THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA

A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE AND GENERAL INFORMATION

ELEVENTH EDITION

VOLUME X SLICE IV
Finland to Fleury, André

Articles in This Slice

FINLAND (Finnish, Suomi or Suomenmaa), a grand-duchy governed subject to its own constitution by the emperor of Russia as grand-duke of Finland. It is situated between the gulfs of Bothnia and Finland, and includes, moreover, a large territory in Lapland. It touches at its south-eastern extremity the government of St Petersburg, includes the northern half of Lake Ladoga, and is separated from the Russian governments of Arkhangelsk and Olonets by a sinuous line which follows, roughly speaking, the water-parting between the rivers flowing into the Baltic Sea and the White Sea. In the north of the Gulf of Bothnia it is separated from Sweden and Norway by a broken line which takes the course of the valley of the Torneå river up to its sources, thus falling only 21 m. short of reaching the head of Norwegian Lyngen-fjord; then it runs south-east and north-east down the Tana and Pasis-joki, but does not reach the Arctic Ocean, and 13 m. from the Varanger-fjord it turns southwards. Finland includes in the south-west the Åland archipelago—its frontier approaching within 8 m. from the Swedish coast—as well as the islands of the Gulf of Finland, Hogland, Tytärs, &c. Its utmost limits are: 59° 48′—70° 6′ N., and 19° 2′—32° 50′ E. The area of Finland, in square miles, is as follows (Altas de Finlande, 1899):—

Orography.—A line drawn from the head of the Gulf of Bothnia to the eastern coast of Lake Ladoga divides Finland into two distinct parts, the lake region and the nearly uninhabited hilly tracts belonging to the Kjölen mountains, to the plateau of the Kola peninsula, and to the slopes of the plateau which separates Finland proper from the White Sea. At the head-waters of the Torneå, Finland penetrates as a narrow strip into the heart of the highlands of Kjölen (the Keel), where the Haldefjäll (Lappish, Halditjokko) reaches 4115 ft. above the sea, and is surrounded by other fjälls, or flat-topped summits, of from 3300 to 3750 ft. of altitude. Extensive plateaus (1500-1750 ft.), into which Lake Enare, or Inari, and the valleys of its tributaries are deeply sunk, and which take the character of a mountain region in the Saariselkä (highest summit, 2360 ft.), occupy the remainder of Lapland. Along the eastern border the dreary plateaus of Olonets reach on Finnish territory altitudes of from 700 to 1000 ft. Quite different is the character of the pentagonal space comprised between the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland, Lake Ladoga, and the above-mentioned line traced through the lakes Uleå and Piellis. The meridional ridges which formerly used to be traced here along the main water-partings do not exist in reality, and the country appears on the hypsometrical map in the Atlas de Finlande as a plateau of 350 ft. of average altitude, covered with countless lakes, lying at altitudes of from 250 to 300 ft. The three main lake-basins of Näsi-järvi, Päjäne and Saima are separated by low and flat hills only; but one sees distinctly appearing on the map a line of flat elevations running south-west to north-east along the north-west border of the lake regions from Lauhanvuori to Kajana, and reaching from 650 to 825 ft. of altitude. A regular gentle slope leads from these hills to the Gulf of Bothnia (Osterbotten), forming vast prairie tracts in its lower parts.

A notable feature of Finland are the åsar or narrow ridges of morainic deposits, more or less reassorted on their surfaces. Some of them are relics of the longitudinal moraines of the ice-sheet, and they run north-west to south-east, parallel to the striation of the rocks and to the countless parallel troughs excavated by the ice in the hard rocks in the same direction; while the Lojo ås, which runs from Hangöudd to Vesi-järvi, and is continued farther east under the name of Salpauselliä, parallel to the shore of the Gulf of Finland, are remainders of the frontal moraines, formed at a period when the ice-sheet remained for some time stationary during its retreat. As a rule these forest-clothed åsar rise from 30 to 60 and occasionally 120 ft. above the level of the surrounding country, largely adding to the already great picturesqueness of the lake region; railways are traced in preference along them.

Lakes and Rivers.—A labyrinth of lakes, covering 11% of the aggregate territory, and connected by short and rapid streams (fjården), covers the surface of South Finland, offering great facilities for internal navigation, while the connecting streams supply an enormous amount of motive-power. The chief lakes are: Lake Ladoga, of which the northern half belongs to Finland; Saima (three and a half times larger than Lake Leman), whose outlet, the Vuoksen, flows into Lake Ladoga, forming the mighty Imatra rapids, while the lake itself is connected by means of a sluiced canal with the Gulf of Finland; the basins of Pyhä-selkä, Ori-vesi and Piellis-järvi; Päjäne, surrounded by hundreds of smaller lakes, and the waters of which are discharged into the lower gulf through the Kymmene river; Näsi-järvi and Pyhä-järvi, whose outflow is the Kumo-elf, flowing into the Gulf of Bothnia; Uleå-träsk, discharged by the Uleå into the same gulf; and Enare, belonging to the basin of the Arctic Ocean. Two large rivers, Kemi and Torneå, enter the head of the Gulf of Bothnia, while the Uleå is now navigable throughout, owing to improvements in its channel.

Geology.—Cambrian, Silurian, Devonian and Carboniferous deposits are found on the coasts of the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga, and also along the coasts of the Arctic Ocean (probably Devonian), and in the Kjölen. Eruptive rocks of Palaeozoic age are met with in the Kola peninsula (nepheline-syenites) and at Kuusamo (syenite). The remainder of Finland is built up of the oldest known crystalline rocks belonging to the Archaeozoic or Algonkian period. The most ancient of these seem to be the granites of East Finland. The denudation and destruction of the granites gave rise to the Ladoga schists and various deposits of the same period, which were subsequently strongly folded. Then the country came once more under the sea, and the debris of the previous formations, mixed with fragments from the volcanoes then situated in West Finland, formed the so-called Bothnian series. New masses of granites protruded next from underneath, and the Bothnian deposits underwent foldings in their turn, while denudation was again at work on a grand scale. A new series of Jatulian deposits was formed and a new system of foldings followed; but these were the last in this part of the globe. The Jotnian series, which were formed next, remain still undisturbed. It is to this series that the well-known Rapakivi granite of Åland, Nystad and Viborg belongs. No marine deposits younger than those just mentioned—all belonging to a pre-Cambrian epoch—are found in the central portion of Finland; and the greater part of the country has probably been dry land since Palaeozoic times. The whole of Finland is covered with Glacial and post-Glacial deposits. The former of these, representing the bottom-moraine of the ice-sheet, are covered with Glacial and post-Glacial clays (partly of lacustrine and partly of marine origin) only in the peripheral coast-region—or in separate areas in the interior depressions. Some Finnish geologists—Sederholm for one—consider it probable that during the Glacial period an Arctic sea (Yoldia sea) covered all southern Finland and also Scania (Skåne) in Sweden, thus connecting the Atlantic Ocean with the Baltic and the White Sea by a broad channel; but no fossils from that sea have been found anywhere in Finland. Conclusive proofs, however, of a later submergence under a post-Glacial Littorina sea (containing shells now living in the Baltic) are found up to 150 ft. along the Gulf of Finland, and up to 260, or perhaps 330 ft., in Osterbotten. Traces of a large inner post-Glacial lake, similar to Lake Agassiz of North America, have been discovered. The country is still continuing to rise, but at an unequal rate; of nearly 3.3 ft. in a century in the Gulf of Bothnia (Kvarken), from 1.4 to 2 ft. in the south, and nearly zero in the Baltic provinces.

