FERRERO 



2155 



FERTILIZATION OF PLANTS 



children can add to the beauty of the spot 

 by arranging about the bed a few moss-covered 

 rocks from the woodlands. Ferns afford ex- 

 cellent material for drawing and language les- 

 sons, and the study of their growth and habits 

 can be made very interesting. 



Geologists say that a vast number of cen- 

 turies ago, in the era known as the Carbonifer- 

 ous Period (which see), many portions of the 

 earth's surface were covered with a dense 

 growth of ferns. These plants, together with 

 others of their type, produced the vegetable 

 matter from which the great coal deposits of 

 the earth have been formed (see GEOLOGY). 



FERRERO, jerra'ro, GUGUELMO (1872- ), 

 a present-day Italian historian whose best 

 work, Greatness and Decline of Rome, is de- 

 clared more ambitious than scholarly. In it, 

 however, he shows wide knowledge of eco- 

 nomics and psychology. He was born near 

 Naples, the son of a railway engineer, and after 

 studying law he wrote the Female Offender, 

 assisted by Lombroso, whose daughter he 

 married. For several years he was conspicuous 

 for his political writings, and these led to lec- 

 tureships in Milan on militarism. During the 

 year 1906 he lectured at the College de France 

 and two years later, after traveling in South 

 America, he visited the United States and Can- 

 ada, delivering a series of historical lectures. 

 In 1913 he wrote the historical work, Between 

 Two Worlds, and a year later Ancient Rome 

 and Modern America. 



FERRET, fer'et, a yellowish-white, pink- 

 eyed animal, about fourteen inches long, do- 

 mesticated in America and Europe and kept 

 to kill mice and rats, and to hunt rabbits. 

 It is a native of Africa, and is related to the 



THE FERRET 



weasels. It looks like a polecat, but it cannot 

 bear cold and cannot live in cool climates ex- 

 cept in houses. Having very slender bodies, 

 ferrets can easily enter burrows, and, when 

 muzzled, are used to drive animals from their 

 holes. They seldom devour the animals they 

 catch, but kill them and suck their blood. 



They must be carefully watched or they will 

 harm infants and kill poultry. 



In the Western United States the black- 

 footed ferret is found. It is pale brown, with 

 black feet, and has a black-tipped tail and a 

 black bar across the face. 



As a verb, the word ferret means to get in- 

 formation slyly or skilfully. 



FER'RIS WHEEL, a type of amusement 

 device and a popular feature at exposition 

 grounds. The largest of its kind and the first 

 to be erected, was named after its inventor, 

 G. W. G. Ferris of Pittsburgh, and was built 

 at the Columbian Exposition, or World's Fair, 

 in Chicago in 1893. This wheel was 250 feet 

 in diameter, and carried thirty-six cars, each 

 car holding forty passengers. It weighed 1,100 

 tons, and cost $300,000. At the close of the 

 Chicago exhibition it was taken apart, rebuilt 

 and operated for a time at North Clark Street 

 and Wrightwood Avenue, Chicago, and later 

 it was set up in Saint Louis. Finally, its size 

 making it too expensive to move from place to 

 place, it was dismantled and sold. 



For a number of years small "Ferris wheels," 

 from twenty to fifty feet in diameter, main- 

 tained their popularity on the fame of Mr. 

 Ferris' achievement. 



FERRY, fer'i, a broad, usually flat-bottomed, 

 boat used to carry people, vehicles and freight 

 across rivers and small lakes. The most primi- 

 tive, used only on small streams, is a flat 

 barge, upon which a horse and carriage can 

 be driven and be carried to the opposite shore. 

 Such a barge is propelled by a chain or rope 

 cable stretched from one side of the river to 

 the other. Small boats used simply to carry 

 passengers are rowed with oars or poles. On 

 large rivers and lakes where travel is ex- 

 tensive, launches and steam vessels, built with 

 both ends alike so that they can go either 

 way without turning, have taken the place of 

 simpler boats. - Passenger ferries in New York 

 carry many thousands of people daily back and 

 forth between Manhattan Island and Jersey 

 City and Hoboken, and ferries of like nature 

 ply between San Francisco and Oakland. Rail- 

 way ferries are now made large enough to carry 

 entire trains across such bodies of water as the 

 Strait of Mackinac and the Detroit and Co- 

 lumbia rivers; there are two such ferries across 

 Lake Michigan, from Milwaukee to Grand 

 Haven and from Escanaba to Frankfort. 



FERTILIZATION OF PLANTS. See CROSS 

 FERTILIZATION; POLLEN AND POLLINATION; 

 BREEDING; BUBBANK, LUTHER. 



