at the _Furstenschule_ of St Afra in Meissen, but ill-health compelled him to resign that office in 1850, and in 1851 he went to Vienna, where he was employed in cataloguing the Arabic, Turkish and Persian manuscripts of the court library. He died at Dresden on the 5th of July 1870.
Flugel's chief work is an edition of the bibliographical and encyclopaedic lexicon of Haji Khalfa, with Latin translation (7 vols., London and Leipzig, 1835-1858). He also brought out an edition of the Koran (Leipzig, 1834 and again 1893); then followed _Concordantiae Corani arabicae_ (Leipzig, 1842 and again 1898); _Mani, seine Lehren und seine Schriften_ (Leipzig, 1862); _Die grammatischen Schulen der Araber_ (Leipzig, 1862); and _Ibn Kutlubugas Krone der Lebensbeschreibungen_ (Leipzig, 1862). An edition of _Kitab-al-Fihrist_, prepared by him, was published after his death.
FLUGEL, JOHANN GOTTFRIED (1788-1855), German lexicographer, was born at Barby near Magdeburg, on the 22nd of November 1788. He was originally a merchant's clerk, but emigrating to the United States in 1810, he made a special study of the English language, and returning to Germany in 1819, was in 1824 appointed lector of the English language in the university of Leipzig. In 1838 he became American consul, and subsequently representative and correspondent of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington and several other leading American literary and scientific institutions. He died at Leipzig on the 24th of June 1855.
The fame of Flugel rests chiefly on the _Vollstandige englisch-deutsche und deutsch-englische Worterbuch_, first published in 2 vols. (Leipzig) in 1830, which has had an extensive circulation not only in Germany but in England and America. In this work he was assisted by J. Sporschil, and a new and enlarged edition, edited by his son Felix Flugel (1820-1904), was published at Brunswick (1890-1892). Another edition, in two volumes, edited by Prof. Immanuel Schmidt and S. Tanger appeared (Brunswick, London & New York) in 1906. Among his other works are--_Vollstandige engl. Sprachlehre_ (1824-1826); _Triglotte, oder kaufmannisches Worterbuch in drei Sprachen, Deutsch, Englisch und Franzosisch_ (1836-1840); _Kleines Kaufmannisches Handworterbuch in drei Sprachen_ (1840); and _Praktisches Handbuch der engl. Handelscorrespondenz_ (1827, 9th ed. 1873). All these have passed through several editions. In addition, Flugel also published in the English language: _A series of Commercial Letters_ (Leipzig, 1822), a 9th edition of which appeared in 1874 under the title _Practical Mercantile Correspondence_ and a _Practical Dictionary of the English and German Languages_ (2 vols., Hamburg and Leipzig, 1847-1852; 15th ed., Leipzig, 1891). The last was continued and re-edited by his son Felix.
FLUKE (probably connected with the Ger. _flach_, flat), a name given to several kinds of fish, flat in shape, especially to the common flounder; also the name of a trematoid worm, resembling a flounder in shape, which as a parasite infects the liver and neighbouring organs of certain animals, especially sheep, and causes liver-rot. The most common is the _Fasciola hepatica_ (see TREMATODES). It is also the name of a species of kidney potato. Probably from a resemblance to the shape of the fish, "fluke" is the name given to the holding-plates, triangular in shape, at the end of the arms of an anchor, and to the triangular extremities of the tail of a whale. The use of the word as a slang expression for a lucky accident appears to have been first applied in billiards to an unintentional scoring shot.
FLUME (through an O. Fr. word _flum_, from the Lat. _flumen_, a river), a word formerly used for a stream, and particularly for the tail of a mill-race. It is used in America for a very narrow gorge running between precipitous rocks, with a stream at the bottom, but more frequently is applied to an artificial channel of wood or other material for the diversion of a stream of water from a river for purposes of irrigation, for running a sawmill, or for various processes in the hydraulic method of gold-mining (see AQUEDUCT).