Climate.—Owing to the prevalence of moist west and south-west winds the climate of Finland is less severe than it is farther east in corresponding latitudes. The country lies thus between the annual isotherms of 41° and 28° Fahr., which run in a W.N.W.-E.S.E. direction. In January the average monthly temperature varies from 9° Fahr. about Lake Enare to 30° along the south coast; while in July the difference between the monthly averages is only eight degrees, being 53° in the north and 61° in the south-east. Everywhere, and especially in the interior, the winter lasts very long, and early frosts (June 12-14 in 1892) often destroy the crops. The amount of rain and snow is from 25½ in. along the south coast to 13.8 in. in the interior of southern Finland.

Flora, Forests, Fauna.—The flora of Finland has been most minutely explored, especially in the south, and the Finnish botanists were enabled to divide the country into twenty-eight different provinces, giving the numbers of phanerogam species for each province. These numbers vary from 318 to 400 species in Lapland, from 508 to 651 in Karelia, and attain 752 species for Finland proper; while the total for all Finland attains 1132 species. Alpine plants are not met with in Finland proper, but are represented by from 32 to 64 species in the Kola peninsula. The chief forest trees of Finland are the Scotch fir (Pinus sylvestris, L.), the fir (Picea excelsa, Link.); two species of birch (B. verrucosa, Ehrh., and B. odorata, Bechst.), as well as the birch-bush (B. nana); two species of Alnus (glutinosa and incana); the oak (Q. pedunculata, Ehrh.), which grows only on the south coast; the poplar (Populus tremula); and the Siberian larch, introduced in culture in the 18th century. Over 6,000,000 trees are cut every year to be floated to thirty large saw-mills, and about 1,000,000 to be transformed into paper pulp. The total export of timber was valued in 1897 at 82,160,000 marks. It is estimated, however, that the domestic use of wood (especially for fuel) represents nearly five times as many cubic feet as the wood used for export in different shapes. The total area under forests is estimated at 63,050,000 acres, of which 34,662,000 acres belong to the state. The fauna has been explored in great detail both as regards the vertebrates and the invertebrates, and specialists will find the necessary bibliographical indications in Travaux géographiques en Finlande, published for the London Geographical Congress of 1895.

Population.—The population of Finland, which was 429,912 in 1751, 832,659 in 1800, 1,636,915 in 1850, and 2,520,437 in 1895, was 2,712,562 in 1904, of whom 1,370,480 were women and 1,342,082 men. Of these only 341,602 lived in towns, the remainder in the country districts. The distribution of population in various provinces was as follows:—

The number of births in 1904 was 90,253 and the deaths 50,227, showing an excess of births over deaths of 40,026. Emigration was estimated at about three thousand every year before 1898, but it largely increased then owing to Russian encroachments on Finnish autonomy. In 1899 the emigrants numbered 12,357; 10,642 in 1900; 12,659 in 1901; and 10,952 in 1904.

The bulk of the population are Finns (2,352,990 in 1904) and Swedes (349,733). Of Russians there were only 5939, chiefly in the provinces of Viborg and Nyland. Both Finns and Swedes belong to the Lutheran faith, there being only 46,466 members of the Greek Orthodox Church and 755 Roman Catholics.

The leading cities of Finland are: Helsingfors, capital of the grand-duchy and of the province (län) of Nyland, principal seaport (111,654 inhabitants); Åbo, capital of the Åbo-Björneborg province and ancient capital of Finland (42,639); Tammerfors, the leading manufacturing town of the grand-duchy (40,261); Viborg, chief town of province of same name, important seaport (34,672); Uleåborg, capital of province (17,737); Vasa, or Nikolaistad, capital of Vasa län (18,028); Björneborg (16,053); Kuopio, capital of province (13,519); and Tavastehus, capital of province of the same name (5545).

Industries.—Agriculture gives occupation to the large majority of the population, but of late the increase of manufactures has been marked. Dairy-farming is also on the increase, and the foreign exports of butter rose from 1930 cwt. in 1900 to 3130 cwt. in 1905. Measures have been taken since 1892 for the improvement of agriculture, and the state keeps twenty-six agronomists and instructors for that purpose. There are two high schools, one experimental station, twenty-two middle schools and forty-eight lower schools of agriculture, besides ten horticultural schools. Agricultural societies exist in each province.

Fishing is an important item of income. The value of exports of fish, &c., was £140,000 in 1904, but fish was also imported to the value of £61,300. The manufacturing industries (wood-products, metallurgy, machinery, textiles, paper and leather) are of modern development, but the aggregate production approaches one and a half millions sterling in value.

Some gold is obtained in Lapland on the Ivalajoki, but the output, which amounted in 1871 to 56,692 grammes, had fallen in 1904 to 1951 grammes. There is also a small output of silver, copper and iron. The last is obtained partly from mines, but chiefly from the lakes. In 1904 22,050 tons of cast iron were obtained. The textile industries are making rapid progress, and their produce, notwithstanding the high duties, is exported to Russia. The fabrication of paper out of wood is also rapidly growing. As to the timber trade, there are upwards of 500 saw-mills, employing 21,000 men, and with an output valued at over £3,000,000 annually.

