Geographical Distribution.-Abundant in the summer on the rivers and fresh-water lakes of the fur countries. In autumn and winter very common in the United States, sometimes on the sea-shores. Catesby says that the Buffel's Head Duck appears in Carolina during the winter only. On the river Neuse, in North Carolina, they have been seen in abundance in February. In April and May those in the south take their departure northward.

Habits, Food, Re-production.-This species is a most expert diver, whether it resorts to that feat as a mode of escape, or as the means of procuring the sea-wrack and laver (Ulva lactuca), and crustaceans and mollusks, which, at particular seasons of the year when it visits the sea bays and salt marshes, form its favourite food. The rapidity of its disappearance from the surface, and the artful way in which it conceals itself after it has vanished under water, have earned for it the appropriate name of Spirit Duck,' or Conjurer.' A bird is rarely hit, and when it is, if not killed outright, it can rarely be captured; so quick is the Spirit Duck in avoiding the shot altogether, and so dexterous in evading its pursuer, if only wounded. About Hudson's Bay they are said to form their nests in hollow trees in woods adjacent to water. (Wilson; Nuttall).

Utility to Man -The flesh of the Spirit Duck is not in high repute, but the females and young are tender and well-flavoured in the winter. The bird becomes so fat that, in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, it is commonly called 'Butter-Box,' or Butter-Ball.'

Clangula albeola, male and female.

Harelda (Leach).

Generic Character.-Bill very short, high a. the base, nail broad and arched. Lamina prominent, trenchant, and distant; the upper lamina projecting below the margin of the mandible, the lower laminae divided into a nearly equal double series. Nostrils oblong, large, and nearly basal. Forehead high; neck rather thick. Tail very long, of fourteen feathers. Toes short.

Example, Hareida glaciatis, Anas glacialis, Linn., the Long-tailed Duck,

This is the Canard à longue Queue, ou Canard de Miclon of the French; Eisente, Winter Ente of the Germans; Ungle, Angeltaske, Trasfoener of the Norwegians; Oedel of the Feroe Islanders; Ha-Old, Ha-Ella of the Icelanders; Swallow-tailed Sheldrake, Sharp-tailed Duck, Calao, Calaw, Coal and Candle Light of the modern British. Hwyad gynffon gwennol of the antient British; Old Wife and Swallow-tailed Duck of the Hudson's Bay residents; South-Southerly of the United States; Aldiggee-areoo of the Esquimaux; Caccàwee of the Canadian voyageurs; and Hahhaway of the Cree Indians.

Description.-Old Male (Winter.) Summit of the head, nape, front, and lower parts of the neck, long scapulars, belly, abdomen, and lateral tail-feathers, pure white; cheeks and throat ash-colour; a great space of maroon-brown on the sides of the neck; breast, back, rump, wings, and the two long feathers of the middle of the tail brownish; flanks ash-coloured; the black of the bill cut transversely by a red band; tarsi and toes yellow; webs blackish; iris orange. Length, comprising the long tail-feathers, twenty to twentyone inches.

Old Female.-Differing much from the male. Tail short, the feathers bordered with white and the two middle ones not elongated; forehead, throat, and eyebrows whitish ash; nape, front, and lower part of the neck, belly, and abdomen pure white; top of the head and great space at the sides of the neck blackish ash; breast variegated with ash-colour and brown; feathers of the back, scapulars, and wing-coverts black in the middle, bordered and terminated with ashyred; rest of the other parts brown; the bluish colour of the bill cut by a yellowish band; iris bright brown; feet leadcolour. Length 16 inches.

Young of the Year.-Not differing much from the old female; the whiteness of the face is varied with numerous brown or ash-coloured spots; throat, front of the neck, and nape ashy-brown; lower part of the neck, a large spot behind the eyes, belly, and abdomen white; breast and thighs variegated with brown and ash-coloured spots. (Temminck.)

Summer Dress.-Male, killed May 1, 1826, on the Saskatchewan. Colour.-The whole upper plumage, the two central pairs of tail feathers, and the under plumage to the fore part of the belly brownish-black; the lesser quis paler. A triangular patch of the feathers between the shoulders, and the scapulars, broadly bordered with orange-brown. Sides of the head from the bill to the ears ash-grey; eye-stripe and posterior under plumage pure white. Flanks, sides of the rump, and lateral tail-feathers white, stained with brown; axillaries and inner wing-coverts clove-brown. Bill black, with an orange belt before the nostrils. Legs darkbrown. Specimens killed a fortnight or three weeks later in the season at Bear Lake, on their way to the breedingplaces, differed in having a large white patch on the hind head: and occiput, with scattered white feathers on the neck and among the scapulars; the sides under the wings pure pearl grey, and the sides of the rump unstained white. (Dr. Richardson, Fauna Boreali-Americana.')

