FOMENTATION, in medicine, the bathing any part of the body with a convenient liquor; which is usually a decoction of herbs, water, wine, or milk; and the applying of bags stuffed with herbs and other ingredients, which is commonly called dry fomentation.

FONT, among ecclesiastical writers, a large bason, in which water is kept for the baptizing of infants, or other persons. It is so called, probably, because baptism was usually performed among the primitive Christians at springs or fountains. In process of time the font came to be used, being placed at the lower end of the church, to intimate, perhaps, that baptism is the rite of admission into the Christian Church. By the canons of the Church of England, every church is to have a font made of stone; because, according to Durandus, the water which typified baptism in the wilderness flowed from a rock ; or, rather, because Christ is in Scripture called the corner-stone, and the rock. FONT, or FOUNT, in printing, see Fount.

FOOD, in its largest sense, direct and metaphorical, whatever is taken for nourishment; in reference to the animal economy, whatever solid or liquid aliment is received into the stomach; and, in a more confined sense, solid aliment only. K

FOOL, according to Mr. Locke, is a person who makes false conclusions from right principles whereas a madman, on the contrary, draws right conclusions from wrong principles.

>Foor, a part of the body of most animals whereon they stand. Animals are distinguished, with respect to the number of their feet, into bipeds, two-footed; such are men and birds; quadrupeds,

four-footed; such are most land-animals: and multipedes, or many-footed, as insects. The reptilekind, as serpents, have no feet; the crab-kind of fish have ten feet; but most other fishes have no feet at all: the spider, mīte, and polypus have eight; flies, and grass-hoppers, have six feet. Animals destined to swim, and water-fowl, have their toes webbed together, as the goose and duck, &c. The fore-feet of the mole, rabbit, &c. are formed for digging and scratching up the earth, in order to make way for their head.

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 in number, of which some are sim ple, as consisting of two or three syllables, and are therefore called disyllabic or trisyllabic feet; others are compound, consisting of four syllables, and are therefore called tetrasyllabic feet.

FOOT is also a long measure, or measure of length, consisting of 12 inches.

Geometricians divide the foot into 10 digits, and the digit into 10 lines.

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 ail the three dimensions, length, breadth, and depth or thickness, containing 1728 cubic inches.

FORAGE, in the military art, denotes hay, oats, barley, wheat, grass, clover, &c. brought into the camp by the troopers, for the sustenance of their borses. Dry forage is the hay, oats, &c. delivered a out of the magazines, to an army in garrison, ori

when they take the field, before the green forage is sufficiently grown up to supply the troops. It is the business of the quarter-master-general to appoint the method of forage, and post proper guards for the security of the foragers.

FORCE, in mechanics, denotes the cause of the change in the state of a body, when being at rest it begins to move.

FORE-CASTLE of a ship, that part where the foremast stands. It is divided from the rest by a bulkhead.

FOREMAST of a ship, a large round piece of timber, placed in her fore-part, or fore-castle, and carfying the foresail and fore top-sail yards. Its fength is usually 8-9ths of the main-mast; and the fore-top gallant-mast is half the length of the foretop-mast. See MAST.

Foremast-men are those on board a ship that take in the top-sails, sling the yards, furl the sails, bowse, trice, and take their turn at the helm.

FOREST, in law, is defined to be a certain territory of woody grounds, and fruitful pastures, privileged for wild beasts and fowls of forest, chase, and warren, to rest and abide under the protection of the king, for his princely delight, bounded with unremoveable marks, and meres, either known by matter of record or prescription; replenished with wild beasts of venery, or chace, with great coverts of vert for the said beasts; and for preservation and continuance whereof, with the vert and venison, there are certain particular laws, privileges, and officers.

Forests, in England, are of so great antiquity, that, excepting the New-forest in Hampshire,

erected by William the Conqueror, and Hamptoncourt, erected by Henry VIII. it is said, that there is no record or history which makes any certain mention of their erection, though they are mentioned by several writers, and in divers of our laws and statutes.

There are sixty-nine forests in England, thirteen chaces, and eight hundred parks. The four principal forests are New-forest, Sherwood-forest, Deanforest, and Windsor forest.

A forest, strictly taken, cannot be in the hands of any but the king, for no other person but the king has power to grant a commission to be justice in eyre of the forest; yet, if he grants a forest to a subject, and that on request made in the chancery, that subject and his heirs shall have justices of the forest, in which case the subject has a forest in law.

FOREST towns, in geography, certain towns of Swabia, in Germany, lying along the Rhine, and the confines of Switzerland, and subject to the house of Austria. Their names are Rhinefield, Seckingen, Lauffenburg, and Waldshut.

FORE-STAFF, or CROSS-STAFF, an instrument used at sea for taking the altitude of the sun, moon, or stars. It is called fore-staff, because the observer, in using it, turns his face towards the object; whereas, in using Davis's quadrant, the back of the observer is towards the object; and hence its denomination of back-staff.

FORESTALLING, in law, buying or bargaining for any corn, cattle, victuals, or merchandize, in the way as they come to fairs or markets to be sold, be

fore they get thither, with an intent to sell the same again at a higher price.

.. FORESTER, a sworn officer of the forest, appointed by the king's letters-patent, to walk the forest at all hours, to watch over the vert and venison; also to make attachments and true presentments of all trespasses committed within the forest.

FORFEITURE, properly signifies the effect of transgressing some penal law, and extends to lands. or goods. Forfeiture differs from confiscation, in that the former is more general, while confiscation is particularly applied to such things as become forfeited to the king's exchequer; and goods confiscated, are said to be such as nobody claims,

FORFICULA, the earwig, a genus of insects of the order coleoptera, containing eighteen species, of which the forficula auricularia is very common in wet ground, ripe fruit, and old wood; and has been occasionally found to creep into the ears of such as sleep in the open-air; when it is easily de stroyed by dropping into the ear either a little oil or spirits, or both. The eggs are white and oval, and large for the size of the insect; they are found deposited in damp situations, and generally under stones. The parent is more provident of the young larvæ than insects generally are, brooding over them for several hours in the day, after the manner of birds.

FORGE, properly signifies a little furnace, wherein smiths and other artificers of iron or steel, &c. heat their metals red-hot, in order to soften and render them more malleable and manageable on the anvil. FORGE is also used for a large furnace, wherein