Communications.—The roads, attaining an aggregate length of 27,500 m., are kept as a rule in very good order. The first railway was opened in 1862, and the next, from Helsingfors to St Petersburg, in 1870 (cost only £4520 per mile). Railways of a lighter type began to be built since 1877, and now Finland has about 2100 m. of railway, mostly belonging to the state. The gross income from the state railways is 26,607,622, and the net income 4,684,856 marks. Finland has an extensive and well-kept system of canals, of which the sluiced canal connecting Lake Saima with the Gulf of Finland is the chief one. It permits ships navigating the Baltic to penetrate 270 m. inland, and is passed every year by from 4980 to 5200 vessels. Considerable works have also been made to connect the different lakes and lake-basins for inland navigation, a sum of £1,000,000 having been spent for that purpose.

The telegraphs chiefly belong to Russia. Telephones have an enormous extension both in the towns and between the different towns of southern Finland; the cost of the yearly subscription varies from 40 to 60 marks,[1] and is only 10 marks in the smaller towns.

Commerce.—The foreign trade of Finland increases steadily, and reached in 1904 the following values:—

The chief trade of Finland is with Russia, and next with Great Britain, Germany, Denmark, France and Sweden. The main imports are: cereals and flour (to an annual value exceeding £3,000,000), metals, machinery, textile materials and textile products. The chief articles of export are: timber and wood articles (£5,250,000), paper and paper pulp, some tissues, metallic goods, leather, &c. The chief ports are Helsingfors, Åbo, Viborg, Hangö and Vasa.

Education.—Great strides have been made since 1866, when a new education law was passed. Rudimentary teaching in reading, occasionally writing, and the first principles of Lutheran faith are given in the maternal house, or in “maternal schools,” or by ambulatory schools under the control of the clergy, who make the necessary examination in the houses of every parish. All education above that level is in the hands of the educational department and school boards elected in each parish, each rural parish being bound (since 1898) to be divided into a proper number of school districts and to have a school in each of them, the state contributing to these expenses 800 marks a year for each male and 600 marks for each female teacher, or 25% of the total cost in urban communes. Secondary education, formerly instituted on two separate lines, classical and scientific, has been reformed so as to give more prominence to scientific education, even in the classical (linguistic) lyceums or gymnasia. For higher education there is the university of Helsingfors (formerly the Åbo Academy), which in 1906 had 1921 students (328 women) and 141 professors and docents. Besides the Helsingfors polytechnic there are a number of higher and lower technical, commercial and navigation schools. Finland has several scientific societies enjoying a world-wide reputation, as the Finnish Scientific Society, the Society for the Flora and Fauna of Finland, several medical societies, two societies of literature, the Finno-Ugrian Society, the Historical and Archaeological Societies, one juridical, one technical and two geographical societies. All of these, as also the Finnish Geological Survey, the Forestry Administration, &c., issue publications well known to the scientific world. The numerous local branches of the Friends of the Folk-School and the Society for Popular Education display great activity, the former by aiding the smaller communes in establishing schools, and the latter in publishing popular works, starting their own schools as well as free libraries (in nearly every commune), and organizing lectures for the people. The university students take a lively part in this work.

Government and Administration.—From the time of its union with Russia at the Diet of Borgå in 1809 till the events of 1899 (see History) Finland was practically a separate state, the emperor of Russia as grand-duke governing by means of a nominated senate and a diet elected on a very narrow franchise, and meeting at distant and irregular intervals. This diet was on the old Swedish model, consisting of representatives of the four estates—nobility, clergy, burghers and peasants—sitting and voting in separate “Houses.” The government of the country was practically carried on by the senate, which communicated with St Petersburg through a Finnish secretary attached to the Russian government. War and foreign affairs were entirely in the hands of Russia, and a Russian governor had his residence in Helsingfors. The senate also controlled the administration of the law. The constitutional conflict of 1899-1905 brought about something like a revolution in Finland. For some years the country was subject to a practically arbitrary form of government, but the disasters of the Russo-Japanese War and the growing anarchy in Russia resulted in 1905 in a complete and peaceful victory for the defenders of the Finnish constitution. As a Finnish writer puts it: “just as the calamities which had befallen Finland came from Russia, so was her deliverance to come from Russia.” The status quo ante was restored, the diet met in extraordinary session, and proceeded to the entire recasting of the Finnish government. Freedom of the press was voted, and the diet next proceeded to reform its own constitution. Far-reaching changes were voted. The new diet, instead of being composed of four estates sitting separately, consists of a single chamber of 200 members elected directly by universal suffrage, women being eligible. By the new constitution the grand-duchy was to be divided into not less than twelve and not more than eighteen constituencies, electing members in proportion to population. A scheme of “proportional representation,” the votes being counted in accordance with the system invented by G.M. d’Hondt, a Belgian, was also adopted. The executive was to consist of a minister-secretary of state and of the members of the senate, who were entitled to attend and address the diet and who might be the subject of interpellations. The members of the senate were made responsible to the diet as well as to the emperor-grand-duke for their acts. The diet has power to consider and decide upon measures proposed by the government. After a measure has been approved by the diet it is the duty of the senate to report upon it to the sovereign. But the senate is not obliged to accept the decision of the majority of the diet, nor, apparently, is the sovereign bound to accept the advice of the senate. The first elections, April 1907, resulted in the election to the diet of about 40% representatives of the Social Democratic party, and nineteen women members. The budget of Finland in 1905 was £4,273,970 of “ordinary” revenue. The “ordinary” expenditure was £3,595,300. The public debt amounted at the end of 1905 to £5,611,170.

