FOR 
have eight ; flies, grass-hoppers, and butter- 
flies have six feet; animals destined to 
swim, and water-fowl, have their toes web- 
bed together, as the phoc®, goose, duck, 
&c. ; the fore-feet of the mole, rabbit, &c. 
are wonderfully formed for digging and 
scratching up the earth, in order to make 
way for their head. 
Foot. See Anatomy. 
Foot, in the Latin and Greek poetry, a 
metre or measure, composed of a certain 
number of long and short syllables. These 
feet are commonly reckoned twenty-eight, 
of which some are simple, as consisting of 
two or three syllables, and therefore called 
disyllabic or trisyllabic feet ; others are com- 
pound, consisting of four syllables, and are 
therefore called tetrasyllabic feet. 
Foot is also a long measure, consisting 
of twelve inches. Geometricians divide 
the foot into ten digits, and the digit into 
ten lines. See Digit and Line, 
Foot square, is the same measure both in 
breadth and length, containing 144 square 
or superficial inches. 
Foot cubic, or solid, is the same measure 
in all the three dimensions, length, breadth, 
and depth or thickness, containing 1728 cu- 
bic inches. The foot is of different lengths 
in different countries. The Paris royal foot 
exceeds the English by nine lines ; the an- 
cient Roman foot of the Capitol consisted 
of four palms, equal to 11 T 7 5 inches English ; 
Rhineland or Leyden foot, by which the 
northern nations go, is to the Roman foot, 
as 950 to 1000. See Measure. 
Foot geld, or Faut-geld, in our old cus- 
toms, an amercement laid upon those who 
live within the bounds of a forest, for not 
laWing or cutting out the ball of their dog’s 
feet. To be free of a foot-geld, was a pri- 
vilege to keep dogs unlawed, within the 
bounds of a forest. 
Foot level, among artificers, an instru- 
ment that serves as a foot-rule, a square, 
and a level. See Levee. 
FORAGE, in military affairs, implies 
hay, straw, and oats, for the subsistence of 
the army horses. It is divided into rations, 
of which one is a day’s allowance for a 
horse, and contains 20 lb. of hay, 10 lb. of 
oats, and 5 lb. of straw. When cavalry. is 
stationed in barracks in Great Britain, the 
number of rations of forage is, to field-offi- 
cers four, supposing them to have four ef- 
fective horses ; to captains three ; to staff- 
officers two ; to quarter-masters, non-com- 
missioned officers, and privates, each one. 
FOR 
On foreign service, this article is governed 
by circumstances. 
FORAMEN, in anatomy, a name given 
to several apertures, or perforations in di- 
vers parts of the body ; as, the foramen la- 
chryniale, &c. See Anatomy. 
FORCE, in mechanics, denotes the cause 
of the change in the state of a body when 
being at rest it begins to move, or has a 
motion which is either not uniform, or not 
direct. Mechanical forces may be reduced 
to two sorts, one of a body at rest, the 
other of a body in motion. See Mecha- 
nics. The force of a body at rest is that 
which we conceive to be in a body lying 
still on a table, or hanging by a rope, or 
supported by a spring, and is called by the 
names of pressure, vis mortua, &c. The 
measure of this force being the weight with 
which the table is pressed, or the spring 
bent. 
The force of a body in motion, called 
moving force, vis matrix, and vis viva, to 
distinguish it from the vis mortua, is allow- 
ed to be a power residing in that body so 
long as it continues its motion, by means of 
which it is able to remove obstacles lying 
in its way, to surmount any resistance, as 
tension, gravity, friction, &c. and which, in 
whole or in part, continues to accompany 
it so long as the body moves. 
Abe have several curious, as well as use- 
ful observations, in Desagulier’s “ Experi- 
mental Philosophy,” concerning the com- 
parative forces of men and horses, and the 
best way of applying them. A horse draws 
with the greatest advantage when the line 
of direction is level with his breast ; in such 
a situation, he is able to draw 200 lb. eight 
hours a-day, walking about two miles and 
a half an hour. And if the same horse is 
made to draw 240 lb. he can work but six 
hours a-day, and cannot go quite so fast. 
On a carriage indeed, where friction alone 
is to be overcome, a middling horse will 
draw 1 00016. But the best way to try a 
horse’s force, is by making him draw up 
out of a well, over a single pulley or roller ; 
and, in such a case, one horse with another 
will draw 20016., as already observed. Five 
men are found to be equal in strength to 
one horse, and can, with as much ease, push 
round the horizontal beam of a mill, in a 
walk forty feet wide; whereas three men 
will do it in a walk only nineteen feet wide. 
The worst way of applying the force of a 
horse, is to make him carry or draw up 
hill ; for if the hill be steep, three men will 
do niore than a horse, each man climbing 
