FOR 
ritory 0 
born at Ber is 
Seen ai his aie was a refugee 
religious principles, he revocation ’ of th 
dat the r au French college for 
minifter before he had com- 
wentet year. ffi- 
plet 
of the- French | congregation in 
ted his t 
cating x minifter 
Roya al Academy of Sciences and Belles Lettres at Berlin 
in 1944, M. hilofophi 
elafs,and four yearsafter wards, atthe na eee of the prefident 
Maupertuis, he was created fole and perpetual fecretary of 
the academy, which poft he held nearly fifty years. He was 
admirably qualified for the office, and fo was regarded a 
foreigners as aes s by his own countrymen. H 
ciated to a number of foreign eric bods, 
, Peterfburg, Haarle Bi Mantua, Bo- 
g pei in Germany, and he was perfonally 
acquainted with. feveral _ eal soit eminent and ‘luftrio ous 
characters througbout on sacademical em- 
the r con- 
e dowager princefs 
n the Fren nch col olo- 
ot 
= 
fuperior directory. wice married, and by h 
cond wife had many children, feven of whom SS him. 
He died in the month of March 1797, at the great age of 
eighty- ceihs hint and eight mon ae The printed a oe of 
M. Form e fo numero at he is faid to have been 
in oneal ou ak fifty Soeea: There j is {carcely a de- 
partment in the fields of {cience and literature. hee he had 
not cultivated ; 3 and his early occupati ionas a journalift, which 
a in the Bi blio seat Ger- 
nique ery extenfive acquaintance with 
eae on a fabjedts. In Siclasy. he wrote ilo- 
fophe Chretien :’’ he defended the eye diene eo 
Diderot and eeraie He too n the En- 
cyclopedia of Yverdun, an eee various Soadlee pieces 
on morality, and cence works for young people. As 
a member of, and contributer to the academy, he read a 
number of memoirs, ae well oe Dalai as on high philofo- 
phical fubjeQs, fuch as rty nd neceflity : : 
the cree In all 
efe there are a clearnefs and precifion, an eafy 
ing ftyle, and a freedom from that dogmatifm a fae is very 
difgulting when aflumed upon a a of fo much do upe 
and sees Gen. Biog. 
OR a in baa t Geo 
Capua : and SW. of Minturna. 
he d 
of le tein of a peel &e. 
ath, a town of Seer in 
ola 
th omans — t rum Urbs, 
fro he of a diftinguithed ee “ahh ia 
ed or near nit Near this town was the country- 
houfe of Cicero, called his « Formianum,”’ and not far from 
hence he was afflaflinated by the emiffaries cf Antony. (See 
Cicero.) The place in — this atrocions deed was per- 
y the Abbé Chaupy by means of 
i on a private road that led t 
the fea, whence Cicero meditated his efcape. Horace com- 
Vou, XV, 
FOR 
pares the wine made from the grapes of the Formian hills 
with the Falernian. 
FORMIATE. See F 1c Acid, 
FORMIC rate in reals -{o denominated from the 
infect from wh ich it ined. Chemifts are not unani- 
mous in their opinion iocaiie this acid; fome of 
them contend that itis no other than the seen or malie 
acid, and others eaineta that its properties. are diftine: 
com thofe ie 1 other ac poe and therefore that it is_- 
anacid fui ceneris. It ced nearly a century and 
half ago in the “Philofophiest Tranfadtion 
of the exper: of 
Suerfen was ae to 
h attention, and fro 
and that its properties are ve 
This chemift had recourfe to the method propofed 
graff, and corrected by Richter to obtain the formic acid 
pure. He infufed a quantity of red ants, formice rufz, in 
thrice their — of water, and put the mixture in a 
filver ftill ; drew off the water by diftillation, tilla burnt 
{mell beg an to be perceived ; he then pias ~ ee in 
the receiver with pot- souk and evaporated to h 
mafs thus obtained was with as much diluted Tulphu- 
= acid as w cien 
to drynefs i in a retort. 
again rectified by moderate heat to get 
portion of Eee — and th beetle was 3 foppoled to 
acid, Iti cies like water ; its {mell 
its tafte i 
" The aa 
able of ferving economical pur negar ; is 
a aes by great heat, ries Cs falts an earth in alka 
es and metallic oxyds, which are cryftallizable and not de 
ie ueteeek Thefe have he en in ominated ‘formiates by 
ai fe who admit the formic as a avis & acid, but by thofe 
o be 
creation, . 
known 
ative acid. 
CA, in n Entomology, a genus of the hy menop- 
terous order, poffefling, according to Linnzus, the follow-. 
ing effential fp ae : alittle upright feale between the 
thorax and the abdomen; males and females furnifned with 
wings, and the neuters aptero us, ot ,winglefs, 
Geoff oy propofes in addition to the above jane. ta 
K ditinguith 