History.—It was probably at the end of the 7th or the beginning of the 8th century that the Finns took possession of what is now Finland, though it was only when Christianity was introduced, about 1157, that they were brought into contact with civilized Europe. They probably found the Lapps in possession of the country. The early Finlanders do not seem to have had any governmental organization, but to have lived in separate communities and villages independent of each other. Their mythology consisted in the deification of the forces of nature, as “Ukko,” the god of the air, “Tapio,” god of the forests, “Ahti,” the god of water, &c. These early Finlanders seem to have been both brave and troublesome to their neighbours, and their repeated attacks on the coast of Sweden drew the attention of the kings of that country. King Eric IX. (St Eric), accompanied by the bishop of Upsala, Henry (an Englishman, it is said), and at the head of a considerable army, invaded the country in 1157, when the people were conquered and baptized. King Eric left Bishop Henry with his priests and some soldiers behind to confirm the conquest and complete the conversion. After a time he was killed, canonized, and as St Henry became the patron saint of Finland. As Sweden had to attend to her own affairs, Finland was gradually reverting to independence and paganism, when in 1209 another bishop and missionary, Thomas (also an Englishman), arrived and recommenced the work of St Henry. Bishop Thomas nearly succeeded in detaching Finland from Sweden, and forming it into a province subject only to the pope. The famous Birger Jarl undertook a crusade in Finland in 1249, compelling the Tavastians, one of the subdivisions of the Finlanders proper, to accept Christianity, and building a castle at Tavestehus. It was Torkel Knutson who conquered and connected the Karelian Finlanders in 1293, and built the strong castle of Viborg. Almost continuous wars between Russia and Sweden were the result of the conquest of Finland by the latter. In 1323 it was settled that the river Rajajoki should be the boundary between Russia and the Swedish province. After the final conquest of the country by the Swedes, they spread among the Finlanders their civilization, gave them laws, accorded them the same civil rights as belonged to themselves, and introduced agriculture and other beneficial arts. The Reformed religion was introduced into Finland by Gustavus Vasa about 1528, and King John III. raised the country to the dignity of a grand-duchy. It continued to suffer, sometimes deplorably, in most of the wars waged by Sweden, especially with Russia and Denmark. His predecessor having created an order of nobility,—counts, barons and nobles, Gustavus Adolphus in the beginning of the 17th century established the diet of Finland, composed of the four orders of the nobility, clergy, burghers and peasants. Gustavus and his successor did much for Finland by founding schools and gymnasia, building churches, encouraging learning and introducing printing. During the reign of Charles XI. (1692-1696) the country suffered terribly from famine and pestilence; in the diocese of Åbo alone 60,000 persons died in less than nine months. Finland has been visited at different periods since by these scourges; so late as 1848 whole villages were starved during a dreadful famine. Peter the Great cast an envious eye on Finland and tried to wrest it from Sweden; in 1710 he managed to obtain possession of the towns of Kexholm and Villmanstrand; and by 1716 all the country was in his power. Meantime the sufferings of the people had been great; thousands perished in the wars of Charles XII. By the peace of Nystad in 1721 the province of Viborg, the eastern division of Finland, was finally ceded to Russia. But the country had been laid very low by war, pestilence and famine, though it recovered itself with wonderful rapidity. In 1741 the Swedes made an effort to recover the ceded province, but through wretched management suffered disaster, and were compelled to capitulate in August 1742, ceding by the peace of Åbo, next year, the towns of Villmanstrand and Fredrikshamn. Nothing remarkable seems to have occurred till 1788, under Gustavus III., who began to reign in 1771, and who confirmed to Finland those “fundamental laws” which they have succeeded in maintaining against kings and tsars for over two centuries. The country was divided into six governments, a second superior court of justice was founded at Vasa, many new towns were built, commerce flourished, and science and art were encouraged. Latin disappeared as the academic language, and Swedish was adopted. In 1788 war again broke out between Sweden and Russia, and was carried on for two years without much glory or gain to either party, the main aim of Gustavus being to recover the lost Finnish province. In 1808, under Gustavus IV., peace was again broken between the two countries, and the war ended by the cession in 1809 of the whole of Finland and the Åland Islands to Russia. Finland, however, did not enter Russia as a conquered province, but, thanks to the bravery of her people after they had been abandoned by an incompetent monarch and treacherous generals, and not less to the wisdom and generosity of the emperor Alexander I. of Russia, she maintained her free constitution and fundamental laws, and became a semi-independent grand-duchy with the emperor as grand-duke. The estates were summoned to a free diet at Borgå and accepted Alexander as grand-duke of Finland, he on his part solemnly recognizing the Finnish constitution and undertaking to preserve the religion, laws and liberties of the country. A senate was created and a governor-general named. The province of Viborg was reunited to Finland in 1811, and Åbo remained the capital of the country till 1821, when the civil and military authorities were removed to Helsingfors, and the university in 1827. The diet, which had not met for 56 years, was convoked by Alexander II. at Helsingfors in 1863. Under Alexander II. Finland was on the whole prosperous and progressive, and his statue in the great square in front of the cathedral and the senate house in Helsingfors testifies to the regard in which his memory is cherished by his Finnish subjects. Unfortunately his successor soon fell under the influence of the reactionary party which had begun to assert itself in Russia even before the assassination of Alexander II. One of Alexander III.’s first acts was to confirm “the constitution which was granted to the grand-duchy of Finland by His Majesty the emperor Alexander Pavlovich of most glorious memory, and developed with the consent of the estates of Finland by our dearly beloved father of blessed memory the emperor Alexander Nicolaievich.” But the Slavophil movement, with its motto, “one law, one church, one tongue,” acquired great influence in official circles, and its aim was, in defiance of the pledges of successive tsars, to subject Finland to Orthodoxy and autocracy. It is unnecessary to follow in detail the seven years’ struggle between the Russian bureaucracy and the defenders of the Finnish constitution. Politics in Finland were complicated by the rivalry between the Swedish party, which had hitherto been dominant in Finland, and the Finnish “nationalist” party which, during the latter half of the 19th century, had been determinedly asserting itself linguistically and politically. With some exceptions, however, the whole country united in defence of its constitution; “Fennoman” and “Svecoman,” recognizing that their common liberties were at stake, suspended their feud for a season. With the accession of Nicholas II. (see [Russia]) the constitutional conflict became acute, and the “February manifesto” (February 15th, 1899) virtually abrogated the legislative power of the Finnish diet. A new military law, practically amalgamating the Finnish with the Russian forces, followed in July 1901; Russian officials and the Russian language were forced on Finland wherever possible, and in April 1903 the Russian governor, General Bobrikov, was invested with practically dictatorial powers. The country was flooded with spies, and a special Russian police force was created, the expenses being charged to the Finnish treasury. The Russian system was now in full swing; domiciliary visits, illegal arrests and banishments, and the suppression of newspapers, were the order of the day. To all this the people of Finland opposed a dogged and determined resistance, which culminated in November 1905 in a “national strike.” The strike was universal, all classes joining in the movement, and it spread to all the industrial centres and even to the rural districts. The railway, steamship, telephone and postal services were practically suspended. Helsingfors was without tramcars, cabs, gas and electricity; no shops except provision shops were open; public departments, schools and restaurants were closed. After six days the unconstitutional government—already much shaken by events in Russia and Manchuria—capitulated. In an imperial manifesto dated the 7th of November 1905 the demands of Finland were granted, and the status quo ante 1899 was restored.

