FUSEL OIL 



Fi'srs 



45 



Fusel or Fonsel Oil, known HI-MI a POTATO 



SI-IK IT, is a frequent impurity in spirits distilled 

 from fermented jiotatoes, barley, rye, &c., to which 

 it communicates a peculiar and oll'en-ive odour and 

 taste, and an unwholesome property. Being less 

 volatile than either alcohol or water, it accumulated 

 in the last portions of the distilled liquor. It i- 

 priucipally I'M im-il in the fermentation of alkaline 

 or neutral liquids, hut does not occur in acidulous 

 fermenting lluids which contain tartaric, racemic, 

 or citric acid. It mainly consists of a substance to 

 which chemists have given the name of amylic 

 alcohol, whose composition is represented by the 

 formula CaH,./). It is a colourless limpid fluid, 

 which has a persistent and oppressive odour and a 

 'mi-nine taste. It is only sparingly soluble in 

 water, but may be mixed with alcohol, ether, and 

 tin- essential oils in all proportions. Any whisky 

 which produces a milky appearance, when mixed 

 with four or five times its volume of water, may be 

 suspected to contain it. Fusel oil is principally 

 sola in Britain for the purpose of yielding pear 

 essence (amylic acetate) for the so-called jargonelle- 

 drops. See ALCOHOL, WHISKY. 



Fn'seli. HENRY, 'or more properly Johann 

 Heinrich Fiissli, a portrait-painter and art-critic, 

 was born at Zurich, 7th February 1742. In the 

 course of a visit to England he became acquainted 

 in 1767 with Sir Joshua Reynolds, who encouraged 

 him to devote himself to painting. Accordingly 

 he proceeded to Italy in 1770, where he remained 

 for eight years, studying in particular the works 

 nf Michelangelo, and enjoying the society of 

 Winckelmann and Mengs. After his return to 

 England he was elected in 1790 a member of the 

 iJ.ival Academy, where, nine years later, he be- 

 came professor of Painting. He died at Putney, 

 near London, 16th April 1825. His paintings, 

 some 200 in number, include 'The Nightmare' 

 ( 1781 ), and two series to illustrate Shakespeare's 

 and Milton's works respectively. As a painter 

 Fuseli was bold in conception, his imagination 

 reaching up to the loftiest levels of ideal inven- 

 tion ; his figures were full of life and energy ; 

 and his pictures were often wrought under the 

 poetic inspiration of the mystery of the super- 

 natural. They are, however, too frequently defi- 

 cient in careful workmanship, the execution having 

 been hurried and rash. His Lectures on Painters 

 (1820) contain some of the l>est art-criticism in 

 the English language. His literary works, with 

 a narrative of his life, were published by Knowles 

 (3 vols. Lond. 1831). 



Fusible Metal, an alloy which melts at a 

 temperature below that of boiling water. It con- 

 sists of a mixture of several metals, of which 

 bismuth is the most important. The following 

 are examples : 



Competition. Helta at 



4 bismuth, 2 lead, 1 tin, and 1 cadmium . ..60-5 C. (141 P.). 



6 bismuth, 3 lead, and 1 tin 91-6* C. (197 F.). 



8 bismuth, 5 lead, and 3 tin 94-5" C. (202 F.). 



Both on account of its melting at a low tempera- 

 ture and of its property of expanding as it cools, 

 fusible metal is valuable for several purposes in 

 the arts. It is used in stereotyping, in taking 

 casts of medals and of woodcuts, and in testing 

 the finish of dies. It has also been employed for 

 making anatomical casts, and a peculiar kind of 

 it \\as used for making safety-plugs for steam- 

 boilers. For the latter purpose it melts when the 

 pressure of the steam becomes dangerously high. 

 It was found, however, that the alloy underwent 

 some change, by being kept long heated to near 

 its melting-point, which rendered it unsuitable. 



