FUT 
FITS 
tyx is five-cleft; corblia none ; Stamina four ; 
germen inferior; stigma four drupe. Male 
calyx, &c. the same. Fruit abortive. There 
is one species, a tree of the Cape. 
FUS EE, in clock-work, is that part drawn 
by the spring, and about which the chain or 
string is wound. See Clock and Watch- 
work. 
FUSES, in artillery, according to capt. 
; George Smith, formerly inspector to the mi- 
litary academy at Woolwich, are chiefly made 
I of very dry beech wood, and sometimes of 
I horn-beam taken near the root. They are 
turned rough and bored at first, and then 
1 kept for several years in a dry place. The 
I diameter of the whole is about -J of an inch; 
I the hole does not go quite through, having 
i about a of an inchat the bottom; and the 
j head is made hollow in the form of a bowl. 
'Fhe composition for fuses is, saltpetre 3, sul- 
i plmr 1, and mealed powder 3, or 4, and some- 
i times 5. This composition is driven in with 
1 an iron driver whose ends are capped with 
i copper, to prevent the composition from 
: taking lire; and to keep it equally hard; the 
Fast shovel-full being all mealed powder, and 
2 strands of quick match laid across each 
other, being driven in with it, the ends of 
which are folded up into the hollow top, and 
a cap of parchment tied over it until it is 
used. 
FUSILEERS, in the British service, are 
soldiers armed like the rest of the infantry, 
i with this difference only, that their musquets 
| are shorter and lighter than those of the bat- 
talion and the grenadiers. They wear caps 
j w hich are somewhat less, in point of height, 
than common grenadier caps. There are 
j three regiments in the English service: the 
j royal regiment of Scotch fusileers, raised in 
| 1678 ; the royal regiment of Welch fusileers, 
! raised in 1685 ; and the royal regiment of 
Welch fusileers, raised in 1688-9. 
FUSILY, axfusile, in heraldry, signifies 
a field or ordinary, entirely covered over 
w ith, or divided into fusils. 
FUSION, the actiop of fire, or more pro- 
perly, of caloric, on solid bodies, by which 
■ they are caused to pass into the state of flui- 
dity ; and a body rendered liquid by tire is 
said to be in fusion, to flow, to melt. 
From the difference between solid and 
J fluid bodies, it follows, that the active expan- 
j sive power of the caloric is the principal or 
true cause of fusion; since, by combining, 
J with the solid substance, it diminishes and 
i destroys, in a high degree, the attractive 
force of its particles. The fluidity of all li- 
| quid bodies, wo know at present, is merely 
PUS 
derivative, and the effect of the influx of ca- 
loric. 
If we attend to the different strength of 
the attractive power which the particles of 
substances, specifically different, exert on 
one side amongst themselves, and on the other 
towards tire caloric, we find no ground to 
wonder why some bodies require a lower, 
others a higher, temperature to be fused; 
and that it is possible to meet with some bo- 
dies, which at any degree of temperature 
we hitherto know in our atmosphere, continue 
in the liquid state. According to the various 
degrees of fusibility, bodies are discriminated 
into refractory, or of difficult fusion, which 
require the utmost violence of fire to be 
melted; and simply fusible, or of easy fusion, 
that will flow in less heat; yet the limits be- 
tween these have not yet been ascertained 
by any fixed scale. 
Some mixtures melt with greater ease than 
the single substances of which they are com- 
posed. 
Some bodies cannot be rendered fluid by 
any degree of heat which we are able to pro- 
duce. These are called infusible, apyrous or 
fire-proof. Several of them may, however, be 
fused by adding other bodies," which on ac- 
count of this property are called fluxes. Such 
addition is called at the smelting-works dress- 
ing of the ores. It is worth remarking, that 
sometimes these additions are of themselves 
infusible. 
The true fusion ought not to be confounded 
with the melting of some salt crystals by heat. 
The last is caused by the aqueous particles 
contained in them dissolving the salt at an 
increased heat, which they cannot at a 
weaker. 
When melted bodies, by a circumambient 
medium of a lower temperature, are deprived 
of so much caloric that the original attractive 
forces of the bodies of which they are com- 
pounded, acquire again the degree of inten- 
sity requisite to produce the form of solidity; 
or when by this loss of caloric, the native at- 
traction among the surfaces of the primitive 
molecules becomes again active, they con- 
crete, or congeal. 
All bodies must, in consequence of the ex- 
planation given of fusion, assume in fusion a 
greater volume than that which they had in 
their former state of solidity. This is in every 
respect confirmed by experience, The ex- 
ception which some bodies, as ice, bismuth, 
antimony, sulphur, seem to make, may be 
easily explained by the crystallization of their 
parts on concreting. 
Since no solution takes place without liqui- 
dity, fusion becomes one of the most effec- 
, 
5 H 
793 
tual operations for solutions and precipita- 
tions in the dry way. Fusion is, besides, of 
importance in separating heterogeneous parts 
simply mingled by means of their different 
degrees of fusibility; as also by the circum- 
stance, that various shapes may be given to 
bodies by casting them into moulds while in 
a fluid state. 
Fusion is -sometimes performed without 
any vessels at all, and then in small quantities, 
by the flame of a candle or lamp, with the 
assistance of the blow-pipe: but, in larger 
quantities, by placing the bodies to be fused 
amongst the coals in a melting furnace. At 
other times, the operation is done in vessels, 
subjected to the requisite heat, in the fur- 
nace. 
When the blow-pipe made of glass or me- 
tal, is employed, the air compressed by the 
mouth is directed on the flame ; and the heat, 
by that means increased, is communicated to 
the substance to be fused, which generally 
rests on a support, in a cavity made in a lump’ 
of charcoal. The apparatus by which the air 
is made to stream through the blow-pipe, by 
means of double bellows, renders this usefvu 
instrument capable of being employed by 
persons whose lungs do not permit them to 
continue the blowing long, or who are net 
sufficient!) skilled in its management. Lastly, 
the heat of a lamp-flame may be raised to 
the highest degree, by conducting oxygen 
gas through the blow-pipe, by means of a pe- 
culiar apparatus. 
In smelting-houses, the fusion without ves- 
sels is performed in a very siurp’e way, by 
placing the substances to be fused imme- 
diately betwixt burning charcoal in the melt- 
ing-furnaces. In these the fusion is urged by 
bellows; and they are of various construe*; 
tions, to suit a variety of purposes. Hence also 
they have received different denominations. 
Other kinds of fusion, especially in small 
quantities, are performed in vessels of various 
shape and materials. Their most essential 
properties, are their being infusible at any de- 
gree of heat required for melting the bodies 
to be fused in them ; and, besides, their inso- 
lubility in that body when melted. 
FUSTIAN, in commerce, a kind of cotton 
stuff, which seems as if it was whaled on one 
side. 
FUTTOCKS, in a ship, the timbers raised 
over the keel, or the encompassing timbers 
that make her breadth. Of these "are first, 
second, third, and fourth, denominated ac- 
cording to their distance from the keel, thosij 
next it being called first or ground futtocks, 
and the others upper futtocks: those timbers, 
being put together, make a frame-bend. - 
Vol. I 