But the reform did not rest here. The old Finnish constitution, although precious to those whose only protection it was, was an antiquated and not very efficient instrument of government. Popular feeling had been excited by the political conflict, advanced tendencies had declared themselves, and when the new diet met it proceeded as explained above to remodel the constitution, on the basis of universal suffrage, with freedom of the press, speech, meeting and association.

In 1908-10 friction with Russia was again renewed. The Imperial government insisted that the decision in all Finnish questions affecting the Empire must rest with them; and a renewed attempt was made to curtail the powers of the Finnish Diet.

Ethnology.—The term Finn has a wider application than Finland, being, with its adjective Finnic or Finno-Ugric (q.v.) or Ugro-Finnic, the collective name of the westernmost branch of the Ural-Altaic family, dispersed throughout Finland, Lapland, the Baltic provinces (Esthonia, Livonia, Curland), parts of Russia proper (south of Lake Onega), both banks of middle Volga, Perm, Vologda, West Siberia (between the Ural Mountains and the Yenissei) and Hungary.

Originally nomads (hunters and fishers), all the Finnic people except the Lapps and Ostyaks have long yielded to the influence of civilization, and now everywhere lead settled lives as herdsmen, agriculturists, traders, &c. Physically the Finns (here to be distinguished from the Swedish-speaking population, who retain their Scandinavian qualities) are a strong, hardy race, of low stature, with almost round head, low forehead, flat features, prominent cheek bones, eyes mostly grey and oblique (inclining inwards), short and flat nose, protruding mouth, thick lips, neck very full and strong, so that the occiput seems flat and almost in a straight line with the nape; beard weak and sparse, hair no doubt originally black, but, owing to mixture with other races, now brown, red and even fair; complexion also somewhat brown. The Finns are morally upright, hospitable, faithful and submissive, with a keen sense of personal freedom and independence, but also somewhat stolid, revengeful and indolent. Many of these physical and moral characteristics they have in common with the so-called “Mongolian” race, to which they are no doubt ethnically, if not also linguistically, related.

Considerable researches have been accomplished since about 1850 in the ethnology and archaeology of Finland, on a scale which has no parallel in any other country. The study of the prehistoric population of Finland—Neolithic (no Palaeolithic finds have yet been made)—of the Age of Bronze and the Iron Age has been carried on with great zeal. At the same time the folklore, Finnish and partly Swedish, has been worked out with wonderful completeness (see L’Œuvre demi-séculaire de la Société de Littérature finnoise et le mouvement national finnois, by Dr E.G. Palmén, Helsingfors, 1882, and K. Krohn’s report to the London Folklore Congress of 1891). The work that was begun by Porthan, Z. Topelius, and especially E. Lönnrot (1802-1884), for collecting the popular poetry of the Finns, was continued by Castrén (1813-1852), Europaeus (1820-1884), and V. Porkka (1854-1889), who extended their researches to the Finns settled in other parts of the Russian empire, and collected a considerable number of variants of the Kalewala and other popular poetry and songs. In order to study the different eastern kinsfolk of the Finns, Sjögren (1792-1855) extended his journeys to North Russia, and Castrén to West and East Siberia (Nordische Reisen und Forschungen), and collected the materials which permitted himself and Schiefner to publish grammatical works relative to the Finnish, Lappish, Zyrian, Tcheremiss, Ostiak, Samoyede, Tungus, Buryat, Karagas, Yenisei-Ostiak and Kott languages. Ahlqvist (1826-1889), and a phalanx of linguists, continued their work among the Vogules, the Mordves and the Obi-Ugrians. And finally, the researches of Aspelin (Foundations of Finno-Ugrian Archaeology, in Finnish, and Atlas of Antiquities) led the Finnish ethnologists to direct more and more their attention to the basin of the Yenisei and the Upper Selenga. A series of expeditions (of Aspelin, Snellman and Heikel) were consequently directed to those regions, especially since the discovery by Yadrintseff of the remarkable Orkhon inscriptions (see [Turks], p. 473), which finally enabled the Danish linguist, V. Thomsen, to decipher these inscriptions, and to discover that they belonged to the Turkish Iron Age. (See Inscriptions de l’Iénissei recueillies et publiées par la Société Finl. d’Archéologie, 1889, and Inscriptions de l’Orkhon, 1892.)

Authorities.—The general history of Finland is fully treated by Yrjö Koskinen (1869-1873) and M.G. Schybergson (1887-1889). Both works have been translated into German. The constitutional conflict gave rise to a host of books and pamphlets in various languages. Mechelin, Danielson and Hermanson were the leading writers on the Finnish side, and M. Ordin on the Russian. Most of the political documents have been published and translated. A finely illustrated book, Finland in the Nineteenth Century, by various Finnish writers, gives an excellent account of the country; also Reuter’s Finlandia, a very complete work with an exhaustive bibliography. The constitutional question was fully discussed in English in Finland and the Tsars, by J.R. Fisher (2nd ed., 1900). The Atlas de Finlande, published in 1899 by the Geographical Society of Finland, is a remarkably well executed and complete work. The Statistical Annual for Finland—Statistisk Arsbok för Finland—published annually by the Central Statistical Bureau in Helsingfors, gives the necessary figures.

(P. A. K.; J. S. K.; J. R. F.*)

Finnish Literature.