FLUMINI MAGGIORE, a town of the province of Cagliari, Sardinia, 10 m. by road N. of Iglesias, and 5 m. from the W. coast. Pop. (1901) town 3908; commune 9647. It is the centre of a considerable lead and zinc mining district. Three miles to the S. are the ruins of a temple erected probably in the time of Commodus (_Corpus inscr. Lat._ x., Berlin, 1883, No. 7539). They seem to mark the site of Metalla (mines), a station on the coast road from Sulci to Tharros, and the centre of the mining district in Roman times. At Flumini Maggiore itself were found two ingots of lead, one bearing a stamp with Hadrian's name.
FLUORANTHENE, C15H10, also known as idryl, a hydrocarbon occurring with phenanthrene, pyrene, diphenyl, and other substances in "Stupp" fat (the fat obtained in working up the mercury ores in Idria), and also in the higher boiling fractions of the coal tar distillate. It was discovered by R. Fittig in 1878, who, with Gebhard and H. Liepmann, elucidated its constitution (see _Ann._, 1879, 200, p. 1). The hydrocarbons are separated from the "Stupp" by means of alcohol, the soluble portion on distillation giving first phenanthrene and then a mixture of pyrene and fluoranthene. From the tar distillate, the chrysene can be fractionally precipitated, and the fluoranthene can be separated from most of the pyrene by fractional distillation in a partial vacuum. In either case the two hydrocarbons are finally separated by fractional crystallization of their picrates, which are then decomposed by ammonia. Fluoranthene crystallizes in large slender needles or monoclinic tables, melting at 109-110 deg. C. and boiling at 250-251 deg. C. (60 mm.). It is easily soluble in hot alcohol, ether and carbon bisulphide. On oxidation with chromic acid it forms a quinone, C15H8O2, and an [alpha]-diphenylene ketocarboxylic acid
C6H4 \ . > CO C6H3 / -- CO2H.
The picrate melts at 182-183 deg. C.
FLUORENE ([alpha]-diphenylene methane), C13H10 or (C6H4)2CH2, a hydrocarbon found in coal-tar. It is obtained from the higher boiling fractions, after separation of naphthalene and anthracene, by fractional distillation, the portion boiling between 290-340 deg. C. being taken. The fluorene is separated from this by placing it in a freezing mixture, and is then redistilled or crystallized from glacial acetic acid, or purified by means of its picrate. It may be prepared by distilling diphenylene ketone over zinc dust, or by heating it with hydriodic acid and phosphorus to 150-160 deg. C.; and also by passing the vapour of diphenyl methane through a red hot tube. It crystallizes in colourless plates, possessing a violet fluorescence, melting at 112-113 deg. and boiling at 293-295 deg. C. By oxidation with chromic acid in glacial acetic acid solution, it is converted into diphenylene ketone (C6H4)2.CO; whilst on heating with hydriodic acid and phosphorus to 250-260 deg. C. it gives a hydro derivative of composition C18H22.
