[1] The heights given by explorers vary from 9200 to 10,800 ft.
[2] Some authorities maintain that another Portuguese seaman, Lopes Gonsalves, was the discoverer of the island. The years 1469, 1471 and 1486 are variously given as those of the date of the discovery.
FERNEL, JEAN FRANÇOIS (1497-1558), French physician, was born at Clermont in 1497, and after receiving his early education at his native town, entered the college of Sainte-Barbe, Paris. At first he devoted himself to mathematical and astronomical studies; his Cosmotheoria (1528) records a determination of a degree of the meridian, which he made by counting the revolutions of his carriage wheels on a journey between Paris and Amiens. But from 1534 he gave himself up entirely to medicine, in which he graduated in 1530. His extraordinary general erudition, and the skill and success with which he sought to revive the study of the old Greek physicians, gained him a great reputation, and ultimately the office of physician to the court. He practised with great success, and at his death in 1558 left behind him an immense fortune. He also wrote Monalosphaerium, sive astrolabii genus, generalis horarii structura et usus (1526); De proportionibus (1528); De evacuandi ratione (1545); De abditis rerum causis (1548); and Medicina ad Henricum II. (1554).
FERNIE, an important city in the east Kootenay district of British Columbia. Pop. about 4000. It is situated on the Crow’s Nest branch of the Canadian Pacific railway, at the junction of Coal Creek with the Elk river, and owes its importance to the extensive coal mines in its vicinity. There are about 500 coke ovens in operation at Fernie, which supply most of the smelting plants in southern British Columbia with fuel.
FERNOW, KARL LUDWIG (1763-1808), German art-critic and archaeologist, was born in Pomerania on the 19th of November 1763. His father was a servant in the household of the lord of Blumenhagen. At the age of twelve he became clerk to a notary, and was afterwards apprenticed to a druggist. While serving his time he had the misfortune accidentally to shoot a young man who came to visit him; and although through the intercession of his master he escaped prosecution, the untoward event weighed heavily on his mind, and led him at the close of his apprenticeship to quit his native place. He obtained a situation at Lübeck, where he had leisure to cultivate his natural taste for drawing and poetry. Having formed an acquaintance with the painter Carstens, whose influence was an important stimulus and help to him, he renounced his trade of druggist, and set up as a portrait-painter and drawing-master. At Ludwigslust he fell in love with a young girl, and followed her to Weimar; but failing in his suit, he went next to Jena. There he was introduced to Professor Reinhold, and in his house met the Danish poet Baggesen. The latter invited him to accompany him to Switzerland and Italy, a proposal which he eagerly accepted (1794) for the sake of the opportunity of furthering his studies in the fine arts. On Baggesen’s return to Denmark, Fernow, assisted by some of his friends, visited Rome and made some stay there. He now renewed his intercourse with Carstens, who had settled at Rome, and applied himself to the study of the history and theory of the fine arts and of the Italian language and literature. Making rapid progress, he was soon qualified to give a course of lectures on archaeology, which was attended by the principal artists then at Rome. Having married a Roman lady, he returned in 1802 to Germany, and was appointed in the following year professor extraordinary of Italian literature at Jena. In 1804 he accepted the post of librarian to Amelia, duchess-dowager of Weimar, which gave him the leisure he desired for the purpose of turning to account the literary and archaeological researches in which he had engaged at Rome. His most valuable work, the Römische Studien, appeared in 3 vols. (1806-1808). Among his other works are—Das Leben des Künstlers Carstens (1806), Ariosto’s Lebenslauf (1809), and Francesco Petrarca (1818). Fernow died at Weimar, December 4, 1808.
A memoir of his life by Johanna Schopenhauer, mother of the philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, appeared in 1810, and a complete edition of his works in 1829.