The earliest writer in the Finnish vernacular was Michael Agricola (1506-1557), who published an A B C Book in 1544, and, as bishop of Åbo, a number of religious and educational works. A version of the New Testament in Finnish was printed by Agricola in 1548, and some books of the Old Testament in 1552. A complete Finnish Bible was published at Stockholm in 1642. The dominion of the Swedes was very unfavourable to the development of anything like a Finnish literature, the poets of Finland preferring to write in Swedish and so secure a wider audience. It was not until, in 1835, the national epos of Finland, the Kalewala (q.v.), was introduced to readers by the exertions of Elias Lönnrot (q.v.), that the Finnish language was used for literary composition. Lönnrot also collected and edited the works of the peasant-poets P. Korhonen (1775-1840) and Pentti Lyytinen, with an anthology containing the improvisations of eighteen other rustic bards. During the last quarter of the 19th century there was an ever-increasing literary activity in Finland, and it took the form less and less of the publication of Swedish works, but more and more that of examples of the aboriginal vernacular. At the present time, in spite of the political troubles, books in almost every branch of research are found in the language, mainly translations or adaptations. We meet with, during the present century, a considerable number of names of poets and dramatists, no doubt very minor, as also painters, sculptors and musical composers. At the Paris International Exhibition of 1878 several native Finnish painters and sculptors exhibited works which would do credit to any country; and both in the fine and applied arts Finland occupied a position thoroughly creditable. An important contribution to a history of Finnish literature is Krohn’s Suomenkielinen runollisuns ruotsinvallan aikana (1862). Finland is wonderfully rich in periodicals of all kinds, the publications of the Finnish Societies of Literature and of Sciences and other learned bodies being specially valuable. A great work in the revival of an interest in the Finnish language was done by the Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura (the Finnish Literary Society), which from the year 1841 has published a valuable annual, Suomi. The Finnish Literary Society has also published a new edition of the works of the father of Finnish history, Henry Gabriel Porthan (died 1804). A valuable handbook of Finnish history was published at Helsingfors in 1869-1873, by Yrjö Koskinen, and has been translated into both Swedish and German. The author was a Swede, Georg Forsman, the above form being a Finnish translation. Other works on Finnish history and some important works in Finnish geography have also appeared. In language we have Lönnrot’s great Finnish-Swedish dictionary, published by the Finnish Literary Society. Dr Otto Donner’s Comparative Dictionary of the Finno-Ugric Languages (Helsingfors and Leipzig) is in German. In imaginative literature Finland has produced several important writers of the vernacular. Alexis Stenwall (“Kiwi”) (1834-1872), the son of a village tailor, was the best poet of his time; he wrote popular dramas and an historical romance, The Seven Brothers (1870). Among recent playwrights Mrs Minna Canth (1844-1897) has been the most successful. Other dramatists are E.F. Johnsson (1844-1895), P. Cajander (b. 1846), who translated Shakespeare into Finnish, and Karl Bergbom (b. 1843). Among lyric poets are J.H. Erkko (b. 1849), Arwi Jännes (b. 1848) and Yrjö Weijola (b. 1875). The earliest novelist of Finland, Pietari Päivärinta (b. 1827), was the son of a labourer; he is the author of a grimly realistic story, His Life. Many of the popular Finnish authors of our day are peasants. Kauppis Heikki was a wagoner; Alkio Filander a farmer; Heikki Maviläinen a smith; Juhana Kokko (Kyösti) a gamekeeper. The most gifted of the writers of Finland, however, is certainly Juhani Aho (b. 1861), the son of a country clergyman. His earliest writings were studies of modern life, very realistically treated. Aho then went to reside in France, where he made a close study of the methods of the leading French novelists of the newer school. About the year 1893 he began to publish short stories, some of which, such as Enris, The Fortress of Matthias, The Old Man of Korpela and Finland’s Flag, are delicate works of art, while they reveal to a very interesting degree the temper and ambitions of the contemporary Finnish population. It has been well said that in the writings of Juhani Aho can be traced all the idiosyncrasies which have formed the curious and pathetic history of Finland in recent years. A village priest, Juho Reijonen (b. 1857), in tales of somewhat artless form, has depicted the hardships which poverty too often entails upon the Finn in his country life. Tolstoy has found an imitator in Arwid Järnefelt (b. 1861). Santeri Ingman (b. 1866) somewhat naïvely, but not without skill, has followed in the steps of Aho. It would be an error to exaggerate either the force or the originality of these early developments of a national Finnish literature, which, moreover, are mostly brief and unambitious in character. But they are eminently sincere, and they have the great merit of illustrating the local aspects of landscape and temperament and manners.

Authorities.—E.G. Palmén, L’Œuvre demi-séculaire de la Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1831-81 (Helsingfors, 1882); J. Krohn, Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden waiheet (Helsingfors, 1897); F.W. Pipping, Förteckning öfver böcker på finska språket (Helsingfors, 1856-1857); E. Brausewetter, Finland im Bilde seiner Dichtung und seiner Dichter (Berlin, 1899); C.J. Billson, Popular Poetry of the Finns (London, 1900); V. Vasenius, Öfversigt af Finlands Litteraturhistoria för skolor (Helsingfors, 1893). For writers using the Swedish language, see [Sweden]: Literature.

(E. G.)

[1] The Finnish mark, markka, of 100 penni, equals about 9½ d.

FINLAY, GEORGE (1799-1875), British historian, was born of Scottish parents at Faversham, Kent, on the 21st of December 1799. He studied for the law in Glasgow, and about 1821 went to Göttingen. He had already begun to feel a deep interest in the Greek struggle for independence, and in 1823 he resolved to visit the country. In November he arrived in Cephalonia, where he was kindly received by Lord Byron. Shortly afterwards he landed at Pyrgos, and during the next fourteen months he improved his knowledge of the language, history and antiquities of the country. Though he formed an unfavourable opinion of the Greek leaders, both civil and military, he by no means lost his enthusiasm for their cause. A severe attack of fever, however, combined with other circumstances, induced him to spend the winter of 1824-1825 and the spring of 1825 in Rome, Naples and Sicily. He then returned to Scotland, and, after spending a summer at Castle Toward, Argyllshire, went to Edinburgh, where he passed his examination in civil law at the university, with a view to being called to the Scottish bar. His enthusiasm, however, carried him back to Greece, where he resided almost uninterruptedly till his death. He took part in the unsuccessful operations of Lord Cochrane and Sir Richard Church for the relief of Athens in 1827. When independence had been secured in 1829 he bought a landed estate in Attica, but all his efforts for the introduction of a better system of agriculture ended in failure, and he devoted himself to the literary work which occupied the rest of his life. His first publications were The Hellenic Kingdom and the Greek Nation (1836); Essai sur les principes de banque appliqués à l’état actuel de la Grèce (Athens, 1836); and Remarks on the Topography of Oropia and Diacria, with a map (Athens, 1838). The first instalment of his great historical work appeared in 1844 (2nd ed., 1857) under the title Greece under the Romans; a Historical View of the Condition of the Greek Nation from the time of its Conquest by the Romans until the Extinction of the Roman Empire in the East. Meanwhile he had been qualifying himself still further by travel as well as by reading; he undertook several tours to various quarters of the Levant; and as the result of one of them he published a volume On the Site of the Holy Sepulchre; with a plan of Jerusalem (1847). The History of the Byzantine and Greek Empires from 716-1453 was completed in 1854. It was speedily followed by the History of Greece under the Ottoman and Venetian Domination (1856), and by the History of the Greek Revolution (1861). In weak health, and conscious of failing energy, he spent his last years in revising his history. From 1864 to 1870 he was also correspondent of The Times newspaper, his letters to which attracted considerable attention, and, appearing in the Greek newspapers, exercised a distinct influence on Greek politics. He was a member of several learned societies; and in 1854 he received from the university of Edinburgh the honorary degree of LL.D. He died at Athens on the 26th of January 1875. A new edition of his History, edited by the Rev. H.F. Tozer, was issued by the Oxford Clarendon press in 1877. It includes a brief but extremely interesting fragment of an autobiography of the author, almost the only authority for his life.

