FORT WILLIAM, a police burgh of Inverness-shire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 2087. It lies at the north-eastern end of Loch Linnhe, an arm of the sea, about 62 m. S.S.W. of Inverness by road or canal, and was, in bygone days, one of the keys of the Highlands. It is 122½ m. N.E. of Glasgow by the West Highland railway. The fort, at first called Kilmallie, was built by General Monk in 1655 to hold the Cameron men in subjection, and was enlarged in 1690 by General Hugh Mackay, who renamed it after William III., the burgh then being known as Maryburgh in honour of his queen. Here the perpetrators of the massacre of Glencoe met to share their plunder. The Jacobites unsuccessfully besieged it in 1715 and 1746. The fort was dismantled in 1860, and demolished in 1890 to provide room for the railway and the station. Amongst the public buildings are the Belford hospital, public hall, court house and the low-level meteorological observatory, constructed in 1891, which was in connexion with the observatory on the top of Ben Nevis, until the latter was closed in 1904. Its great industry is distilling, and the distilleries, about 2 m. N.E., are a familiar feature in the landscape. Beyond the railway station stands the obelisk to the memory of Ewen Maclachlan (1775-1822), the Gaelic poet, who was born in the parish. Fort William is a popular tourist resort and place of call for the steamers passing through the Caledonian canal. The town is the point from which the ascent of Ben Nevis—4½ m. E.S.E. as the crow flies—is commonly made. At Corpach, about 2 m. N., the Caledonian canal begins, the series of locks between here and Banavie—within little more than a mile—being known as “Neptune’s Staircase.” Both the Lochy and the Nevis enter Loch Linnhe immediately to the north of Fort William. A mile and a half from the town, on the Lochy, stands the grand old ruin of Inverlochy Castle, a massive quadrangular pile with a round tower at each corner, a favourite subject with landscape painters. Close by is the scene of the battle of the 2nd of February 1645, in which Montrose completely defeated the earl of Argyll. The modern castle, in the Scottish Baronial style, 1½ m. to the N.E. of this stronghold and farther from the river, is the seat of Lord Abinger.
FORT WORTH, a city and the county-seat of Tarrant county, Texas, U.S.A., about 30 m. W. of Dallas, on the S. bank of the West Fork of the Trinity river. Pop. (1880) 6663; (1890) 23,076; (1900) 26,688, of whom 1793 were foreign-born and 4249 were negroes; (1910, census) 73,312. It is served by the Chicago, Rock Island & Gulf, the Fort Worth & Denver City, the Fort Worth & Rio Grande, and the St Louis, San Francisco & Texas of the “Frisco” system, the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fé, the Houston & Texas Central, the International & Great Northern, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, the St Louis South-Western, the Texas & Pacific, and the Trinity & Brazos Valley (Colorado & Southern) railways. Fort Worth is beautifully situated on a level space above the river. It is the seat of Fort Worth University (coeducational), a Methodist Episcopal institution, which was established as the Texas Wesleyan College in 1881, received its present name in 1889, comprises an academy, a college of liberal arts and sciences, a conservatory of music, a law school, a medical school, a school of commerce, and a department of oratory and elocution, and in 1907 had 802 students; the Polytechnic College (coeducational; Methodist Episcopal, South), which was established in 1890, has preparatory, collegiate, normal, commercial, and fine arts departments and a summer school, and in 1906 had 12 instructors and (altogether) 696 students; the Texas masonic manual training school; a kindergarten training school; St Andrews school (Protestant Episcopal), and St Ignatius Academy (Roman Catholic). There are several good business, municipal and county buildings, and a Carnegie library. On the 3rd of April 1909 a fire destroyed ten blocks in the centre of the city. Fort Worth lies in the midst of a stock-raising and fertile agricultural region; there is an important stockyard and packing establishment just outside the city; and considerable quantities of cotton are raised in the vicinity. Among the products are packed meats, flour, beer, trunks, crackers, candy, paint, ice, paste, cigars, clothing, shoes, mattresses, woven wire beds, furniture and overalls; and there are foundries, iron rolling mills and tanneries. In 1905 the total value of the city’s factory product was $5,668,391, an increase of 62.5% since 1900; Fort Worth in 1900 ranked fifth among the cities of the state in the value of its factory product; in 1905 it ranked fourth. Fort Worth’s numerous railways have given it great importance as a commercial centre. The municipality owns and operates the waterworks and the electric-lighting plant.
