FORMOSA FORSTER. 



235 



give to the whole island. Between Formosa and the 

 continent are a number of small islands, called Pong- 

 hou by the Chinese, and Pescadores by the Euro- 

 peans. They form a small archipelago ; the principal 

 jf which only is inhabited by a Chinese garrison, 

 under the command of a mandarin. Lon. 120 to 

 122 E. ; lat. 22 5' to 25 20' N. 



FORMOSA ; an island in the Atlantic, near the 

 coast of Africa, about six miles long and one wide. 

 The soil is fertile, and well covered with trees, but 

 wants springs of good water. Lon. 14 2& W. ; lat. 

 1 1 29' N. 



FORMOSA, or BENIN, or ARGON; a river of 

 Benin, which rises in the interior, and runs into the 

 Atlantic; Ion. 5 20' E.; lat. 5 4O 1 N. It is four 

 miles wide at its mouth, but has only twelve feet 

 water. Its origin and upper part of its course are 

 unknown, and it is supposed, by some, to be the 

 termination of the Niger. For several leagues up 

 the river, the land is low and marshy, but the banks 

 re adorned with lofty trees, and divided by branches 

 of the river into a number of islands, which renders 

 it pleasant; but the air is unwholesome, and the 

 musquitoes innumerable. 



FORRES, the name of a parish and burgh of 

 Scotland, in the county of Moray. The burgh is 

 twelve miles W. of Elgin, ninety-two N.W. of 

 Aberdeen, and 212 N. of Edinburgh. Shakspeare 

 has immortalized Forres by making it the scene of 

 the chief events in his tragedy of Macbeth. The 

 site of the old castle where Duncan was killed is at 

 the western side of the town, and the heath which 

 surrounds it is still " blasted," being one of the most 

 sterile moors in Scotland. Population in 1831, 3895. 



FORSKAL, PETER, a Swedish botanist, and pupil 

 of Linnaeus, was born in 1736, and studied at Got- 

 tingen, where he defended, in 1756, a thesis Dulia 

 tie Principiis Philosophiee recentioris. A French 

 pamphlet (Thoughts on Civil Liberty), which he 

 published soon after his return to Sweden, offended 

 the ruling oligarchy in that country. He was then 

 invited to Copenhagen as a professor ; and, on the 

 recommendation of Linnaeus, he was selected, by 

 Frederic V., to join the scientific expedition to Arabia, 

 to take charge of the department of natural history. 

 In 1761, he set out on this expedition with Carsten 

 Niebuhr (q. v.), von Haven and Kramer, and collected 

 plants in the environs of Marseilles, of which he 

 published a Flora at Malta. He arrived in Egypt 

 and Arabia, where he collected plants with the 

 greatest zeal; but, being attacked by the plague, he 

 died in 1763, at Djerim, in the latter country, too 

 t-arly for science. N iebuhr col lected Forskal's papers, 

 which consisted merely of detached sheets, accom- 

 panied them with remarks, and published them under 

 the title Descriptiones Animalium, Avium, Amphi- 

 biorum, Piscium, Insectorum, quae in Itinere Orientali 

 observavit P. Forskcel (Copenhagen, 1775, with an 

 engraving). The systematic catalogue, in Latin, 

 Greek, and Arabic, is followed by about three hun- 

 dred descriptions of animals, &c., arranged according 

 to the Linnaean system, and also the materiel medica 

 of the principal apothecaries of Cairo. Besides this 

 work were also published Flora JEgyptiaco-Arabica, 

 &c. (ibid.); Icones Rerum Naturalium, quas in Itinere 

 Orientali depingi curavit Forskcel (ibid., 1776, with 

 forty-six engravings, of which twenty represent 

 plants and twenty-three animals). The drawings 

 are by Brauernfeind, the painter of the expedition, 

 who likewise died in the East. Linnaeus called an 

 exotic plant Forskalea, in honour of his pupil. 



FORSTER, JOHN REINHOLD, Prussian professor 

 of natural history at Halle, was born at Dirschau, 

 Oct. 22, 1729. His family, which was descended from 

 an ancient house in Scotland, hadfled to Polish Prussia. 



His father was burgomaster of Dirschau, a town 

 not far from Dantzic. Reinhold became thoroughly 

 grounded in the languages, chronology,and geography 

 at Berlin. In 1748, he began to study theology at 

 Halle; and, in 1751, he went to Dantzic, and ob- 

 tained the place of preacher at Nassenhuben or Nas- 

 senhof. He gave just so much attention to his office 

 as necessity required, and entered with his whole soul 

 into his favourite studies mathematics, philosophy, 

 history, geography, and the ancient languages. His 

 passion for travelling was gratified by a commission 

 to examine the state of the colony of Saratov, in 

 Asiatic Russia, for which he set out in March, 1765. 

 His official report gave much satisfaction ; and, after 

 his return to Petersburg, he was commissioned, with 

 several other distinguished men, by the empress 

 Catharine II., to draw up a code of laws for the 

 colonists. But his activity was. not rewarded as he 

 had expected; and, having lost the place of preacher 

 by his long absence, he went to London in August, 

 1766, without having received the least compensa- 

 tion. Here he supported himself and his son George 

 partly by the sale of the curiosities, which he had 

 collected in his travels, and partly by translations. 

 He afterwards joined a dissenting academy at War- 

 rington in Lancashire, as teacher of natural history 

 and the French and German languages. He was 

 finally invited to accompany captain Cook, in his 

 second voyage of discovery, as naturalist of the 

 expedition. He set out from London June 26, 1772, 

 with his son, at that time seventeen years old. This 

 voyage, which lasted three years, is minutely de- 

 scribed in a work bearing the name of his son, George 

 Forster (London, 1777, 2 vols. 4to), as it was made a 

 condition with the father that he should not print any 

 account of this voyage. The father afterwards pub- 

 lished his valuable remarks on the physical geography, 

 the natural history, and the moral and intellectual 

 condition of the countries he had visited (London, 

 1778, 4to). The publication of the account of the 

 voyage gave offence to the British government, and 

 deprived Forster of the chance of further patronage 

 from that quarter; and he remained for some time in 

 straitened circumstances. In 1780, he was invited 

 to Halle, as professor of natural history, and continued 

 an ornament of the university until his death, eigh- 

 teen years afterwards. At Halle, he wrote many 

 valuable works, and translated the latest voyages, 

 among which was the third voyage of Cook. He 

 died December 9, 1798. He united great penetra- 

 tion and quick apprehension with an astonishing 

 memory. He spoke or wrote seventeen living and 

 dead languages} and was well acquainted with every 

 department of literature. In history, botany, and 

 zoology, he stands, with his son, among the first 

 investigators of the last century. Of his numerous 

 writings, the best are his Observations on a Voyage 

 round the World, already mentioned, his History of 

 Voyages and Discoveries in the North, and his 

 Antiquarian Researches on the Byssus of the Ancients. 

 His style is strong and animated, though not perfectly 

 pure. 



FORSTER, JOHN GEORGE ADAM, son of the pre- 

 ceding, was born November 26, 1754, at Nassenhu- 

 ben, near Dantzic. He accompanied his father, at 

 the age of eleven years, to Saratov, and continued, 

 in Petersburg, the studies which he had begun under 

 his father's direction. When his father went to 

 England, he was placed with a merchant in London ; 

 but his feeble health soon compelled him to give up 

 mercantile pursuits; and he resided with his father at 

 Warrington, where he continued his studies, trans- 

 lated several works into English, and taught German 

 and French in a school of the neighbourhood. In com- 

 pany with his father he performed the voyage round 



