Falie´ro, Marino, Doge of Venice, born in 1274, commanded the troops of the republic at the siege of Zara in Dalmatia, where he gained a brilliant victory over the King of Hungary. He succeeded Andrea Dandolo, 11th Oct., 1354, was accused of the design of overthrowing the republic and making himself sovereign of the state, and beheaded 17th April, 1355. The last scenes of his life are depicted in Byron's tragedy of Marino Faliero.
Fal´kirk, a parliamentary burgh of Scotland, in Stirlingshire, 21½ miles west by north of Edinburgh. The older portion of it is old-fashioned and irregularly built. There are several modern suburbs. In the town or its vicinity are the Carron Ironworks, the Falkirk Foundry, and others works, collieries, chemical-works, and distilleries. Falkirk is connected with the port of Grangemouth by a railway 3 miles long. The Trysts of Falkirk, held on Stenhousemuir, 3 miles to the N.N.W., are the largest cattle-fairs in Scotland. Falkirk is an old town, with many historical associations. In the neighbourhood was fought the battle of Falkirk in 1298 between Sir William Wallace and Edward I, the Scots, who were much inferior in numbers, being defeated. About 1 mile south-west from the town the Highlanders under Prince Charles defeated the Royal forces under General Hawley, 17th Jan., 1746. Stirling and Falkirk Burghs return one member to the House of Commons. Pop. of Falkirk, 33,312.
Falkland (fa¨k´land), Lucius Gary, Viscount, an English man of letters, born about 1610. His father being then Lord-Deputy of Ireland, he was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. After passing a short time abroad, he devoted
himself to a life of retirement and literary studies, chiefly residing at his seat at Burford, near Oxford, which he made a kind of academy for the learned men of the neighbouring universities. In 1639 he joined the expedition against Scotland; and in 1640, his peerage being Scottish, he was chosen member of the House of Commons for Newport, in the Isle of Wight. In the first instance he warmly supported the Parliament, but doubts of the ultimate objects of the parliamentary leaders caused him to modify his attitude; and in 1642 he accepted from Charles I the office of Secretary of State. When hostilities began, he embraced decidedly the cause of the king, though he desired peace rather than victory. He was slain at the battle of Newbury, 20th Sept., 1643. He left behind him a work entitled A Discourse on the Infallibility of the Church of Rome, several pamphlets and published speeches, and a few poems, but nothing that explains the universal praises bestowed on him by contemporaries.
Falkland (fa¨k´land), an ancient royal burgh of Scotland, county of Fife, 21 miles north of Edinburgh. It was once the residence of the Scottish kings, and possesses remains of an ancient palace and some curious old houses. There was formerly a castle here, in which David, eldest son of Robert III, was starved to death by order of his uncle the Duke of Albany, but no trace of it now remains. Falkland Palace was garrisoned by Rob Roy in 1715. Pop. 781.
Falkland Islands, an island group belonging to Great Britain, in the South Atlantic Ocean, about 300 miles east of the Straits of Magellan. They consist of two larger islands, East Falkland and West Falkland, containing respectively about 3000 and 2300 sq. miles, with a great number of smaller ones surrounding them; total area, 6500 sq. miles. They are hilly and boggy, entirely destitute of trees, but covered with a variety of grasses very nutritive for the sheep and cattle the rearing of which is the principal industry. Fish and sea-fowl abound. Wool, frozen meat, hides, and tallow are the chief exports; value in some years £600,000. The climate is equable and very healthy. The Falkland Islands were discovered by Davis on the 14th Aug., 1592. In 1710 a French vessel from St. Malo touched at them, and named them Îles Malouines. Settlements were afterwards formed on them by the French, Spaniards, and British alternately, but the British have ultimately retained possession of them. They now form a Crown colony which has a Governor and other officers appointed by the Government. Port Stanley, in East Falkland, is a thriving settlement, and has now a wireless station. During the European War the Germans suffered a naval defeat off the Falkland Islands in Dec., 1914. Pop. of the group, 3275.
Fal´lacy (Lat. fallax, apt to mislead), in logic, is when an argument is used as decisive of a particular issue, which in reality it does not decide. Properly a fallacy is a fault in the form of reasoning (see Logic), but the term is applied also to faults in the substance of the argument such as the petitio principii, or proving one proposition by assuming another which is identical with it; ignoratio elenchi, or mistaking the point at issue; post hoc ergo propter hoc, or arguing as if sequence were the same thing as cause and effect.
Fallières, Clément Armand, eighth President of the French Republic, born at Mézin, department of Lot-et-Garonne. The son of peasants, he studied law, was mayor of Nérac for some years, and in 1876 was elected to the Chamber of Deputies. Under-Secretary of State in the Ministry of the Interior in 1880, he became Minister of the Interior in 1882, Minister of Public Instruction from 1883 to 1885, and subsequently Minister of Justice and Public Instruction. He entered the Senate in 1890. In 1899 he became President of the Senate, and on 16th Jan., 1906, was elected President of the Republic. During his tenure of office Fallières displayed decided democratic principles and a tendency towards the Left. It was due to his initiative that a Ministry of Labour was formed in 1909. His term of office ended in Jan., 1913. Fallières was one of France's most democratic Presidents.
Fall of Bodies. All bodies on the earth, by virtue of the attraction of gravitation, tend to the centre of the earth. A ball held in the hand presses downward; if dropped, it descends vertically; if placed on an inclined plane, it rolls down, in doing which it presses the plane with a part of its weight. In the air bodies fall with unequal velocities, a piece of paper, for instance, more slowly than a ball of lead; and it was formerly thought that the velocity of the fall of bodies was in proportion to their weight. This error was attacked by Galileo, who, experimenting with balls of different substances which he dropped from the tower of Pisa, was led to the conclusion that the resistance of the air acting on different extents of surface was the cause of the unequal velocities, and that in a vacuum all bodies would fall with the same velocity. The truth of this last proposition was first demonstrated by Newton in his celebrated 'guinea-and-feather' experiment, where a guinea and feather are shown to fall side by side in the vacuum of the air-pump. This experiment proves that the force of gravitation in bodies is proportional to their inertia, that is, to their mass. The laws of falling bodies, that is of bodies falling freely in a straight line and through a distance short in comparison with that of the earth's centre, are the following: