;2s 
F I N 
F I R 
either to award a fine or amercement for con- 
tempt of the court, lor a suitor’s refusing to 
be sworn, &c, ; and the steward of a court 
leet may either amerce or fine an offender, 
upon an indictment for an offence not capi- 
tal, within his jurisdiction, without any far- 
ther proceeding or trial, especially if the 
crime was any way enormous, as an affray 
accompanied with wounding. Kitchin, 43, 5 f. 
Some courts cannot line or imprison, but 
amerce, as the countv, hundred courts, & c. 
11 Co. 43. 
But some courts can neither fine, imprison, 
nor amerce; as ecclesiastical courts held 
before the ordinary, archdeacon, &c. or 
the.r commissaries, and such who proceed ac- 
cording to the canon or civil law. 11 Co. 44. 
A fine may be mitigated the same term it 
was set, being under the power of the court 
during that time, but not afterwards. L. 
Raym. 376. And lines assessed in court by 
judgment upon an information, cannot be 
afterwards mitigated Cro. Car. 231. If 
a fine certain is imposed by statute on any 
conviction, the court cannot mitigate it; but 
if the party come in before conviction, and 
submit to the court, they may assess a less 
fine; for he is not convicted, and perhaps 
never might. The court of exchequer may 
mitigate a fine certain, because it is a court 
of equity, and they have a privy seal foFit. 
3 Salk. 33. 
FINERS of gold and silver, are those who 
separate these metals from coarser ores. 
FINERY, in the iron-works, one of the 
forges at which the iron is hammered and 
fashioned into what they call a bloom, or 
square bar. 
FINGER, in music, a word metaphori- 
cally applied to ability in execution in ge- 
neral, but especially on keyed instruments; 
as when we say, such a master possesses an 
expressive or an elegant finger ; that lady 
displays a rapid or a delicate linger. ■ 
Finger-board. That thin, black co- 
vering of wood laid over the neck of a violin, 
violoncello, &c. and on which, in perform- 
ance, the strings are pressed by the lingers of 
the left hand, while the right manages the bow. 
Fingering. Disposing of the fingers in 
a convenient, natural, and apt manner in the 
performance on any instrument, but more 
especially the organ and piano-forte. Good 
fingering is one of the first things to which a 
judicious master attends. It is, indeed, to 
this that the pupil must look as the means for 
acquiring a facile and graceful execution, 
and the power of giving passages with articu- 
lation, accent, and expression. Easy pas- 
sages may be rendered difficult, and difficult 
ones impracticable, by bad fingering ; and 
though there are many arrangements of 
notes which admit, of various fingering, still, 
even in these, there is always one best way 
of disposing of the. hand, either with regard 
to the notes themselves, or those which pre- 
cede or follow them. But there are an infi- 
nite number of possible dispositions of notes, 
which can only be lingered in one particular 
way; and every attempt at any other, is but 
endangering the establishment of some awk- 
wardness, which the practitioner will have to 
unlearn before he can hope to attain the true 
fingering. Hence it is obvious, that no qua- 
lification requisite to good performance is of 
more importance to the learner than that of 
just fingering ; and that whatever talents and 
F I R 
assiduity may be able to achieve indepen- 
dent of instruction, in this great particular 
the directions of a skilful master are indis- 
pensable. 
FINTO, in music (Ital.), a feint, a term 
applied to the preparation for a cadence 
which is not executed ; when the performer 
having done every thing that is requisite to a 
close, instead of falling on the final, 
full 
passes to some other note, or introduces a 
pause. 
FIR-tree. See Abies. 
FIRE. See Caloric. 
Fire, wild, a kind of artificial or factitious 
fire, which burns even under water. It is 
composed of sulphur, pitch, nitre, and vari- 
ous other combustible materials ; and is very 
hard to extinguish. Chemistry, however, 
has supplied a still more destructive kind cf 
wild-fire, in the union of nitrous acid with 
oil of turpentine. These two liquids separate- 
ly are perfectly cold ; bud when suddenly 
mixed, produce a flame not easily extinguish- 
ed. This, with great appearance of reason, 
is supposed to be the wikl-fire of the ancients, 
who, inclosing the two liquids in a glass bail 
which had a partition to keep them asunder, 
threw the ball into some ship of the enemy’s ; 
and the globe being thus broken, the liquids 
united, and set the vessel in flames. The 
French call it Greek fire, or feu Gregois, be- 
cause first used by the Greeks, about the 
year 660 ; as is observed by the jesuit Pe- 
tavius, on the authority of Nicetas, Theo- 
phanes, Cedrenus, &c. 
