FURIES 



FURNESS 





Related Subject*. Each animal referred to 

 in the above article is described in its alphabet- 

 ical place in these volumes. In addition, see the 

 following : 



Canada, page 1102 Hibernation 



Game (Game Laws) Seal 



FURIES, ju'riz, in Greek mythology, three 

 sisters named Alecto, Tisiphone and Megaera, 

 who were attendants of Proserpina, the goddess 

 of death and the underworld. They sprang 

 from the blood of the wounded Uranus, and 

 were noted for their hard hearts as well as the 

 merciless manner in which they hurried the 

 ghosts intrusted to their care over the fiery 

 flood of the river Phlegethon to eternal tor- 

 ment. Their heads were wreathed with ser- 

 pents and they watched remorselessly for every 

 soul they could catch. Virgil says in describing 

 Hades : 



"before the gate, 



By night and day, a wakeful Fury sate, . . 

 The pale Tisiphone ; a robe she wore, 

 With all the pomp of horror, dy'd in gore." 



FUR 'LONG, an English term for the distance 

 of forty rods, or one-eighth of a mile. It 

 originally referred to the length of a furrow, 

 which would ordinarily be the length of a 

 field, but like other originally indefinite terms 

 of measure, it gradually acquired a definite 

 value. Among the old English writers one- 

 eighth of a mile of any of the world's standards 

 of measurement was called a furlong, and as 

 early as the ninth century the word was used 

 in the sense of the Latin stadium, which was 

 one-eighth of the Roman mile. The term is 

 now little employed. See MILE. 



FUR'NACE, an enclosure or structure of 

 metal, brick, earthenware or other material, in 

 which a fire developing great heat may be 

 maintained. The heat is utilized for melting 

 metals, heating a boiler, baking pottery, warm- 

 ing a house and for many other purposes. The 

 furnace should be so constructed as to provide 

 the greatest possible heat from the fuel con- 

 sumed, and to concentrate the heat where it 

 is most required. The fire in ordinary air 

 furnaces is kept burning by natural drafts. 

 When extreme heat is required air is forced 

 through the fire by bellows or blowing ma- 

 chines. Furnaces fitted with such devices are 

 called blast furnaces. For melting metals a 

 reverbcratory furnace is sometimes used. In 

 this device the flames are forced against a 

 low, arched roof from which they are deflected 

 to the objects to be melted. 



The furnaces mentioned above burn coal or 

 coke. Furnaces requiring gas fuel are becoming 

 148 



steadily more important and have great ad- 

 vantages over those burning coke or coal. Gas 

 leaves no ash; it produces a very high temper- 

 ature and can be instantly lighted or extin- 

 guished. 



Electric Furnace. The electric furnace, 

 which is of recent invention, has proved so 

 successful that it is expected to revolutionize 

 the steel industries, for by means of it a tem- 

 perature far higher than that ordinarily reached 

 in any of the older types of furnaces is easily 

 obtained. To the reader without a technical 

 knowledge of such matters it might seem that 

 the temperature of 2000 Centigrade obtainable 

 in a non-electric furnace must be high enough 

 for any process, but the worker with metals 

 finds that there are various processes which 

 can be far more satisfactorily carried on by 

 means of the 3500 temperature which the 

 electric furnace affords. Carborundum, graph- 

 ite, high grades of iron and steel, calcium car- 

 bide and aluminum are best produced in this 

 intense heat. 



Electric furnaces are of two types, resistance 

 furnaces and arc furnaces. In the former, a 

 very refractory material in other words, a 

 very poor conductor is made use of, and the 

 passage of electricity through that substance 

 causes the heat. In the arc type, a great elec- 

 tric arc is formed of carbon, and is enclosed in 

 a chamber formed of some substance which 

 will allow neither the electricity nor the heat 

 to escape. Of course electric furnaces are prac- 

 ticable only in regions where electric power 

 can be generated without great expense. See 

 ELECTRIC HEATING. 



FUR 'NESS, HORACE HOWARD (1833-1912), 

 an eminent American Shakespearean scholar 

 who probably knew more about Shakespeare, 

 his plays, their sources and texts, than any 

 other man since the days of that greatest of 

 all dramatists. In 1871 he published the first 

 of his famous series, known as the Variorum 

 Shakespeare, which included fifteen volumes, 

 each a monument of patient study. 



Dr. Furness .was born in Philadelphia, was 

 educated at Harvard College and at Halle, in 

 Germany, and was admitted to the bar in 

 1859. He represents the finest type of the 

 leisurely scholar; but neither the deafness with 

 which he was afflicted nor his seclusion from 

 the activities that make up modern life could 

 make him unsj'mpathetic with his fellowmen. 

 It is said he always carried in his pocket a card 

 upon which was written, "Don't blame the 

 driver. Jt i not his fault. I am deaf." 



