We may describe briefly the view to which we are led as to the genesis of an ordinary luminous hydrocarbon flame:—
The gaseous hydrocarbon issues from the burner or wick, let us suppose, in a cylindrical column. This column is not sharply marked off from the air but is so penetrated by it that we must suppose a gradual transition from the pure hydrocarbon in the centre of column to the pure air on the outside. Let us take a thin transverse slice of the flame, near the lower part of the wick or close to the burner tube. At what lateral distance from the centre will combustion begin? Clearly, where enough oxygen has penetrated the column to give such partial combustion as takes place in the inner cone of a Bunsen burner. This then defines the blue region. Outside this the combustion of the carbon monoxide, hydrogen and any hydrocarbons which pass from the blue region takes place in a faintly luminous fringe. These two layers form a sheath of active combustion, surrounding and intensely heating the enclosed hydrocarbons in the middle of the column. These heated hydrocarbons rise and are heated to a higher temperature as they ascend. They are accordingly decomposed with separation of carbon in the higher parts of the flame, giving the region of bright yellow luminosity. There remains a central core in which neither is there any oxygen for combustion nor a sufficiently high temperature to cause carbon separation. This constitutes the dark interior region of the flame. We thus account for the different parts of the flame. It is to be noted, however, that the bright blue layer only surrounds the lower part of the flame, whilst the pale, faintly-luminous fringe surrounds the whole flame. The flame also is conical and not cylindrical. The foregoing explanation is therefore not quite complete. Let us suppose that the changes have gone on in the small section of the flame exactly as described and consider how the processes will differ in parts above this section. The central core of unburned gases will pass upwards and we may treat it as a new cylindrical column which will undergo changes just as the original one, leaving, however, a smaller core of unburned gases, or, in other words, each succeeding section of the flame will be of smaller diameter. This gives us the conical form of the flame. Again, the higher we ascend the flame the greater proportionally is the amount of separated carbon, for we have not only the heat of laterally outlying combustion to effect decomposition, but also that of the lower parts of the flame. The lower part of a luminous flame accordingly contains less separated carbon than the upper. Where the hydrocarbon is largely decomposed before combustion we have no longer the conditions of the Bunsen flame, and so in the upper parts of a luminous flame the bright blue part fades away. The luminous fringe would, however, be continued, for the separated hydrogen has still to burn. In this way then we may reasonably account for the existence, position and relative sizes of the four regions of an ordinary luminous flame.
(A. S.)
FLAMEL, NICOLAS (c. 1330-1418), reputed French alchemist and scrivener to the university of Paris, was born in Paris or Pontoise about 1330, and died in Paris in 1418, bequeathing the bulk of his property to the church of Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie, where he was buried. During his life he contributed freely to charitable and religious purposes from the considerable wealth he amassed either by the practice of his craft, or, as some surmise without definite proof, by fortunate speculation or money lending, or, as legend has it, by alchemy. According to a document purporting to be written by himself in 1413 (printed in Waite’s Lives of the Alchemystical Philosophers, London, 1888), there fell into his hands in 1357, at the cost of two florins, a book on alchemy by Abraham the Jew, which taught in plain words the transmutation of metals. It did not, however, explain the materia prima, but merely figured or depicted it, and for more than 20 years Flamel strove in vain to find out the secret. Then, returning from a journey to Spain, he fell in with a Christian Jew, named Canches, who gave him the explanation, and after three more years’ work he succeeded in preparing the materia prima, thus being enabled in 1382 to transmute mercury into both silver and gold. But this fantastic story was disposed of by the facts, derived from parish records, set forth in Vilain’s Essai sur l’histoire de Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie, 1758, and his Histoire critique de Nicolas Flamel et de Pernelle sa femme, recueillie d’actes anciens qui justifient l’origine et la médiocrité de leur fortune contre les imputations des alchimistes, 1761.
A book on alchemy in the Paris Bibliothèque, Le Trésor de philosophie, professing to be written and illuminated by Flamel with his own hand, is of very doubtful authenticity, and other treatises bearing his name, such as the Sommaire philosophique de Nicolas Flamel, published in 1561 in a collection of alchemist treatises entitled Transformation métallique, are certainly spurious.
FLAMEN (from flare, “to blow up” the altar fire), a Roman sacrificial priest. The flamens were subject to the pontifex (q.v.) maximus, and were consecrated to the service of some particular deity. The highest in rank were the flamen Dialis, flamen Martialis and flamen Quirinalis, who were always selected from among the patricians. Their institution is generally ascribed to Numa. When the number of flamens was raised from three to fifteen, those already mentioned were entitled majores, in contradistinction to the other twelve, who were called minores, as connected with less important deities, and were chosen from the plebs. Towards the end of the republic the number of the lesser flamens seems to have diminished. The flamens were held to be elected for life, but they might be compelled to resign office for neglect of duty, or on the occurrence of some ill-omened event (such as the cap falling off the head) during the performance of their rites. The characteristic dress of the flamens in general was the apex, a white conical cap, the laena or mantle, and a laurel wreath. The official insignia of the flamen Dialis (of Jupiter), the highest of these priests, were the white cap (pileus, albogalerus), at the top of which was an olive branch and a woollen thread; the laena, a thick woollen toga praetexta woven by his wife; the sacrificial knife; and a rod to keep the people from him when on his way to offer sacrifice. He was never allowed to appear without these emblems of office, every day being considered a holy day for him. By virtue of his office he was entitled to a seat in the senate and a curule chair. The sight of fetters being forbidden him, his toga was not allowed to be tied in a knot but was fastened by means of clasps, and the only kind of ring permitted to be worn on his finger was a broken one. If a person in fetters took refuge in his house he was immediately loosed from his bonds; and if a criminal on his way to the scene of his punishment met him and threw himself at his feet he was respited for that day. The flamen Dialis was not allowed to leave the city for a single night, to ride or even touch a horse (a restriction which incapacitated him for the consulship), to swear an oath, to look at an army, to touch anything unclean, or to look upon people working. His marriage, which was obliged to be performed with the ceremonies of confarreatio (q.v.), was dissoluble only by death, and on the death of his wife (called flaminica Dialis) he was obliged to resign his office. The flaminica Dialis assisted her husband at the sacrifices and other religious duties which he performed. She wore long woollen robes; a veil and a kerchief for the head, her hair being plaited up with a purple band in a conical form (tutulus); and shoes made of the leather of sacrificed animals; like her husband, she carried the sacrificial knife. The main duty of the flamens was the offering of daily sacrifices; on the 1st of October the three major flamens drove to the Capitol and sacrificed to Fides Publica (the Honour of the People). Some of the municipal towns in Italy had flamens as well as Rome.
We may mention, as distinct from the above, the flamen curialis, who assisted the curio, the priest who attended to the religious affairs of each curia (q.v.); the flamens of various sacerdotal corporations, such as the Arval Brothers; the flamen Augustalis, who superintended the worship of the emperor in the provinces.
See Marquardt, Römische Staatsverwaltung, iii. (1885), pp. 326-336, 473; H. Dessau, in Ephemeris epigraphica, iii. (1877); and the exhaustive article by C. Jullian in Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquités.