140 



FALLOPIAN TUBES FALSTAFF. 



by virtue of the attraction of gravitation, tend to the 

 centre of the earth. If this tendency acts freely, the 

 body fells towards the earth; if it is opposed by some 

 obstruction, pressure ensues; if the tendency is partly 

 checked and partly efficient, pressure and descent 

 both ensue. A ball, held in the liand, presses down- 

 ward ; if dropped, it descends perpendicularly ; if 

 placed on an inclined plane, it rolls down ; in doing 

 which it presses the plane with a part of its weight. 

 The laws, according to which this motion takes place, 

 were formerly the subject of the most erroneous 

 theories. According to the physics of Aristotle, the 

 velocity of the fall of bodies is in proportion to their 

 weight. Consequently any body should fall with 

 ten times more velocity than another, which is only 

 one tenth part as heavy. This error Galileo attacked, 

 while a student in Pisa. Soon after his appointment 

 to a professorship, he declared himself against this 

 and other maxims of the Peripatetic philosophy. He 

 ascended the cupola of the lofty tower at that place, 

 and dropped bodies of very unequal weight, which, if 

 their specific gravity did not differ too much, were 

 found to reach the ground at nearly the same time. 

 Galileo eventually proved, when professor in Padua., 

 the correctness of his position, by means of two pen- 

 dulums, of equal length, and very unequal weight, 

 which, nevertheless, performed their vibrations with 

 equal velocity. 



Equally erroneous hypotheses have been grounded 

 on the fact, that the velocity of the descent increases 

 in proportion to the space passed through. The 

 Aristotelians said, that all bodies had a natural ten- 

 dency to the centre of the earth, and hastened to- 

 wards it with more velocity the nearer they ap- 

 proached it. Others explained the accelerated rapi- 

 dity of the descent by the augmented pressure of the 

 atmosphere ; and the general opinion was that the 

 velocity increased in the same proportion as the space 

 passed through, and, consequently, that a body, after 

 falling five fathoms, would have five times the velo- 

 city it had after falling through one fathom an 

 opinion, which, notwithstanding its great simplicity 

 and plausibility, involves an absolute impossibility. 

 Galileo, at length, arrived at the true opinion, that 

 the velocity of falling bodies must increase in pro- 

 portion to the time ; and he proved that, as bodies 

 can never be destitute of gravity, they must every 

 instant receive a new impulse, which unites with the 

 effect of the former. From this law, it moreover fol- 

 lows, that the spaces passed through, by bodies fall- 

 ing freely, are in proportion to the square of the 

 times. Experiments have shown that, in the first 

 second, the fall amounts to a little more than sixtei n 

 feet. In order to ascertain, therefore, the space h, 

 through which a body would fall in any other number 

 of seconds t, we have the equation I : f* : : 16 : A. 

 Supposing, for example, t=3, we have A=144 ; i. e., 

 in three seconds, the body falls through 144 feet. 

 For a convenient means of making experiments of 

 this kind, Mr Atwood has invented an apparatus, 

 which is known under the name of Atwood' s machine. 

 Mr Benzenberg, a German, lias also added much to 

 the better understanding of this part of natural phi- 

 losophy. 



FALLOPIAN TUBES, in anatomy, are two ducts 

 arising in the womb, one on each side of the fundus, 

 and thence extended to the ovaries. These are called 

 tttbes, from their resemblance to a trumpet, and Fal- 

 lopian from Gabriel Fallopius (q. v.), a physician of 

 Italy, in the sixteenth century, who is reported to 

 have first ascertained their use and office. 



FALLOPIUS, GABRIEL, a celebrated Italian ana- 

 tomist, who was born at Modena, towards the close 

 of the fifteenth century. He studied at Ferrara and 

 at Padua, at which last place he is said to have at- 



tended the lectures of Vesalius. He became pro- 

 fessor at Ferrara, whence, in 1548, he removed to 

 Pisa. He continued there three years, and was then 

 made professor of surgery, anatomy, and the materia 

 medica, at Padua, where he remained till his death, 

 in 1563. The principal work of Fallopius is his 

 Observationcs Anatomic.ee (Venet. 1561, 8vo), which, 

 as well as his other writings, lias been several times 

 reprinted. He was the first anatomist who acciw 

 rately described the vessels and bones of the foetus ; 

 and his account of the Fallopian tubes in females lias 

 perpetuated his name. 



FALLOW LAND is ground that has been left un- 

 tilled for a time, in order that it may recover itself 

 from an exhausted state ; but to render a barren soil 

 fertile, it ought to be frequently turned up to the air, 

 and to have mixed with it manures of animal dungs, 

 decayed vegetables, lime, marl, sweepings of streets, 

 &c. In turning over the soil, the chief implements 

 of the gardener are the spade, the hoe, and the mat- 

 tock ; and those of the farmer are the plough, the 

 harrow, the roller, the scythe, and the sickle. As a 

 succession of the same crops tends to impoverish the 

 soil, a rotation of different crops is necessary. Po- 

 tatoes, grain, and white crops are exhausting ; but 

 after them, the soil is ameliorated by tares, turnips, 

 and green or plant crops. 



FALMOUTH ; a seaport town of England, in the 

 county of Cornwall, at the mouth of the river Fal, 

 261) miles W. S. W. of London. There is a good 

 harbour here, and a fine and spacious roadstead. The 

 town consists principally of one street, nearly a mile 

 along the beach. There are two castles here, one of 

 which (Pendennis) commands the entrance of the 

 harbour. On the opposite side is St Mawe's castle. 

 A considerable fishery of pilchards is carried on here. 

 But the town derives its chief importance from being 

 the regular station of the packet-boats, which carry 

 foreign mails to all parts of the world. Population, 

 in 1831, 7284. 



FALSE in music ; an epithet applied by theorists 

 to certain chords, called false, because they do not 

 contain all the intervals appertaining to those chords 

 in their perfect state: as a fifth, consisting of only 

 six semitonic degrees, is denominated a false fifth. 

 Those intonations of the voice which do not truly 

 express the intended intervals are also called false, 

 as well as all ill-adjusted combinations ; and those 

 strings, pipes, and other sonorous bodies, which, from 

 the ill disposition of their parts, cannot be accurately 

 tuned. Certain closes are likewise termed false, in 

 contradistinction to the full or final close. 



FALSE IMPRISONMENT, in law. To consti- 

 tute the injury of false imprisonment, two points are 

 necessary : the detention of the person, and the un- 

 lawfulness of such detention. Every confinement of 

 the person is imprisonment, whether in a -common 

 prison or a private house, or even by forcibly detain- 

 ing one in the streets or highways. 



FALSETTO (Hal.) ; that species of voice in a 

 man, the compass of which lies above his natural 

 voice, and is produced by artificial constraint. 



FALSTAFF, SIR JOHN (see Fastolf). One of the 

 most original dramatic characters which Shak- 

 speare's master hand has painted, is his Sir John Fal- 

 staft', the boon companion of the dissipated Henry 

 prince of Wales (afterwards king Henry V. of Eng- 

 land, who died 1421). That same genius which could 

 set before us the delirium of grief in Lear, the charm- 

 ing picture of Juliet's loveliness, and the philosophi- 

 cal melancholy of Hamlet, has exhibited the fullest 

 breadth of comic imagination in Falstaft", in Henry 

 IV., and the Merry Wives of Windsor; in the latter 

 by the particular order and for the entertainment of 

 queen Elizabeth. Falstaff is the hero of lazy sensua. 



