ed. It is in this situation, that he eyes the birds on the hedges and trees. The birds have such an antipathy against him, that they no sooner perceive him, than they send forth shrill cries to warn their neighbors of the cnemy's approach. The jays and blackbirds, in particular, follow the fox from tree to tree, sometimes two or three hundred paces, often repeating the watch-cries.... Smellie.

FRANCE, a large and powerful empire of Europe; extending nearly seven hundred miles in length, and about six hundred and fifty in breadth; bounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the English Channel, the German Ocean, Holland, Germany, Swisserland, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Pyrenean Mountains. The air is wholesome, the soil is diversified and productive, the mineral productions are various, and the situation of the country is favorable to commerce. This country had been a province of the Romans, and was anciently called Gaul. In the year 486, Clovis, having defeated the Roman governor, begun the French monarchy, establishing a new kingdom, to which he gave the name of France, or the land of free men. In the year 751, Pepin assumed the sovereignty, excluding for ever the heirs of Clovis. One of the descendants of Pepin, namely, Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, at the beginning of the ninth century, possessed all France, all Germany, part of Hungary, part of Spain, the Low Countries, and most of Italy. In the year 987, Hugh Capet, the most powerful nobleman in France, seized the crown, and expelled the race of Pepin. Thirtythree descendants of Hugh Capet reigned, in succession, over France, during the period of eight hundred years, nearly; the last of this race being the unfortunate Louis XVI. who was beheaded, January 23, 1793. The torrents of blood, shed in the revolution in France, commenced with the taking of the Bastile, July 14, 1789. The French, in the incipient stage of the revolution, shook off at once all civil, moral, and religious restraints. The authority even of the Most High they openly disclaimed. It is asserted by Faber, that atheism was established in France for three years and a half, to wit, from September, 1792, to March, 1796; during all

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which time it would submit one to scorn, if not to death as a fanatic, merely to mention, with any degree of reverence, the name of God! After the revolutionary government of France, for the space of 13 years, had passed in rapid succession through a variety of forms, Napoleon Bonaparte, a general of its armies, forcibly made himself First Consul for life, August 2, 1802: and, on the 3d of December, 1804, he was crowned emperor of France, by his Holiness the Pope, by the name of Napoleon I. Napoleon Bonaparte, the wonder and the, Scourge of the world, was born at Calvi, in the island of Corsica, August 15, 1769 By his second wife, daughter to the sovereign of Austria, he has a son.

His eldest brother is Lucien; his second brother is Joseph; his third brother is Luis; and his youngest is Jerome. The deeds of Napoleon Bonaparte are recorded to everlasting ages by the Angel of Death.

ner.

FRANCE, ISLE of, an island in the Indian Ocean, one hundred and fifty miles in circumference. It is owned by the French; and lies 400 miles east of the island of Madagascar; whence they bring their slaves to the Isle of France, and have to the number of twelve thousand. These black slaves, says St. Pierre, cultivate the soil, do all the drudgery, and are treated in the most cruel manIn desperation, they often hang or drown themselves. More frequently they fly to the woods, where they are hunted and shot, like beasts, by parties of pleasure, formed for the purpose. According to Dr. Morse, the wretched slaves torn from Madagascar by the French, toil, almost naked, with an iron collar fastened round the neck, from which rise plates of iron forming a mask and head-piece; before the mouth is a round plate of iron, in which are small holes to emit the breath; there is a place for the nose; a flat piece of iron passes through the mouth, as a bit in a horse's mouth. The skin is soon worn from the mouth, nose, face and chin. This island has fallen under the dominion of Great Britain.

FRANKLINEA ALLATAHAMA, a flowering tree, of the first order for beauty and fragrance of blossoms; growing in some parts of Georgia and the east borders

136 FRESHET....FRIGID ZONES....FRISLAND.

of Florida. This tree grows fifteen or twenty feet high, branching in every direction. The flowers are very large, expand themselves perfectly, are of a snow-white colour, and ornamented with a crown or tassel of gold coloured glittering stamina in their centre. These large flowers stand single in the bosom of the leaves, which being near together towards the extremities of the twigs make a gay appearance....Bartram.

FRESHET, the raising of the waters in streams and rivers, most commonly in the spring, by the melting of the snow towards their sources and along their banks. If the snow in the woods and mountains be dissolved gradually, as it always is when not accelerated by a heavy rain, no damage is done by tharising of the water; but if the dissolution of the snow be sudden, the effects are often calamitous. Some of the rivers of New-England are remarkable for high and sudden freshets. Saco river, which has its source in the state of New-Hampshire, has risen twenty-five feet in a great freshet; its common rise is ten feet. Pemigewasset, another river of New-Hampshire, has also been known to rise twenty-five feet. Connecticut river in a common freshet, is ten feet higher than its usual summer level; its greatest elevation does not exceed twenty feet.... Winterbotham.