Captain, now Major, Edward Sabine (Supplement to Appendix of Captain Sir W. E. Parry's First Voyage) notices

121 145

One equiv. cyanogen. 26 One do. oxygen

Equivalent 34

Besides the works already mentioned, Fuller was the author of several others of a smaller kind. 1. Andronicus, or the Unfortunate Politician,' 12mo. Lond. 1646. 2. Good Thoughts in Worse Times,' 16mo. Lond. 1647, reprinted with his Good Thoughts in Bad Times,' 1652, and again, 12mo. Lond. 1669, and both since reprinted at Oxford; 3. Mixt Contemplations in Better Times,' 12mo. Lond. 1660; 4. The Speech of Birds, also of Flowers, partly moral, partly mystical,' 8vo. 1660. In 1651 he published Dr. Holdsworth's Valley of Vision,' with a preface. A specimen of his Latin composition, in what is called 'An Eccho,' occurs in the first book of Ayres and Dialogues, for one, two, and three Voyces,' by Henry Lawes, fol. Lond. 1653. Fuller was a man of great wit, and of powers of memory almost incredible. (Life of Dr. Thomas Fuller, 12mo. Lond. 1661; Biogr. Britan., vol. iii. 2049—2069; Chalmers's Biogr. Dict., vol. xv. p. 168-176.)

FULLERS' EARTH, a mineral product, formerly much used in the fulling of cloth, whence it derives its name. It occurs massive, and is usually of a greenish brown or dull grey colour; sometimes it is nearly of a slate colour. It is opaque, dull, and its specific gravity is 18, 22. Greasy and soft, yielding to, and polished by, the nail. Fracture uneven, earthy; in water it breaks down into a soft pulpy mass. Before the blow-pipe it fuses into a white blobby glass. It is found at Nutfield, near Reigate, in Surrey, and occurs in regular beds near the summit of a hill,between beds of sand or sandstone, containing fossil wood, cornua ammonis, &c. There are two distinct beds of fullers' earth; the upper has a greenish colour, is five feet in thickness, and rests upon the other, which has a bluish tint, and is eleven feet thick; in these beds, but especially in the latter, there are found considerable masses of sulphate of barytes, frequently in regular crystals. Fullers' earth is also found in Kent, Bedfordshire, Bath, Nottinghamshire, and Sussex. It is met with also in Styria, Saxony, and some other places. According to Dr. Thomson's analysis, this substance consists of

Dr. Thomson observes that, allowing the lime, magnesia, and protoxide of iron, to be in the state of silicates, and as mere accidental constituents, fullers' earth is a hydrous bisilicate of alumina, consisting of 2 equivalents of silica, 1 equivalent of alumina, and two equivalents of water.

FULLING. [WOOLLEN MANUFACTURES.] FULMINATING POWDERS. [DETONATION.] FULMINIC ACID. An acid which appears to be isomeric with cyanic acid [CYANIC ACID], that is, composed of the same elements in the same proportions, and they appear to have similar saturating powers. Fulminic acid is that which exists in the detonating mercury and silver discovered by Mr. Howard. These fulminates, as shown under the respective metals, are prepared by the simultaneous action of nitric acid and alcohol upon them in this operation the metals are oxidized, and such portions of the carbon, of the alcohol, and azote and oxygen of the decomposed nitric acid combine, as to form the fulminic acid, which may be regarded as composed of

FULTON, ROBERT, distinguished as having been the first to establish steam-navigation on the American seas and rivers, was born in 1765, in Little Britain, Pennsylvania. His parents were emigrants from Ireland. He received a common English education at a village school. Besides a fondness for mechanical pursuits, he early displayed a taste for drawing, and in his eighteenth year went to Philadelphia, and began to paint portraits and landscapes as a means of subsistence.

In November, 1786, he embarked for England, and on his arrival in London was received as an inmate in the house of West, the historical painter, with whom he continued to reside for some years, and who also gave him instructions in his profession.