FLUORESCEIN, or RESORCIN-PHTHALEIN, C20H12O5, in chemistry, a compound discovered in 1876 by A. v. Baeyer by the condensation of phthalic anhydride with resorcin at 195-200 deg. C. (_Ann._, 1876, 183, p. 1). The two reacting substances are either heated alone or with zinc chloride for some hours, and the melt obtained is boiled out with water, washed by dilute alcohol, extracted by means of sodium hydrate, and the solution so obtained is precipitated by an acid. The precipitate is well washed with water and then dried. By repeating this process two or three times, the fluorescein may be obtained in a very pure condition. It forms a yellow amorphous powder, insoluble in water but soluble in alcohol, and crystallizing from the alcoholic solution in small dark red nodules. It is readily soluble in solutions of the caustic alkalis, the solution being of a dark red colour and showing (especially when largely diluted with water) a brilliant green fluorescence. It was so named on account of this last character. By brominating fluorescein in glacial acetic acid solution, _eosin_ (tetrabromfluorescein) is obtained, the same compound being formed by heating 3.5-dibrom-2.4-dioxybenzoylbenzoic acid above its melting point (R. Meyer, _Ber._, 1895, 28, p. 1576). It crystallizes from alcohol in yellowish red needles, and dyes silk, wool, and mordanted cotton a fine pink colour. When heated with caustic alkalis it yields dibromresorcin and dibrommonoresorcin-phthalein. The corresponding iodo compound is known as _erythrosin_. Fluorescein is readily nitrated, yielding a di- or tetra-nitro compound according to conditions. The entrance of the negative nitro group into the molecule weakens the central pyrone ring in the fluorescein nucleus and the di-and tetra-nitro compounds readily yield hydrates (see J.T. Hewitt and B.W. Perkins, _Jour. Chem. Soc._, 1900, p. 1326). By the action of ammonia or amines the di-nitro fluoresceins are converted into yellow dyestuffs (F. Reverdin, _Ber_., 1897, 30, p. 332). Other dyestuffs obtained from fluorescein are safrosine or eosin scarlet (dibromdinitrofluorescein) and rose Bengal (tetraiodotetrachlorfluorescein).
On fusion with caustic alkali, fluorescein yields resorcin, C6H4(OH)2, and monoresorcin phthalein (dioxybenzoylbenzoic acid), (HO)2C6H3.CO.C H4.COOH. With zinc dust and caustic soda it yields fluorescin. By warming fluorescein with excess of phosphorus pentachloride it yields fluorescein chloride, C20H10O3Cl2 (A. Baeyer), which crystallizes from alcohol in small prisms, melting at 252 deg. C. When heated with aniline and aniline hydrochloride, fluorescein yields a colourless anilide (O. Fischer and E. Hepp, _Ber_., 1893, 26, p. 2236), which is readily methylated by methyl iodide and potash to a fluoresceinanilidedimethyl ether, which when heated for six hours to 150 deg. C. with acetic and hydrochloric acids, is hydrolysed and yields a colourless fluoresceindimethyl ether, which melts at 198 deg. C. On the other hand, by heating fluorescein with caustic potash, methyl iodide and methyl alcohol, a coloured (yellow) dimethyl ether, melting at 208 deg. C. is obtained (Fischer and Hepp). By heating the coloured dimethyl ether with caustic soda, the monomethyl ether is obtained (O. Fischer and E. Hepp, _Ber_., 1895, 28, p. 397); this crystallizes in triclinic tables, and melts at 262 deg. C. It is to be noted that the colourless monomethyl ether fluoresces strongly in alkaline solution, the dimethyl ether of melting point 208 deg. fluoresces only in neutral solution (e.g., in alcoholic solution), and the dimethyl ether of melting point 198 deg. C. only in concentrated hydrochloric or sulphuric acid solution (Fischer and Hepp). Considerable discussion has taken place as to the position held by the hydroxyl groups in the fluorescein molecule, C. Graebe (_Ber_., 1895, 28, p. 28) asserting that they were in the ortho position to the linking carbon atom of the phthalic anhydride residue. G. Heller (_Ber_., 1895, 28, p. 312), however, showed that monoresorcin-phthalein when brominated in glacial acetic acid gives a dibrom derivative which, with fuming sulphuric acid, yields dibromxanthopurpurin (1.3-dioxy-2.4-dibromanthraquinone), a reaction which is only possible if the fluorescein (from which the monoresorcin-phthalein is derived) contains free hydroxyl groups in the para position to the linking carbon atom of the phthalic anhydride residue.
