334 



FULLER'S EARTH. FULTON. 



FULLER'S EARTH ; a well-known mineral, 

 generally of a greenish white colour, more or less 

 mixed with brown, gray, or yellow ; of a soft and 

 friable texture, and somewhat unctuous to the touch. 

 It consists chiefly of silex, illumine, and water. 

 When thrown into water, it immediately absorbs it, 

 and breaks down into a fine pulp. Its utility in re- 

 moving grease from woollen cloths, and other fabrics, 

 has given this earth a great value in commerce. 

 There are very extensive beds of this earth in several 

 counties in England, as Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and at 

 Wavedon, near Woburn in Bedfordshire. We have 

 noticed the valuable property of this earth of taking 

 grease out of woollen and other cloths, which, on a 

 large scale, is effected by the operation c&\\e& fulling, 

 whence its name lias been derived. This, which is 

 performed by a kind of water-mill, called a fulling- 

 mill, is particularly necessary with respect to new 

 cloths, for the purpose of depriving them of the 

 grease and oil which have been used in their prepar- 

 ation, and thus enables their fibres to curl and inter- 

 twine during the fulling. The cleansing property of 

 this earth depends entirely on its alumine, which 

 readily absorbs the grease. The properties of good 

 fuller's earth are, a susceptibility of being diffused 

 through water without forming a paste, and a great 

 degree of fineness, as the particles of silex would 

 otherwise injure the cloth. As an article of domestic 

 utility, it might be more frequently used than it is 

 for the cleaning and scouring of wooden floors and 

 wainscots. In this respect, it might be rendered an 

 excellent sul>stitute for soap. 



FULLING; the act of cleansing, scouring, and 

 pressing stuffs, cloths, stockings, &c. , to render them 

 stronger, firmer, and closer; called also milling, be- 

 . cause these cloths are in fact scoured by a water-mill. 

 The principal parts of a fulling-mill are the wheel, 

 with its trundle, which gives motion to the tree or 

 spindle, whose teeth communicate that motion to the 

 pestles or stampers, which fall into troughs, wherein 

 the cloth is put, with fuller's earth, to be scoured and 

 thickened by this process of beating it. 



FULMINATING; an excommunication. See 

 Excommunication. 



FULMINATION. In a variety of chemical com- 

 binations, it happens that one or more of the princi- 

 ples assume the elastic state with such rapidity that 

 the concussion of air produced gives rise to a loud 

 report. This is called fulmination, or, more fre- 

 quently, detonation. Fulminating gold, fulminating 

 silver, fulminating mercury, and gunpowder, are the 

 most familiar substances of this kind. (For an ac- 

 count of them see Gold, Silver, Mercury, and Gun- 

 powder.) The fulminating powder is made by tri- 

 turating, in a warm mortar, three parts, by weight, 

 of nitre, two of carbonate of potash, and one of 

 flowers of sulphur. A few grains of this composition 

 fused in a ladle, and set on fire, explode, with a very 

 deafening noise, leaving an impression upon the ladle 

 as if it had received a blow downwards. Three 

 parts of chlorate of potash and one of sulphur, separ- 

 ately reduced to powder, and afterwards intimately 

 mingled, on being triturated in a metal mortar, cause 

 numerous successive detonations, like the cracks of a 

 whip, or the reports of pistols, according to the rapi- 

 dity and force of the pressure employed. Six parts 

 of the chlorate, one of the sulphur, and one of char- 

 coal, detonate by the same means, but more strongly, 

 and accompanied by a red flame. All detonating 

 mixtures explode with still greater violence if pre- 

 viously wrapped up in a double paper. 



FULMIN1C ACID; a peculiar acid, known only 

 in combination with certain metallic oxides, and first 

 discovered with those of mercury and silver, with 

 vhich it forms powerfully detonating compounds. 



The conditions necessary for forming these compounds 

 are, that the silver or mercury be dissolved in a fluid 

 which contains so much free nitric acid and alcohol, 

 that, on the application of heat, nitric ether shall be 

 freely disengaged. According to an analysis of ful- 

 minate of silver made by MM. Gay-Lussac and 

 Liebig, the acid of the salt is composed of twenty-six 

 parts, or one atom, of cyanogen, and eight parts, or 

 one atom, of oxygen. It is therefore to be considered 

 a true cyanic acid, and its salts may, with propriety, 

 be termed cyanates ; and this notwithstanding it 

 differs in so many respects from the cyanic acid of 

 Wohler (for an account of which, see Frussic Acid) . 

 See Silver, for fulminating silver, and Mercury, for 

 fulminating mercury. 



FULTON, ROBERT, an American engineer, who, 

 although not the inventor of steam-boats, was the 

 first who brought them into practical use, was born 

 in Little Britain, in Pennsylvania, in 1765. In his 

 infancy, he was put to school in Lancaster (Penn- 

 sylvania), where he acquired the rudiments of a com- 

 mon English education. His peculiar genius mani- 

 fested itself at a very early age. In his childhood, 

 all his hours of recreation were passed in the shops 

 of mechanics, or in the employment of his pencil. 

 At the age of seventeen years, he painted portraits 

 and landscapes, in Philadelphia, where he remained 

 till he was about twenty one. In his twenty-second 

 year, he went to England, and was received with 

 great kindness by his distinguished countryman, Mr 

 West, who was so pleased with his promising genius 

 and his amiable qualities, that he took him into his 

 house, where he continued an inmate for several 

 years. After leaving the family of West, he appears 

 for some time to have made painting his chief em- 

 ployment. He spent two years in Devonshire, where 

 he formed an acquaintance with the duke of Bridge- 

 water, (who was early in correspondence with Mr 

 Symington for introducing steam-navigation into his 

 canals) and lord Stanhope, a nobleman celebrated for 

 his love of science, and particularly for his attach- 

 ment to the mechanic arts. In 1793, we find Mr 

 Fulton actively engaged in a project to improve in- 

 land navigation. In May, 1794, he obtained from 

 the British government a patent for a double inclined 

 plane, to be used for transportation; and, in the 

 same year, he submitted to the British society for the 

 promotion of arts and commerce, an improvement of 

 his invention on mills for sawing marble, for which 

 he received the thanks of the society and an honorary 

 medal. He also obtained patents for machines for 

 spinning flax and making ropes, and invented a me- 

 chanical contrivance for scooping out the earth, in 

 certain situations, to form the channels for canals or 

 aqueducts. The subject of canals appears chiefly to 

 have engaged his attention about this time. He now, 

 and probably for some time previously, professed 

 himself a civil engineer. Under this title, he pub- 

 lished his work on canals. Throughout his course 

 as a mechanist and civil engineer, he derived great 

 advantage from his talent for drawing and painting. 

 He was an elegant and accurate draftsman. After 

 his attention was directed to mechanics, he seems 

 not to have used his pencil as a painter, till a short 

 time before his death, when he painted some portra its 

 of his own family. 



In 1797, he went to Paris, where he studied the high- 

 er mathematics, physics, chemistry, and perspective. 

 While there, he projected the first panorama that 

 was exhibited in Paris. He also made an experiment 

 there, in 1797, on the Seine, with a machine designed 

 to propel carcasses of gunpowder under water to a 

 given point, and there to explode them. Although 

 this project failed, he continued to employ his atten- 

 tion on the subject, until he had perfected the plan 