FRIGID ZONES, those regions round the poles where the sun does not rise for some days in the winter, nor set for some days in the summer; extending from each pole to twenty-three degrees and twenty-eight minutes. Nothing can be more mournful or hideous than the picture, which travellers present of these wretched regions. The ground, which is rocky and barren, rears itself, in every place, into lofty mountains and inaccessible cliffs, and meets the mariner's eye at even forty leagues from shore. These precipices, frightful, in themselves, receive an additional horror from being constantly covered with ice and snow, which daily seem to accumulate, and to fill all the vallies with increasing desolation.... Goldsmith.

FRISLAND, formerly a very large island (in the Atlantic Ocean) which is supposed to have been sunk by

FROST....FUNERAL-PILE.

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an earthquake. Frisland was seen by Martin Frobisher in each of his three voyages to and from Greenland in the years 1576, 1577, and 1578. Frobisher describes it to have been as large as England, the southernmost part of it lying about 60 degrees north latitude, and as being more west than any other land in Europe; and inhabited by people who resembled the Greenlanders. This great tract of country has long since disappeared. In a map prefixed to Crantz's history of Greenland, there is marked a very extensive shoal between the latitudes of 59° and 60°, called "the sunken lands of Buss." Its longitude is between Iceland and Greenland, and Crantz speaks of it in these words. "Some are of opinion that "Frisland was sunk by an earthquake; and that it was "situate in those parts where the sunken land of Buss "is marked in the maps; which the seamen cautiously "avoid, because of the shallow ground and turbulent " waves."....Belknap.

FROST, that state of the air whereby fluids are converted into ice. It has been thought by many that frosts meliorate the ground, and that they are in general salubrious to mankind. In respect to the former, it is now well known that ice or snow contains no nitrous particles, and though frost, by enlarging the bulk of moist clay, leaves it softer for a time after the thaw, yet as soon as the water exhales, the clay becomes as hard as before, being pressed together by the incumbent atmosphere, and by its attraction, called setting by the potters. Add to this, that on the coasts of Africa, where frost is unknown, the fertility of the soil is almost beyond our conceptions of it....Darwin.

FUNERAL-PILE, a pile of combustible materials, erected among the East-Indians for the purpose of burning their dead. The inhuman custom of women burning themselves to death on the corpses of their husbands is not yet annihilated in India; but it is confined to the cast of the Bramins. When an individual of this cast. dies, one of his wives is bound, (not by law, but by custom) to exhibit this dreadful proof of her affection. This horrible sacrifice, as exhibited at Bengal, is as follows. The funeral pile of the husband is erected near

a wall, with just space enough between for a single person to pass, that the widow may walk, as is the custom, three times round it. A hole is made in the wall at the height of the pile, in which a beam, of more than twenty feet in length, is placed, with a rope fastened to the end of it, and hanging to the ground, for the purpose of making it move backwards and forwards. When the widow has performed her ambulations, and taken off her jewels, which she distributes among her companions, she ascends the pile, and lies down, embracing the corpse of her husband. The beam is then put in motion, and falls upon her so heavily as to break her loins, or deprive her at least of the power of moving. The pile is now set on fire, and the music striking up, contributes, with the shouts of the people, to drown the noise of her groans and she is thus in the full sense of the expression burnt alive.... Grandpre.

FUR, the fine, soft, close hair of certain kinds of animals. It is a remarkable ordination of Providence, that warm coats of fur are given only to the animals of the coldest regions. Furs are to be obtained only in the northern regions of Europe, Asia, and America. From Siberia the Russians have long been wont to send, by annual caravans, to Kiatcha on the confines of China, vast quantities of furs, which the Chinese there purchase from them at enormous prices, Canada and Hudson's Bay furnish the merchants of Britain also with great quantities of furs, which they partly sell in Europe, and partly in China. The quantity of furs which can be procured, is always, however, exceedingly unequal to the demand for them. A fur-dress is not favorable to health; its alkaline and oily particles stimulate the skin, when in contact with it, thus partially increase prespiration, and lay the foundation of colds and catarrhs. A fur-dress readily attracts infection, and soon acquires an intolerable smell. The plague itself is said to be spread among the Turks chiefly by their absurd and cumbersome dresses lined with animal hair....Perouse, Domestic Encyclopædia.