Fusiliers were formerly soldiers armed with a 

 lighter fusil or musket than the rest of the army ; 



but at present all regiment* of foot carry the name 

 pattern of rifle. FuHilier in therefore simply an hi*- 

 torical title borne by a few regiment* of tin- British 

 ;u my -viz. the Northumberland, Koyal, Lancashire, 

 lioyal Scots, Koval Welsh, Itoval Innihkilling, 

 Itoyal Irish, Royal Monster, Royal Dublin, beside* 

 regiments in the native army of British India. 



Fusion, Fusibility. See MELTING-POINT. 



Flisiyailia (properly Fuji-nan), a sacred vol- 

 cano, tin- l<iiti-st mountain of Japan, stand* on the 

 main island, about 60 miles S\V. of Tokio, and 

 rises some 12,400 feet above sea-level, with a crater 

 500 feet deep. Its last eruption was in I7"7. 

 The cone is free from snow only in July Sep- 

 tember, when thousands of white-robed BuddhUt 

 pilgrims make the ascent easily enough. 



Fust, JOHANN, with Gutenberg and Schofler 

 formed the so-called 'Grand Typographical Trium- 

 virate ' at Mainz between 1450 and 1466. Dr Faust 

 (q.v. ) has sometimes been confounded with him. 

 See PRINTING. 



Fustel de Coulanges, NUMA DENIS, was 

 born at Paris 18th March 1830, and after filling 

 chairs successively at Amiens, Paris, and Stras- 

 burg, was transferred in 1875 to the Ecole Normale 

 at Paris, and became a member of the Institute in 

 the same year. He died September 12, 1889. His 

 earlier writings, Memoire sur Vile de Ohio (1857) 

 and Polybe, ou la Grece conquise par leg Romains 

 (1858), had hardly prepared the reading public for 

 the altogether exceptional importance or his bril- 

 liant book La Cite antique (1864; 10th ed. 1885), 

 which threw a flood of fresh light on the social 

 and religious institutions of antiquity. The work 

 was crowned by the French Academy, as was also 

 his profoundly learned and luminous Histoire ties 

 Institutions politiques de Vancienne France ( vgl. L 

 1875). 



Fustian is a name given to certain kinds of 

 heavy cotton fabrics, including moleskin, velveret, 

 velveteen, beaverteen, corduroy, and other varieties. 

 They are chiefly used for men's apparel, and are 

 nearly all of the nature of velvet, but in the case of 

 corduroy the loops forming the pile are uncut. 

 Fustian cloth with a velvet pile is first woven on 

 the loom, after which the surface weft threads are 

 successively cut, brushed, or teazled, and singed on 

 a hot iron cylinder. The cloth is then bleached 

 and dyed. According to the particular kind of 

 fustian, the face is cropped or snorn either before 

 or after it is dyed. See VELVET. 



Fustic. The dyestuff sometimes termed Old 

 Fustic is the wood of Madura tinctoria, but the 

 tree is also called Morus tinctoria. It is a native 

 of Brazil, Mexico, and the West Indies. Formerly 

 this dye-wood or its extract was largely used for 

 dyeing wool yellow, or for the yellow portion of 

 compound colours, but, like most other vegetable 

 dyes, its importance has declined owing to the 

 preference now given to coal-tar colours. The 

 name Young Fustic is occasionally given to the 

 wood of Rtius cotinus, the twigs and leaves of 

 which yield a yellow dye, but are much more 

 extensively used as a tanning material. Si 

 SUMACH, DYEING. 



Fusils, or SPINDLE-SHELL, a genus of Gastero- 

 pods, usually referred to the Murex family. The 

 elevated spire, the large last whorl, the canal for 

 the respiratory siphon, are familiar in the ' roaring 

 buckie (F. or Neptunea antiqnus), to which, as 

 Wordsworth tells us, the curious child applies his 

 ear and listens for the sonorous cadences of the 

 native sea. This common species is often dredged 

 with oysters, &c., and used for bait, or even eaten. 

 The stiell, generally alx>ut 6 inches long, is or was 

 used for a lamp in the cottage* of the Shetland 



