FRAUENFELD 



bishops of Ermeland, was built in 

 the 14th century, and has a fine W. 

 front. Copernicus was a canon here 

 when he died in 1543. Pop. 2,522. 



Frauenfeld. Town of Switzer- 

 land, capital of the canton of 

 Thurgau. It stands on an eminence 

 overlooking the river Murg, near its 

 confluence with the Thur, 26 m. 

 by rly. N.E. of Zurich. Its old 

 castle has a 10th century keep, 

 and its parish church dates from 

 the 13th century. A prosperous 

 town, it has iron industries, manu- 

 factures of machinery, firearms, 

 leather, cotton fabrics, and gloves, 

 besides a thriving trade in farm 

 products, wine, and fruit. From 

 1712-98 it was the capital of Swit- 

 zerland, and its abbot retained 

 manorial rights until 1803. The 

 town was in the hands of the French 

 and Austrians in 1799. The inhabi- 

 tants are German-speaking and 

 largely Protestants. Pop. 8,105. 



Frauenlob. Nickname by which 

 Heinrich von Meissen (c. 1250- 

 1318), German poet, came to be 

 known. He is sometimes described 

 as a minnesinger, and also as the 

 founder of the Meistersingers at 

 Mainz. He died at Mainz, and was 

 carried to the grave by women of 

 that city. He is supposed to have 

 been called Frauenlob (praise of 

 women) from his using the word 

 Frau for woman rather than Weib. 



Fraunhofer, JOSEPH VON (1787- 

 1826). German optician and physi- 

 cist. Born at Straubing in Bavaria, 

 the son of a glazier, he was appren- 

 ticed to a glass polisher, and even- 

 tually set up for himself as a maker 

 and polisher of achromatic lenses. 

 While working at this craft, at 

 which he attained great skill, he 

 taught himself mathematics and 

 optics. In 1806 Fraunhofer was 

 appointed optician in the mathe- 

 matical institute at Munich, and 

 later became the manager of an- 

 other such institute, which he had 

 helped to found. He died there, 

 June 7, 1826. 



Fraunhofer was responsible for 

 great advances in the manufacture 

 of lenses for telescopes and micro- 

 scopes, while at the same time by 

 his invention of the diffraction 

 grating he opened up a new and 

 fertile field of development for 

 theoretical optics. But the dis- 

 covery that has immortalised the 

 name of Fraunhofer was that of 

 the Fraunhofer lines. These lines 

 had previously been noted by the 

 English physicist Wollaston, but 

 Fraunhofer not only discovered 

 them independently, but studied 

 them deeply, mapping several hun- 

 dreds of them, and assigning to 

 the seven most prominent lines the 

 letters A to G, by which they are 

 still known. He also mapped the 



3321 



lines which he found in the spectra 

 of several of the fixed stars, and 

 from the fact that in no two cases 

 were the lines exactly the same, 

 he concluded that they must corre- 

 spond to some definite property of 

 the sun or star, and that they were 

 not due merely to the effect of the 

 earth's atmosphere. Fraunhofer 

 thus became the founder of the 

 science of spectroscopy (q.v.). 



Fraunhofer Lines. Lines dis- 

 covered by Fraunhofer. When a 

 beam of sunlight that has been 

 admitted through a thin slit is 

 passed through a prism, so as to 

 be drawn out into a spectrum, and 

 this spectrum is examined through 

 a telescope, it is found to be crossed 

 by a multitude of dark lines. Care- 

 ful investigation has revealed the 

 existence of some 10,000 lines in 

 place of the 600 originally counted. 

 The position of each line corres- 

 ponds to a definite angle of refrac- 

 tion of the light, and thus to a 

 definite wave-length, and the pre- 

 sence of any given dark line implies 

 that light of that wave-length has 

 failed to reach us. The reason for 

 this failure in many cases is the 

 absorption of a particular wave- 

 length by some element in the 

 sun's atmosphere. 



It was established by the 

 physicist Kirchhoff that the char- 

 acteristic wave-lengths of light 

 which an element gives out when 

 heated to incandescence are just 

 those which it absorbs when 

 cooler. For example, the flame of 

 burning sodium examined through 

 a spectroscope shows a bright 

 double line, which corresponds in 

 position to the dark double line in 

 the solar spectrum known as the 

 " D " line. The presence of the 

 " D " line in the solar spectrum 

 thus indicates the existence of 

 sodium vapour in the sun's atmo- 

 sphere. See Spectroscopy. 