After leaving West, painting was for some time his chief employment. But with Fulton the fine arts were destined to give place to the mechanical. He spent about two years in Devonshire, where he became acquainted with the Duke of Bridgewater, and projects for the improvement of canals then began to occupy the chief share of his attention. In 1794 he took out a patent for an inclined plane, which was intended to set aside the use of locks; he invented a machine to facilitate excavation, and wrote a work on canals, in which he first styled himself a civil engineer. He also invented a mill for sawing marble, and took out patents for spinning flax and making ropes.

He seems however to have had little success; and at the latter end of 1796 went to Paris, on the invitation of Joel Barlow, then resident minister from the United States, in whose house he resided during seven years. While at Paris two projects appear to have occupied a large portion of his time and attention; one, a carcass, or box filled with combustibles, which was to be propelled under water, and made to explode beneath the bottom of a vessel; the other, a submarine boat, to be used for a similar destructive purpose. The first was a failure; but of his submarine boat he made many trials and exhibitions, some of them at the expense of the French government, with occasional failures and partial success, on the Seine, at Hâvre, and at Rouen. But for all practical purposes this was as much a failure as the other. He appears however to have clung to it with great perseverance, and not long before his death exhibited its power by blowing up an old vessel in the neighbourhood of New York.

But while at Paris he had other and better pursuits. He made himself acquainted with the higher branches o. science, and with the modern European languages; he projected the first panorama exhibited at Paris, and in conjunction with Mr. R. Livingston, the American ambassador, began to make experiments on the Seine with small steamboats: a larger one was built, which broke asunder, but a second, completed in 1803, was successful.

Soon after this time he was invited to England by the English ministry, at the suggestion of Earl Stanhope, with whom Fulton had become acquainted about the time of his introduction to the Duke of Bridgewater. The object of the English ministry appears to have been to employ him in the construction of his submarine implements of war. After some trials on the Thames, the negotiation failed, and Fulton resolved to embark for America.

In 1806 Fulton arrived at New York, and soon after, with funds supplied by Mr. Livingston, commenced the construction of a steam-vessel of considerable size, which began to navigate the Hudson in 1807. He afterwards built others of large dimensions, one of them a frigate, which bore his name. His reputation became established, and his fortune was rapidly increasing, when his patent for steam-vessels, which he had taken out in conjunction with

Mr. Livingston, was disputed, and his opponents were, in a considerable degree, successful. His constitution had been impaired by his numerous labours, and a severe cold which he caught by incautious exposure in giving directions to his workmen, together with the anxiety and fretfulness occasioned by the law-suits about his patent rights, brought his life to a premature termination on the 24th of February, 1815, in his forty-ninth year. His death occasioned extraordinary demonstrations of national mourning in the United States.

In person he was tall, and though slender, well formed. He appears to have been an amiable, social, and liberal man. (Encyclopædia Americana; Dictionnaire de la Conversation.)

FUMARIA CEÆ, a small natural order of Exogenous plants, consisting of slender-stemmed, herbaceous plants, many of which scramble up others by aid of their twisting leafstalks. They are rather succulent in texture, with watery juice. Their leaves, which have no stipules, are repeatedly divided till the terminal lobes become small ovate leaflets; their flowers, which are extremely irregular, consist of two membranous, minute, ragged sepals, two exterior distinct linear petals, and two others, which hold firmly together at the points; there are six stamens united into two parcels, and the ovary is a one-celled case with one or many seeds, whose placentation is parietal; finally, the seeds consist principally of albumen, in which there ripens a very small embryo. Fumaria officinalis is one of the commonest of weeds; many are objects of cultivation by the gardener for the sake of their showy flowers; all are reputed diaphoretics. They only inhabit the cooler parts of the world, alike avoiding extremes of heat or cold. It is probable that notwithstanding the diversity of their appearance they are only a low irregular form of Papaveraceae.

1. the two sepals, stamens, and pistil; 2, a longitudinal section of the ovary; 3, a longitudinal section of a seed, showing the ovary: all more or less magnified.

FUMIGATION is the application of the vapour or fumes from metallic or other preparations to the body, with the intention of healing either generally, or particular parts. The vapours of hot vinegar, burning sulphur, and of aromatic vegetable matters, have been long used to counteract unpleasant or unwholesome smells: this is effected chiefly by the formation of such as are stronger. The most important kind of fumigation is that which consists in the employment of such vapours or gases as do not merely destroy unhealthy odours by exciting such as are more powerful, but which by their chemical action convert dangerous miasmata into innocuous matter.

