FAT 
FAT 
small wood of about a foot diameter, and 
six feet long, bound in the middle and at 
both ends. They aie used in raising bat- 
teries, making cliandeleers, in filling up the 
moat to facilitate the passage to the wall, 
in binding the ramparts where the earth is 
bad, and in making parapets of trenches to 
screen the men. 
FASCIOLA, in natural history, gourd- 
worm, a genus of the Vermes Intestina class 
and order. Body fiattish, with an aperture 
or pore at the head, and generally another 
at a distance beneath, seldom a single one. 
About fifty species have been described. 
They are divided into different sections, 
viz. those infesting mammalia, birds, rep- 
tiles, fish, and worms : among the first is F. 
hepatica, which is found in the liver of 
sheep, and is often vomited in brooks, and 
is generally found fixed by a pore at the 
extremity, and another in the middle of the 
abdomen, and occasions dropsy, and the 
disorder which is called the rot. The body 
of this animal is about an inch long, broader 
on the fore-part, and terminated by a tube ; 
the back marked with about eight longitu- 
dinal furrows in two series. 
FAT, an oleaginous or butyraceous mat- 
ter, secreted from the blood, and filling up 
the cavity of the adipose cells. See Ana- 
tomy. 
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 atmos- 
phere. The name, which signifies the fairy 
morgana, is derived from an opinion of the 
superstitious Sicilians, that the whole spec- 
tacle 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 de- 
scribed by various authors; but the first 
who mentioned it w ith any degree of pre- 
cision was father Angelucci, whose account 
is thus quoted by Mr. Swinburne in his 
tour through Sicily : “ On the 15th of Au- 
gust, 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 ap- 
peared as one clear polished mirror reclin- 
ing 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 aque- 
ducts. A long cornice was next formed on 
the top, and above it rose castles innumer- 
able, all perfectly alike. These soon split 
into towers, which were shortly after lost in 
colonnades, 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 had thought a 
mere fable.” To produce this pleasing de- 
ception, many circumstances must concur 
which are not known to exist, at least to 
the same extent, in any other situation. 
The spectator must stand with his back to 
the east, in some elevated place behind the 
city, that he may command a view of the 
whole bay ; beyond which the mountains of 
Messina rise like a wall, and darken the 
back-ground of the picture. The winds 
must be hushed, the surface quite smooth, 
and the tide at its height. All these events 
coinciding, 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 facets or planes inclined 
to each other. Each image will pass rapidly 
off in succession, as the day advances, and 
the stream appeals to carry down the face 
upon which it appeared. Thus the parts of 
this moving picture will vanish in the twink- 
ling 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 weather they are drawn on 
the surface of the water, bordered with 
fine prismatic colours. 
Father Antonio Menasi published an ex- 
press treatise at Rome, in 1773, entitled 
“ Dissertazione prima sopra un fenomeno 
volgaremente detto Fata Morgana,” of 
which a short abridgement is given in 
Nicholson’s Journal, 4to. vol. i. p. 225, 
with a large engraving. This author does 
not appear to have philosophized success- 
fully upon the appearances, which are, in- 
deed, very far from having been at all ex- 
plained. The reader, who may wish to con- 
sider the facts, is referred to Huygens, “ De 
Coromis etParhelus Priestley’s “Optics for 
Atmospheric Phenomena Huddart in the 
Phil. Trans. 1797 j Vince, in the same work 