FLUORESCENCE. In a paper read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1833, Sir David Brewster described a remarkable phenomenon he had discovered to which he gave the name of "internal dispersion." On admitting a beam of sunlight, condensed by a lens, into a solution of chlorophyll, the green colouring matter of leaves (see fig. 1), he was surprised to find that the path of the rays within the fluid was marked by a bright light of a blood-red colour, strangely contrasting with the beautiful green of the fluid when seen in moderate thickness. Brewster afterwards observed the same phenomenon in various vegetable solutions and essential oils, and in some solids, amongst which was fluor-spar. He believed this effect to be due to coloured particles held in suspension. A few years later, Sir John Herschel independently discovered that if a solution of quinine sulphate, which, viewed by transmitted light, appears colourless and transparent like water, were illuminated by a beam of ordinary daylight, a peculiar blue colour was seen in a thin stratum of the fluid adjacent to the surface by which the light entered. The blue light was unpolarized and passed freely through many inches of the fluid. The incident beam, after having passed through the stratum from which the blue light came, was not sensibly enfeebled or coloured, but yet it had lost the power of producing the characteristic blue colour when admitted into a second solution of quinine sulphate. A beam of light modified in this mysterious manner was called by Herschel "epipolized." Brewster showed that epipolic was merely a particular case of internal dispersion, peculiar only in this respect, that the rays capable of dispersion were dispersed with unusual rapidity.
The investigation of this phenomenon was afterwards taken up by Sir G.G. Stokes, to whom the greater part of our present knowledge of the subject is due. Stokes's first paper "On the Change of the Refrangibility of Light" appeared in 1852. He repeated the experiments of Brewster and Herschel, and considerably extended them. These experiments soon led him to the conclusion that the effect could not be due, as Brewster had imagined, to the scattering of light by suspended particles, but that the dispersed beam actually differed in refrangibility from the light which excited it. He therefore termed it "true internal dispersion" to distinguish it from the scattering of light, which he called "false internal dispersion." As this name, however, is apt to suggest Brewster's view of the phenomenon, he afterwards abandoned it as unsatisfactory, and substituted the word "fluorescence." This term, derived from fluor-spar after the analogy of opalescence from opal, does not presuppose any theory. To examine the nature of the fluorescence produced by quinine, Stokes formed a pure spectrum of the sun's rays in the usual manner. A test-tube, filled with a dilute solution of quinine sulphate, was placed just outside the red end of the spectrum and then gradually moved along the spectrum to the other extremity. No fluorescence was observed as long as the tube remained in the more luminous portion, but as soon as the violet was reached, a ghost-like gleam of blue light shot right across the tube. On continuing to move the tube, the blue light at first increased in intensity and afterwards died away, but not until the tube had been moved a considerable distance into the ultra-violet part of the spectrum. When the blue gleam first appeared it extended right across the tube, but just before disappearing it was confined to a very thin stratum on the side at which the exciting rays entered. Stokes varied this experiment by placing a vessel filled with the dilute solution in a spectrum formed by a train of prisms. The appearance is illustrated diagrammatically in fig. 2. The greater part of the light passed freely as if through water, but from about half-way between the Fraunhofer lines G and H to far beyond the extreme violet, the incident rays gave rise to light of a sky-blue colour, which emanated in all directions from the portion of the fluid (represented white in fig. 2) which was under the influence of the incident rays. The anterior surface of the blue space coincided, of course, with the inner surface of the glass vessel. The posterior surface marked the distance to which the incident rays were able to penetrate before they were absorbed. This distance was at first considerable, greater than the diameter of the vessel, but decreased with great rapidity as the refrangibility of the incident light increased, so that from a little beyond the extreme violet to the end, the blue space was reduced to an excessively thin stratum. This shows that the fluid is very opaque to the ultra-violet rays. The fixed lines in the violet and invisible part of the solar spectrum were represented by dark lines, or rather planes, intersecting the blue region. Stokes found that the fluorescent light is not homogeneous, for on reducing the incident rays to a narrow band of homogeneous light, and examining the dispersed beam through a prism, he found that the blue light consisted of rays extending over a wide range of refrangibility, but not into the ultra-violet.