The fumigation of the first kind, that which is intended to produce a healing effect, is now much less employed than formerly; still, however, the bisulphuret of mercury is occasionally used in vapour, as what is termed a mercurial fumigation, in certain forms of syphilis. The use of vinegar, of aromatic pastilles, and even the smoke of burning brown

paper, which constitute the second kind of fumigation, does not require any particular notice; their operation can hardly be regarded as any other than that of substituting one smell for another. In the last kind of fumigation three substances have been chiefly employed, and in the gaseous state: first, the vapour of burning sulphur, or sulphurous acid gas, muriatic acid gas, nitric acid gas, and chlorine gas; all but the last of these, or at any rate the first and second named, appear to have been first used and recom mended by Dr. James Johnstone of Worcester, about the year 1758; in 1773 Guyton de Morveau also mentioned the application of muriatic and nitric acid gases, and in 1802 their use was still further extended by Dr. J. C. Smith, who received a public remuneration as the discoverer, which he certainly was not.

Chlorine gas, which is undoubtedly preferable to any disinfectant, was first recommended by Dr. Rollo, who published a work on diabetes in 1797; he liberated the gas by the usual method of mixing sulphuric acid, binoxide of manganese, and common salt. When it is desirable to produce a great effect in a short time, this is still unquestionably the best mode of proceeding.

We shall give an abstract of the mode adopted by Mr. Faraday in fumigating the Penitentiary at Milbank in 1825. (Quarterly Journal, vol. xviii., p. 92.) The space requiring fumigation amounted to nearly 2,000,000 cubic feet; and the surface of the walls, floors, ceilings, &c., was about 1,200,000 square feet. This surface was principally stone and brick, most of which had been lime-washed. A quantity of salt reduced to powder was mixed with an equal weight of binoxide of manganese, and upon this mixture were poured two parts of sulphuric acid, previously diluted with one part of water, and cold. The acid and water were mixed in a wooden tub, the water being first put in, and it being more convenient to measure than to weigh the water and acid, ten measures of water and nine of acid were used; half the acid was first used, and when the mixture had cooled the remainder was added. Into common red earthen pans, each capable of holding about a gallon, were put 3 lbs. of the mixed salt and manganesc, and there was then added such a measure of the diluted acid as weighed 4 lbs.; the mixture was well stirred and then left to itself, and all apertures were well stopped. The action did not commence immediately, so that there was sufficient time for the operator to go from pan to pan without inconvenience. On entering a gallery 150 feet in length, a few minutes after the mixture had been made, the general diffusion of chlorine was sufficiently evident; in half an hour it was often almost impossible to enter, and frequently on looking along the gallery the yellow tint of the atmosphere could easily be perceived. Up to the fifth day the colour of the chlorine could generally be observed in the building; after the sixth day the pans were removed, though sometimes with difficulty, and the gallery thus fumigated had its windows and doors thrown open. The charge contained in each pan was estimated to yield about 5 cubic feet of chlorine gas; in fumigating a space of 2,000,000 cubic feet, about 700 lbs. of common salt and the same of binoxide of manganese were employed: and it will appear by a slight calculation, that about 1710 cubic feet of chlorine were employed to disinfect this space. In common cases, Mr. Faraday conceives that about onehalf to one-fourth of this quantity of chlorine would be sufficient.

When any cause is continually recurring, and in some cases almost imperceptibly so, the chloride of lime or soda, and especially of the former, has been within a few years successfully employed by M. Labarraque; the exact nature of these compounds is still under discussion, but the chloride of lime is a substance well known and extensively employed under the name of bleaching-powder.

We shall relate a few experiments performed by M. Gualtier de Claubry, illustrative of the mode in which these substances produce their effects. A solution of chloride of lime exposed to the air for about two months, ceased to act upon litmus, contained no chlorine, but a precipitate was formed in it which consisted entirely of carbonate of lime, without any admixture of chlorine; it was therefore evident that the carbonic acid of the atmosphere had decomposed the chloride of lime, evolved the chlorine, and precipitated the lime. That this was the case was proved by passing atmospheric air through a solution of potash, before it was made to traverse one of chloride of lime; in this case the