FAYRER, SIR JOSEPH, Bart. (1824-1907), English physician, was born at Plymouth on the 6th of December 1824. After studying medicine at Charing Cross hospital, London, he was in 1847 appointed medical officer of H.M.S. “Victory,” and soon afterwards accompanied the 3rd Lord Mount-Edgcumbe on a tour through Europe, in the course of which he saw fighting at Palmero and Rome. Appointed an assistant surgeon in Bengal in 1850, he went through the Burmese campaign of 1852 and was political assistant and Residency surgeon at Lucknow during the Mutiny. From 1859 to 1872 he was professor of surgery at the Medical College of Calcutta, and when the prince of Wales made his tour in India he was appointed to accompany him as physician. Returning from India, he acted as president of the Medical Board of the India office from 1874 to 1895, and in 1896 he was created a baronet. Sir Joseph Fayrer, who became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1877, wrote much on subjects connected with the practice of medicine in India, and was especially known for his studies on the poisonous snakes of that country and on the physiological effects produced by their virus (Thanatophidia of India, 1872). In 1900 appeared his Recollections of my Life. He died at Falmouth on the 21st of May 1907.
FAYUM, a mudiria (province) of Upper Egypt, having an area of 490 sq. m. and a population (1907) of 441,583. The capital, Medinet-el-Fayum, is 81 m. S.S.W. of Cairo by rail. The Fayum proper is an oasis in the Libyan Desert, its eastern border being about 15 m. west of the Nile. It is connected with that river by the Bahr Yusuf, which reaches the oasis through a gap in the hills separating the province from the Nile Valley. South-west of the Fayum, and forming part of the mudiria, is the Gharak depression. Another depression, entirely barren, the Wadi Rayan, covering 280 sq. m., lies west of the Gharak. The whole region is below sea-level, and save for the gap mentioned is encircled by the Libyan hills. The lowest part of the province, the north-west end, is occupied by the Birket el Kerun, or Lake of the Horns, whose surface level is 140 ft. below that of the sea. The lake covers about 78 sq. m.
Differing from the typical oasis, whose fertility depends on water obtained from springs, the cultivated land in the Fayum is formed of Nile mud brought down by the Bahr Yusuf. From this channel, 15 m. in length from Lahun, at the entrance of the gap in the hills, to Medina, several canals branch off and by these the province is irrigated, the drainage water flowing into the Birket el Kerun. Over 400 sq. m. of the Fayum is cultivated, the chief crops being cereals and cotton. The completion of the Assuan dam by ensuring a fuller supply of water enabled 20,000 acres of land, previously unirrigated and untaxed, to be brought under cultivation in the three years 1903-1905. Three crops are obtained in twenty months. The province is noted for its figs and grapes, the figs being of exceptionally good quality. Olives are also cultivated. Rose trees are very numerous and most of the attar of roses of Egypt is manufactured in the province. The Fayum also possesses an excellent breed of sheep. Lake Kerun abounds in fish, notably the bulti (Nile carp), of which considerable quantities are sent to Cairo.
Medinet el-Fayum (or Medina), the capital of the province, is a great agricultural centre, with a population which increased from 26,000 in 1882 to 37,320 in 1907, and has several large bazaars, mosques, baths and a much-frequented weekly market. The Bahr Yusuf runs through the town, its banks lined with houses. There are two bridges over the stream: one of three arches, which carries the main street and bazaar, and one of two arches over which is built the Kait Bey mosque. Mounds north of the town mark the site of Arsinoë, earlier Crocodilopolis, where was worshipped the sacred crocodile kept in the Lake of Moeris. Besides Medina there are several other towns in the province, among them Senuris and Tomia to the north of Medina and Senaru and Abuksa on the road to the lake, all served by railways. There are also, especially in the neighbourhood of the lake, many ruins of ancient villages and cities. The Fayum is the site of the Lake of Moeris (q.v.) of the ancient Egyptians—a lake of which Birket el Kerun is the shrunken remnant.
See The Fayum and Lake Moeris, by Major (Sir) R.H. Brown, R.E. (London, 1892), a valuable contribution as to the condition of the province at that date, its connexion with Lake Moeris and its possibilities in the future; The Assuân Reservoir and Lake Moeris (London, 1904), by Sir William Willcocks—with text in English, French and Arabic—a consideration of irrigation possibilities; The Topography and Geology of the Fayum Province of Egypt, by H.J.L. Beadnell (Cairo, 1905).
FAZOGLI, or Fazokl, a district of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, cut by 11° N. and bounded E. and S. by Abyssinia. It forms part of the foot-hills of the Abyssinian plateau and is traversed by the Blue Nile and its affluent the Tumat. Immediately south is the auriferous Beni Shangul country. The chief gold-washings lie (in Abyssinian territory) on the west slope of the hills draining to the White Nile. Here is the steep Jebel-Dul, which appears to contain rich gold-bearing reefs, as gold is found in all the ravines on its flanks. The auriferous region extends into Sudanese territory, gold dust being found in all the khors coming from Jebel Faronge on the S.E. frontier. The inhabitants of Fazogli, who are governed, under the Sudan administration, by their own meks or kings, are Berta and other Shangalla tribes with an admixture of Funj blood, the country having been conquered by the Funj rulers of Sennar at the close of the 15th century. There are also Arab settlements. Fazogli, the residence of the principal mek, is a straggling town built some 800 yds. from the left bank of the Blue Nile near the Tumat confluence, 434 m. by river above Khartum and opposite Famaka, the headquarters of the Egyptians in this region between 1839 and 1883. Above Famaka and near the Abyssinian frontier is the prosperous town of Kiri, while Abu Shaneina on the Nile below Fazogli is the spot where the trade route from Beni Shangul strikes the river. The chief imports from Abyssinia are coffee, cattle, transport animals and gold. Durra and tobacco are the principal crops. The local currency includes rings of gold, specially made as a circulating medium.
FEA, CARLO (1753-1836), Italian archaeologist, was born at Pigna in Piedmont on the 2nd of February 1753, and studied law in Rome. He received the degree of doctor of laws from the university of La Sapienza, but archaeology gradually absorbed his attention, and with the view of obtaining better opportunities for his researches in 1798 he took orders. For political reasons he was obliged to take refuge in Florence; on his return in 1799 he was imprisoned by the Neapolitans, at that time in occupation of Rome, as a Jacobin, but shortly afterwards liberated and appointed Commissario delle Antichità and librarian to Prince Chigi. He died at Rome on the 18th of March 1836.