The inventor, according to the same je- 
suit, was an engineer of Heliopolis in Syria, 
named Callinicus, who first applied it in the 
sea-fight commanded by Constantine Pogo- 
nates against the Saracens, near Cyzicus, in 
the Hellespont; and with such effect, that 
he burnt the whole fleet in which were 
30,000 men. But others will have it of a 
much older date ; and hold Marcu ■; Grac- 
chus the inventor: which opinion is sup- 
ported by several passages both in the Greek 
and Roman writers, which show it to have 
been anciently used by both these nations 
in their wars. 
F. Daniel gives us a good description of 
the Greek fire in his account of the siege of 
Damietta under St. X.ouis. Every body, 
says that author, was astonished with the 
Greek fire, which the Turks then prepared, 
and the secret whereof is now lost. They 
threw it out of a kind of mortar ; and some- 
times shot it with an odd sort of cross-bow, 
which was strongly bent by means of a handle 
or winch, of much greater force than the 
mere arm. That thrown with the mortar 
sometimes appeared in the air of the size of 
a tun, with a long tail, and a noise like that 
of thunder. The French by degrees got the 
secret of extinguishing it, in which they 
succeeded several times. 
Fire-place. Our ancestors, equally care- 
less of fuel and patient of heat and of cold, 
basked before a large pile of burning wood 
with a screen at their backs ; and in attempt- 
ing to substitute a coal-fire, it was at first for- 
gotten that bacon, &c. &c. was not to be 
hung in the chimney. Economical fire- 
places should be constructed on the following 
principles: 1. To place the grate as near 
tne floor as may be. 2. To bring it as for- 
ward as may be, consistently with the proper 
situation of the throat of the chimney, which 
ought to be directly over the fire, and not 
larger than is sufficient to give free passage I 
at all times to the smoke. 3. The mantle- 1 
piece should be as low as it can be without 
suffering from the heat, or obstructing the 
proper radiation of it into the room, from the 
fuel and flame. By these .means, the feet 
and legs are easily warmed, and the face not 
so much incommoded ; while a much greater 
volume of heated air is retained in a room of 
equal size than by high grates and large open- 
ings. Since it has been found that chimneys 
may be cleansed with long flexible brushes; 
why should they not be built of smaller dia- 
meter, circular, and smoothlv plaistered with- ' 
in? 
Fire, machine for preserving from. This j 
machine consists ot a pole, a rope, and a - 
basket. 1 he pole is of fir, or a common 
scatfold pole, ol any convenient length from 
36 to 46 feet.; the diameter at bottom, or the 
greatest end, about five inches ; and at the 
top or smallest end about three inches. At 
three feet from the top is a mortise through 
the pole, and a pulley fixed to it of nearly the 
same diameter with the pole in that part. 
4 he rope is about three quarters of an inch 
diameter, and twice the length of the pole ; 
with a spring hook at one end, to pass through 
the' ring in the handle of the basket when 
used: it is put through the mortise over the 
pulley, and then drawn tight on each side 
near the bottom of the pole, and made 
-fust there till wanted. The basket should be 
of strong wicker-work, three feet and a half 
long, two feet and a half wide, rounded off 
at the corners, and four feet deep, rounding 
every way at the bottom. To the top of 
the basket is fixed a strong iron curve or 
handle, with an eye or ring in the middle ; 
and to one side ot the basket, near the top' 
is fixed a small cord, or guide-rope, of about 
the length of the pole. When the pole is 
raised, and set against a house over the win- 
dow from which any persons are to escape, 
the manner of using it is so plain and obvious, 
that it need not be described. 'The most 
convenient distance from the house for the 
foot of the pole to stand, where practicable, 
is about twelve or fourteen feet. If two 
strong iron straps, about three feet long, ri- 
vetted to a cross bar, and spreading about 
fourteen inches at the foot, were fixed at the 
bottom of the pole, this would prevent its 
turning round or slipph g on the pavement. 
And if a strong iron hoop, or ferule, ri vetted 
(or welded) to a semicircular piece ol iron 
spreading about twelve inches, and pointed 
at the ends, was fixed on at the top of the pole, 
it would prevent its sliding against the wall! 
When these two last-mentioned irons are 
fixed on, they give the pole all the steadiness 
of a ladder ; and because it is not easv, ex- 
cept to persons who have been used to" it, to 
raise and set upright a pole of forty feet or 
more in length, it will be convenient to have 
two small poles or spars of about two inches 
diameter, fixed to the sides of the great pole 
at about two or three feet above the middle 
of it, by iron eyes rivetted to two plates, so 
as to turn every way ; the lower end of 
these spars to reach within a foot of tiie bot- 
tom of the great pole, and to have ferules 
and short spikes to prevent sliding on the 
pavement, when used occasionally to support 
the great pole like a tripod. There should be 
two strong ash-trundles let through the pole 
