FAT 



FEA 



about eighty longitudinal furrows, in two 

 series. 



FAT, an oleaginous or butyraceous 

 matter, secreted from the blood, and fill- 

 ing up the cavity of the adipose cells. See 

 ANATOMY. 



FATA morgana, a very remarkable 

 aerial phenomenon, which is sometimes 

 observed from the harbour of Messina 

 and adjacent places, at a certain height 

 in the atmosphere. The name, which sig- 

 nifies the fairy morgana, is derived from 

 an opinion of the superstitious Sicilians, 

 that the whole spectacle is produced by 

 fairies, or such-like visionary invisible 

 beings. The populace are delighted 

 whenever it appears, and run about the 

 streets shouting for joy, calling every 

 body out to partake of the glorious 

 sight. This singular meteor has been 

 described by various authors ; but the 

 first who mentioned it with any degree 

 of precision was father Angelucci, whose 

 account is thus quoted by Mr. Swin- 

 bm*ne in his tour through Sicily : " On 

 the 15th of August, 1643, as I stood at 

 my window, I was surprised with a most 

 wonderful delectable vision ; the sea 

 that washes the Sicilian shore swelled 

 up, and became for ten miles in length 

 like a chain of dark mountains ; while 

 the waters near our Calabrian coast 

 grew quite smooth, and in an instant 

 appeared as one clear polished mirror 

 reclining against the ridge. On this glass 

 was depicted, in chiaro-scuro, a string of 

 several thousand of pilasters, all equal 

 in altitude, distance, and degree of light 

 and shade. In a moment they lost half 

 their height, and bent into arcades, like 

 Roman aqueducts. A long cornice was 

 next formed on the top, and above it 

 rose castles innumerable, all perfectly 

 alike. These soon split into towers, 

 which were shonly after lost in colon- 

 nades, then windows, and at last ended 

 in pines cypresses, and other trees, even 

 and similar. This is the fata morgana, 

 which for twenty-six years I have thought 

 a mere fable." To produce this pleasing 

 deception, 'nony circumstances must con- 

 cur, which are not known to exist, at 

 least to the same extent, in any other si- 

 tuation. 1 he spectator must stand with 

 his back to the east, in some elevated 

 place behind the city, that lie may com- 

 mand a view of the whole ba\ ; beyond 

 which the mountains of Ate ssma rise like 

 a wall, and darken the buck-ground of 

 the pici urc. The winds must be hushed, 

 the surface quite smooth, and the tide 



at its height. All these events coincid- 

 ing, as soon as the sun surmounts the 

 eastern hills behind Reggio, and rises 

 high enough to form an angle of forty- 

 five degrees on the water before the 

 city, every object existing or moving at 

 Reggio will be repeated a thousand-fold, 

 as if in a looking-glass composed of fa- 

 cets or planes inclined to each other. 

 Each image will pass rapidly off' in suc- 

 cession as the day advances, and the 

 stream appears to carry down the face 

 upon which it appeared. Thus the parts 

 of this moving picture will vanish in the 

 twinkling of an eye. Sometimes the 

 air is at the same moment so loaded 

 with vapours, and undisturbed by winds, 

 as to reflect objects in a kind of aerial 

 screen, rising about thirty feet above the 

 level of the sea. In cloudy heavy wea- 

 ther they are drawn on the surface of 

 the water, bordered with fine prismatic 

 colours. 



Father Antonio Menasi published an 

 express treatise at Rome, in 1773, en- 

 titled " Dissertazione prima sopraun fe- 

 nomeno vulgaremente detto Fata Mor- 

 gana," of which a short abridgment is 

 given in Nicholson's Journal, 4to. vol. i. 

 p. 225, with a large engraving. This au- 

 thor does not appear to have philoso- 

 phized successfully upon the appearan- 

 ces, which are, indeed, very far from 

 having been at all explained. The reader 

 who may wish to consider the facts, is 

 referred to Huygens, " De Coronis et" 

 Parhelus ;" Priestley's " Optics for At- 

 mospheric Phenomena ;" Huddart, in the 

 Phil. Trans. 1797; Vince, in the same 

 work for 1799 ; and Wollaston for 1800 ; 

 which three last are in the journal last 

 quoted. The fata morgana seems to de- 

 pend upon the general principles of loom- 

 ing, which Wollaston has very successful- 

 ly displayed, together with the reflection 

 from particles of water floating in the air. 

 These particles doubtless assume prisma- 

 tic fig-ures by coagulation ; and it is, per- 

 haps, a mistake, to suppose them to be 

 spherical, even at their primary conden- 

 sation, in the fluid state of minute floating 

 particles. 



FATHOM, a long measure, containing 

 six feet, chiefly used at sea for measuring 

 the I'-ngth of cables and cordage. 



FEATHER, in physiology, a general 

 name for the covering of birds ; it being 

 common to all the animals of this class to 

 have their whole body, or at least the 

 greatest part of it, covered with feathers 

 or plumuge. 