As an historian, Finlay had the merit of entering upon a field of research that had been neglected by English writers, Gibbon alone being a partial exception. As a student, he was laborious; as a scholar he was accurate; as a thinker, he was both acute and profound; and in all that he wrote he was unswerving in his loyalty to the principles of constitutional government and to the cause of liberty and justice.

FINN MAC COOL (in Irish Find Mac Cumaill), the central figure of the later heroic cycle of Ireland, commonly called Ossianic or Fenian. In Scotland Find usually goes by the name of Fingal. This appears to be due to a misunderstanding of the title assumed by the Lord of the Isles, Rí Fionnghall, i.e. king of the Norse. Find’s father, Cumall mac Trénmóir, was uncle to Conn Cétchathach, High King of Ireland, who died in A.D. 157. Cumall carried off Murna Munchaem, the daughter of a Druid named Tadg mac Nuadat, and this led to the battle of Cnucha, in which Cumall was slain by Goll mac Morna (A.D. 174). Find was born after his father’s death and was at first called Demni. He is leader of the fiann or féinne (English “Fenians”), a kind of militia or standing army which was drawn from all quarters of Ireland. His father had held the same office before him, but after his death it passed to his enemy Goll mac Morna, who retained it until Find came to man’s estate. Find usually resided at Almu (Allen) in Co. Kildare, where he was surrounded by some of the contingents of the fiann, the rest being scattered throughout Ireland to ward off enemies, particularly those coming from over the sea. In times of invasion Find collected his forces, overcame the foe, and pursued him to Scotland or Lochlann (Scandinavia) as the case might be. When not engaged in war the fiann gave themselves up to the chase or love-adventures. We are informed in great detail as to the conditions of admission to this privileged band, which were at once singular and exacting. The foremost heroes in Find’s train were his son Ossian, his grandson Oscar, Cailte mac Ronain, and Diarmait O’Duibne, whose elopement with Find’s destined bride Grainne, daughter of the High-King Cormac mac Airt (A.D. 227-266), forms the subject of a celebrated story. These, like Find, were all of the Ua Baisgne branch, with which was allied the Ua Morna, with whom they were generally at variance. The latter hailed from Connaught, chief among them being Goll and Conan. By the annalists Find is represented as having met with death by treachery either in 252 or 283. Under Coirpre Lifeochair, successor to Cormac mac Airt, the power of the fiann became intolerable. The monarch accordingly took up arms against them and utterly crushed them at the battle of Gabra (A.D. 283). Very few survived the defeat, but the story makes Ossian and Cailte live on until after the arrival of St Patrick in 432.

It is incredible that such a band as the fiann should have existed in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. A number of sagas older in date than the Ossianic stories have been preserved, which deal with events happening in the reigns of Art son of Conn (166-196), Lugaid mac Con (196-227), and Cormac mac Airt (227-266), but none of these in their oldest shape contain any allusion whatsoever to Find and his warriors. In the history of the Boroma, contained in the book of Leinster, Find is merely a Leinster chieftain who assists Bressal the king of Leinster against Coirpre Lifeochair. It can be shown that Find was originally a figure in Leinster-Munster tradition previous to the Viking age, but we have no documentary evidence concerning him at this time. He seems primarily to have been regarded as a poet and magician. Later he appears to have been transformed into a petty chief, and Zimmer even tried to show that his personality was developed in Leinster and Munster local tradition out of stories clustering round the figure of the Viking leader Ketill Hviti (Caittil Find), who was slain in 857. By the year 1000 Find was certainly connected in the minds of the people with the reign of Cormac mac Airt, but the process is obscure. Recently John MacNeill has pointed out that in the oldest genealogies Find is always connected with the Ui Tairrsigh of Failge (Offaley, a district comprising the present county of Kildare and parts of King’s and Queen’s counties). The Ui Tairrsigh were undoubtedly of Firbolg origin, and MacNeill would account in this manner for the slow acceptance of the stories by the conquering Milesians. Whilst the Ulster epic was fashionable at court, the subject races clung to the Fenian cycle. For the last 800 years Find has been the national hero of the Gaelic-speaking populations of Ireland, the Scottish Highlands and the Isle of Man. See also [Celt] (subsection Irish Literature).

Authorities.—A. Nutt, Ossian and the Ossianic Literature (London, 1899); H. Zimmer, “Keltische Beiträge iii.,” Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum (1891), vol. xxxv. pp. 1-172; L.C. Stern, “Die Ossianischen Heldenlieder,” Zeitschrift für vergleichende Litteraturgeschichte (1895; trans, by J.L. Robertson in Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, 1897-1898, vol. xxii. pp. 257-325); J. MacNeill, Duanaire Finn (London, 1908).

(E. C. Q.)

FINNO-UGRIAN, or Finno-Ugric, the designation of a division of the Ural-Altaic family of languages and their speakers. The first part is the name given by their neighbours, though not used by themselves, to the inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic. It is probably the same word as the Fenni of Tacitus and Φίννοι of Ptolemy, though it is not certain that those races were Finns in the modern sense. It possibly means people of the fens or marshes, and corresponds to the native word Suomi, which appears to be derived from suo, a marsh. Finn and Finnish are used not only of the inhabitants of Finland but also in a more extended sense of similar tribes found in Russia and sometimes called Baltic Finns and Volga Finns. In this sense the Esthonian tribes (Baltic), the Laps, the Cheremis and Mordvins (Volga), and the Permian tribes are all Finns. The name is not, however, extended to the Ostiaks, Voguls and Magyars, who, though allied, form a separate subdivision called Ugrian, a name derived from Yura or Ugra, the country on either side of the Ural Mountains, and first used by Castrén in a scientific sense.

