234 



FORLl FORMOSA. 



they hold in the same Laud between different fingers. 

 See Cutlery. 



FORLl (anciently Forum Livii) ; a town in Italy, 

 in tiie States of tin- Church, capital of a delegation ; 

 14 miles S. S. W . Ravenna, 33 S. E. Bologna; Ion. 

 12" 1' E. ; lat. 44 13' N. ; population, 12,960. It 

 is a bishop's see. It contains a cathedral, nine 

 churches, twenty-three convents, an academy of 

 sciences, and a university with a library. It is sur- 

 rounded with strong walls and solid towers, the flanks 

 of which are tolerably good ; the ditches are large, 

 and defended with low works. Population of the 

 delegation, 1(35,000. 



FORLORN HOPE, in the military art, signifies 

 men detached from several regiments, or otherwise 

 appointed, to make the first attack in the day of bat- 

 tle, or, at a siege, to storm the counterscarp, mount 

 the breach, or the like. They are so called from 

 the great danger they are unavoidably exposed to. 



FORM, PRINTER'S ; an assemblage of letters, 

 words, and lines, disposed into pages by the compo- 

 sitor, and from which the printed sheets are taken. 



FORMATION, GEOLOGICAL. By this term is 

 meant a mineral bed or stratum, differing essenti- 

 ally from that lying beneath and the one above, both 

 in its aspect, its mineral constituents, and its fossil 

 contents, if any are found in it. In most of the for- 

 mations, there are some mineral and fossil affinities ; 

 and in many, even where the external differences are 

 apparently complete, there are some common charac- 

 ters, by the aid of which a passage from the one to the 

 other can be traced. Thus the chalk differs essenti- 

 ally, both from the green sand which lies beneath it, 

 and the plastic clay which lies above it, in its aspect, 

 its mineral constituents, and many of its fossil con- 

 tents. Yet the green sand passes into the chalk 

 marl, and this last into the chalk. Their common 

 characters are almost obvious enough to warrant our 

 classing all the beds of chalk and green sand in one 

 formation, did not the cretaceous and flinty charac- 

 ters of the first distinguish it, in a marked manner, 

 from all the rest. 



By formation, also, is meant an assemblage of 

 beds, distinct from each other, but lying in a group- 

 in a determinate order, the whole having a common 

 character or affinity, and being constantly found in a 

 particular part of the geological series, overlying 

 another formation distinct from itself. The oolitic 

 series is an assemblage of this kind, having a com- 

 mon oolitic character, from the lias to the Portland 

 oolite inclusive, notwithstanding the important depo- 

 Mts of Kimmeridge clay, Oxford clay, &c. &c., 

 which occasionally separate the calcarious beds. 

 The coal formation, also, which is a series of alter- 

 nate beds of coal, slate clay, sandstone, and lime- 

 stone, is illustrative of this kind of formation. Coal, 

 it is true, is occasionally found in the inferior deposits 

 of the millstone grit, the carboniferous limestone, 

 &c., and under circumstances that might warrant 

 our classing them all in one group, as has been done 

 with the oolitic series, from the prevalence of the 

 oolitic character ; but, as fossil coal is only worked 

 profitably in beds, above the carboniferous limestone, 

 the term coal formation is more properly restricted, 

 for the present, to those beds, until a more enlarged 

 experience shall produce a more philosophical ar- 

 rangement of the whole series. 



The unvarying succession of formations to each 

 other, in the geological series, has been found to 

 exist in parts of the earth widely separated from 

 each other, and warrants, not only the belief that they 

 have come into their order successively, but that the 

 causes which brought each formation to its place 

 were of one class, whether of igneous or of aqueous 

 origin, and operated simultaneously. Whetlter we 



consider the invariable succession, in all the observed 

 parts of our planet, of the gneiss to the granite, the 

 mica to the gneiss, and of the* subsequent primitive 

 limestones and slates, we cannot but look to a con- 

 temporaneous and regular succession of causes, fi 

 the production of these uniform results. And, al- 

 though the order and continuity of the series are 

 much interrupted occasionally, it is less difficult to 

 believe, that particular circumstances have inter- 

 rupted such succession and continuity, than that they 

 have not existed. See Geology. 



FORMEYj JOHN SAMUEL, perpetual secretary of 

 the academy of sciences at Berlin, was born in 

 1711, at Berlin, where he died, March 7, 1797. 

 He distinguished himself by numerous works in 

 French and Latin. He at first applied himself to 

 theology, but soon engaged in general studies. 

 In 1740, he was appointed secretary and historio- 

 grapher to the academy of Berlin, and, in 1748, 

 perpetual secretary. Frederic the Great always 

 manifested the highest esteem for him, although he 

 was displeased with him for not taking the part of 

 Voltaire in his philosophical controversies. 



FORMEY, JOHN Locis, son of the preceding, one 

 of the most distinguished practical physicians of Ger- 

 many, was born in 17G6, at Berlin, and studied at 

 Halle and Gottingen. He received the degree of 

 doctor at Halle, and published a dissertation De 

 Vasorum absorbentium Indole. He then studied at 

 Paris, which he left at the beginning of the revolu- 

 tion. He was afterwards one of the highest physi- 

 cians of the army, and a practising physician at Ber- 

 lin. He was also body physician to the king of 

 Prussia, and, in 1806, was invited to Paris to attend 

 a medical consultation on the case of prince Louis, 

 afterwards king of Holland. He died June 23, 1823. 

 Among his works are the Medical Topography of 

 Berlin ; Medical Ephernerides ; a new edition of 

 Zuckert's Instructions for the Treatment of Infants ; 

 On the Hydrocephalus of Children ; Miscellaneous 

 Medical Writings (1821) ; and a Treatise on the 

 Pulse, written during his last illness (Berlin, 1823). 

 His reputation as a practical physician was very 

 great. 



FORMIC ACID ; thus named from having been 

 discovered first in the expressed liquor of ants ; at 

 present it is procured from the application of a gentle 

 heat to a mixture of tartaric acid, water, and the pro- 

 toxide of manganese. The tartaric acid is converted 

 into water, carbonic acid, and formic acid. This acid 

 has a very sour taste, and continues liquid at very 

 low temperatures. Its specific gravity is 1-1068 at 

 68 Fahr. According to Berzelius, the fonniate of 

 lead consists of 4 - 696 acid and 14 oxide of lead ; 

 and the ultimate constituents of the dry acid are 

 hydrogen 2-84, carbon 32*40, oxygen 64'76. 



FORMICA. See Ant. 



FORMOSA ; an island in the Chinese sea, sepa- 

 rated from Fo-kien, in China, by a strait about sixty 

 miles wide where narrowest. The island is about 

 240 miles in length from north to south, and sixty 

 from east to west, in its broadest part ; but greatly 

 contracted at each extremity. That part of Formosa 

 which the Chinese possess, presents extensive and 

 fertile plains, watered by a great number of rivulets, 

 that fall from the eastern mountains. Its air is pure 

 and wholesome, and the earth produces, in abun- 

 dance, corn, rice, and most other kinds of grain. 

 Most of the Indian fruits are found here, such as 

 oranges, bananas, pine-apples, guavas, cocoa-nuts ; 

 and part of those of Europe, particularly peaches, 

 apricots, figs, grapes, chestnuts, pomegranates, wa- 

 ter-melons, &c. Tobacco, sugar, pepper, camphor, 

 and cinnamon are also common. The capital of 

 Formosa is Tai-ouan a name which the Chinese 