A military post was established here in 1849, being called first Camp Worth and then Fort Worth. It was abandoned in 1853. A settlement grew up about the fort, and the city was incorporated in 1873. The fort and the settlement were named in honour of General William Jenkins Worth (1794-1849), a native of Hudson, New York, who served in the War of 1812, commanded the United States forces against the Seminole Indians in 1841-1842, served under both General Taylor and General Scott in the Mexican War, distinguishing himself at Monterey (where he earned the brevet of major-general) and in other engagements, and later commanded the department of Texas. In 1907 Fort Worth adopted a commission form of government.
FORTY, the cardinal number equal to four tens. The word is derived from the O. Eng. feówertig, a combination of feówer, four, and tig, an old form of “ten,” used as a suffix, cf. Icel. tiu, Dan. ti, ten, and Ger. vierzig, forty. The name “The Forty” has been given to various bodies composed of that number of members, particularly to a judicial body in ancient Athens, who tried small cases in the rural districts, and to a court of criminal jurisdiction and two civil appeal courts in the Venetian republic. The French Academy (see [Academies]) has also been known as “The Forty” or “The Forty Immortals.” The period just before the repeal of the corn laws in the United Kingdom is frequently alluded to, particularly by the free trade school, as the “hungry forties”; and the “roaring forties” is a sailor’s name for the stormy region between the 40th and 50th latitudes N. and S., but more particularly applied to the portion of the north Atlantic lying between those latitudes.
FORUM (Lat. from foris, “out of doors”), in Roman antiquity, any open place used, like the Greek ἀγορά, for the transaction of mercantile, judicial or political business, sometimes merely as a promenade. It was level, rectangular in form, surrounded by porticoes, basilicas, courts of law and other public buildings. In the laws of the Twelve Tables the word is used of the vestibule of a tomb (Cicero, De legibus, ii. 24); in a Roman camp the forum was an open place immediately beside the praetorium; and the term was no doubt originally applied generally to the space in front of any public building or gateway. In Rome (q.v.) itself, however, during the period of the early history, forum was almost a proper name, denoting the flat and formerly marshy space between the Palatine and Capitoline hills (also called Forum Romanum), which probably even during the regal period afforded the accommodation necessary for such public meetings as could not be held within the area Capitolina. In early times the Forum Romanum was used for athletic games, and over the porticoes were galleries for spectators; there were also shops of various kinds. But with the growth of the city and the increase of provincial business, more than one forum became necessary, and under the empire a considerable number of civilia (judicial) and venalia (mercantile) fora came into existence. In addition to the Forum Romanum, the Fora of Caesar and Augustus belonged to the former class; the Forum boarium (cattle), holitorium (vegetable), piscarium (fish), pistorium (bread), vinarium (wine), to the latter. The Fora of Nerva (also called transitorium or pervium, because a main road led through it to the Forum Romanum), Trajan, and Vespasian, although partly intended to facilitate the course of public business, were chiefly erected to embellish the city. The construction of separate markets was not, however, necessarily the rule in the provincial fora; thus, in Pompeii, at the north-east end of the forum, there was a macellum (market), and shops for provisions and possibly money changers, and on the east side a building supposed to have been the clothworkers’ exchange, and at Timgad in North Africa (a military colony founded under Trajan) the whole of the south side of the forum was occupied by shops. The forum was usually paved, and although on festal occasions chariots were probably driven through, it was not a thoroughfare and was enclosed by gates at the entrances, of which traces have been found at Pompeii. When the sites for new towns were being selected, that for the forum was in the centre, and the two main streets crossed one another close to but not through it. At Timgad the main streets are some 5 or 6 ft. lower than the forum. The word forum frequently appears in the names of Roman market towns; as, for example, in Forum Appii, Forum Julii (Fréjus), Forum Livii (Forli), Forum Sempronii (Fossombrone). These fora were distinguished from mere vici by the possession of a municipal organization, which, however, was less complete than that of a prefecture. In legal phraseology, which distinguishes the forum commune from the forum privilegiatum, and the forum generale from the forum speciale, the word is practically equivalent to “court” or “jurisdiction.”
For the fora at Rome, see [Rome]: Archaeology, and works quoted.