Fraustadt (Polish, Wszowa). 

 Town of Poland. It is 14 m. N.E, 

 of Glogau, formerly in Prussian 

 Poland. It is an important com- 

 mercial centre where, sugar refin- 

 ing, tanning, dyeing, and milling are 

 carried on, and the nucleus of a 

 mining district. A feature of the 

 landscape is the number of wind- 

 mills. Fraustadt is divided into a 

 new and an old town. In the vicin- 

 ity King Augustus of Poland was 

 defeated by Charles XII of Swe- 

 den (Feb. 13, 1706). 



Fray Bentos. River port of 

 Uruguay and capital of the dept. 

 of Rio Negro. It stands on the 

 Uruguay river, 172 m. direct N.W. 

 of Montevideo. It is a pleasant 

 modern town, laid out in 1859, 

 with wide thoroughfares and fine 

 public buildings and abattoirs. In 

 the centre of a stock-raising dis- 



FRECKLES 



trict, it has a large export trade in 

 extract of meat and animal pro- 

 ducts, and contains the chief fac- 

 tory of the Laebig Extract of Meat 

 Co. Pop. 10,000. Its official name 

 is Independencia. 



Frazer OR GREAT SANDY. Island 

 off the E. coast of Queensland, 

 Australia. It lies between Hervey 

 and Wide bays, is barren, but has 

 excellent fishing. 



Frazer, SIR JAMES GEORGE (b. 

 1854). British anthropologist. 

 Born in Glasgow, he was educated 

 privately and early devoted him- 

 self to researches into the social 

 institutions, mythology and folk- 

 lore of mankind in all ages. His 

 main work is embodied in The 

 Golden Bough, first published in 

 1890, of which revised and ex- 

 panded editions have since ap- 

 peared. It forms the most com- 

 plete work on comparative religion 

 yet written. His other books in- 

 clude Studies in the History of 

 Oriental Religion, 1906 ; The 

 Scope of Social Anthropology, 

 1908 ; Totemism and Exogamy, 

 1910 ; and Folk-lore in the Old 

 Testament, 1918. He translated 

 Pausanias's Description of Greece, 

 1898 ; and edited Addison's Es- 

 says, 1915. Long a fellow of Trin- 

 ity College, Cambridge, he was 

 made professor of social anthro- 

 pology, Liverpool, 1907, in 1914 

 was knighted, and made O.M., 1925. 



F.R.C.O. Abbrev. for Fellow of 

 the Royal College of Organists. 



F.R.C.P. Abbrev. for Fellow 

 of the Royal College of Physicians. 



F.R.C.P.E. Abbrev. for Fellow 

 of the Royal College of Physicians, 

 Edinburgh. 



F.R.C.P.I. Abbrev. for Fellow 

 of the Royal College of Physicians, 

 Ireland. 



F.R.C.S. Abbrev. for Fellow 

 of the Royal College of Surgeons. 



F.R.C.S.E. Abbrev. for Fellow 

 of the Royal College of Surgeons, 

 Edinburgh. 



Frechette, Louis HONORE (1839- 

 1908). French-Canadian poet. He 

 was bom at Levis, Quebec, Nov. 16, 

 1839, studied for the law and 

 became a member of the Dominion 

 Parliament in 1874. He was a 

 busy journalist, and wrote several 

 prose works, including Christmas 

 in French Canada, 1899 ; but his 

 reputation rests chiefly on his 

 poems, Mes Loisirs, 1863 ; La Voix 

 d'un Exile, 1869; Pele-Mele, 1877; 

 Les Oiseaux de Neige, 1879 ; Les 

 Oublies, 1886 ; Po&des Canadien- 

 nes : and Feuilles Volantes, 1891. 

 He died June 1, 1908. 



Freckles. Rounded or irregular 

 spots of yellowish or brownish 

 pigment in the deeper layers of 

 the epidermis, most common in fair 

 and red-haired persons. Freckles 