The name Finno-Ugric is primarily linguistic and must not be pressed as indicating a community of physical features and customs. But making allowance for the change of language by some tribes, the Finno-Ugrians form, with the striking exception of the Hungarians, a moderately homogeneous whole. They are nomads, but, unlike the Turks, Mongols and Manchus, have hardly ever shown themselves warlike and have no power of political organization. Those of them who have not come under European influence live under the simplest form of patriarchal government, and states, kings or even great chiefs are almost unknown among them.

Their headquarters are in Russia. From the Baltic to south Siberia extends a vast plain broken only by the Urals. Large parts of it are still wooded, and the proportion of forest land and marsh was no doubt much greater formerly. The Finno-Ugric tribes seem to shun the open steppes but are widely spread in the wooded country, especially on the banks of lakes and rivers. Their want of political influence renders them obscure, but they form a considerable element in the population of the northern, middle and eastern provinces of Russia, but are not found much to the south of Moscow (except in the east) or in the west (except in the Baltic provinces). The difference of temperament between the Great Russians and the purer Slavs such as the Little Russians is partly due to an infusion of Finnish blood.

Physically the Finno-Ugric races are as a rule solidly built and, though there is considerable variation in height and the cephalic index, are mostly of small or medium stature, somewhat squat, and brachy- or mesocephalic. As a rule the skin is greyish or olive coloured, the eyes grey or blue, the hair light, the beard scanty. Most of them seem deficient in energy and liveliness, both mental and physical; they are slow, heavy, conservative, somewhat suspicious and vindictive, inclined to be taciturn and melancholy. On the other hand they are patient, persevering, industrious, faithful and honest. When their natural mistrust of strangers is overcome they are kindly and hospitable.

I. Tribes and Nations.—The Ugrian subdivision, which seems to be in many respects the more primitive, consists of three peoples standing on very different levels of civilization, the Ostiaks and Voguls and the Hungarians.

The Ostiaks (Ostyaks or Ostjaks) are a tribe of nomadic fishermen and hunters inhabiting at present the government Ostiaks. of Tobolsk and the banks of the Obi. They formerly extended into the government of Perm on the European side of the Ural Mountains. The so-called Ostiaks of the Yenisei appear to be a different race and not to belong to the Finno-Ugrian group. The Ostiaks are still partially pagan and worship the River Obi. Allied to them are the Voguls, a similar nomadic tribe found on both sides of the Urals, and formerly extending at least as far as the government of Vologda. Voguls. The languages of the Ostiaks and Voguls are allied, though not mere dialects of one another, and form a small group separated from the languages of the Finns both Western and Eastern. For further details of these and other tribes see under the separate headings.

According to the legend, Nimrod had two sons, Hunyor and Magyor. They married daughters of the prince of the Alans and became the ancestors of the two kindred nations, Huns and Magyars or Hungarians. This story corresponds Magyars or Hungarians. with what can be ascertained scientifically about the origin of these peoples. It is probable that the Huns and Magyars were allied tribes of mixed descent comprising both Turkish and Finno-Ugrian elements. The language is indisputably Finno-Ugrian, but the name Hungarian seems to lead back to the form Un-ugur, and to suggest Turkish connexions which are confirmed by the warlike habits of the Huns and Magyars. The same name possibly occurs in the form Hiung-nu as far east as the frontiers of China, but recent authorities are of opinion that the tribes from whom the present Hungarians are descended were formed originally in the Terek-Kuban country to the north of the Caucasus, where a mixture of Turkish and Ugrian blood took place, a Ugrian language but Turkish mode of life predominating. They were also influenced by Iranians and the various tribes of the Caucasus. Both Huns and Magyars moved westwards, but the Huns invaded Europe in the 5th century and made no permanent settlement in spite of the devastation they caused, whereas the Magyars remained for some centuries near the banks of the Don. According to tradition they were compelled to leave a country called Lebedia under the pressure of nomadic tribes, and moved westward under the leadership of seven dukes. They conquered Hungary in the years 884-895, and the first king of their new dominions was called Árpád. For the chequered and often tragic history of the country see [Hungary]. The Magyars were converted to Christianity in the 11th century and adhered to the Roman not the Eastern Church. They have in all probability entirely lost their ancient physique, but have retained their language, and traces of their older life may be seen in their fondness for horses and flocks.

The following are the principal Finnish peoples. The Permians and Syryenians may be treated as one tribe. The latter name is very variously spelt as Syrjenian, Sirianian, Zyrjenian, Zirian, &c. They both call themselves Komi and Permians and Syryenians. speak a mutually intelligible language, allied to Votiak. The name Bjarmisch is sometimes applied to this sub-group. Both Permians and Syryenians are found chiefly in the governments of Perm, Vologda and Archangel, but there are a few Syryenians on the Siberian side of the Urals. The Syryenian headquarters are at the town of Ishma on the Pechora, whereas the name Permian is more correctly restricted to the inhabitants of the right bank of the upper Kama. Both probably extended much farther to the west in former times. The Syryenians are said to be more intelligent and active than most Finnish tribes and to make considerable journeys for trading purposes. They are possibly a mixed race.

The Votiaks are a tribe of about a quarter of a million persons dwelling chiefly in the south-eastern part of the government of Viatka. Their language indicates that they have borrowed a good deal from the Tatars and Chuvashes, Votiaks. and they seem to have little individuality, being described as weak both mentally and physically. They call themselves Ud-murt or Urt-murt. About the 16th century some of them migrated, doubtless under the pressure of Russian advance, into the government of Ufa and, the country being more fertile, are said to have improved in physique.

The Cheremissians, or Tcheremissians or Cheremis, who call themselves Mari, inhabit the banks of the Volga, chiefly in the neighbourhood of Kazan. Those inhabiting the right bank of the Volga are physically stronger and are Cheremissians. known as Hill Cheremiss. The evidence of place names makes it probable that their present position is the result of their being driven northwards by the Mordvins and then southwards by the Russians. There is some discrepancy between their language and their physical characteristics. The former shows affinities to both Mordvinian and the Permian group, but their crania are said to be mainly dolichocephalic, and it has been suggested that they are connected with the neolithic dolichocephalic population of Lake Ladoga. They are gentle and honest, but neither active nor intelligent.

The Mordvinians, also called Mordvá, Mordvins and Mordvs, are scattered over the provinces near the middle Volga, especially Nizhniy Novgorod, Kazan, Penza, Tambov, Simbirsk, Ufa and even Orenburg. Though not continuous, Mordvinians. their settlements are considerable both in extent and population. They are the most important of the Eastern Finns, and their traditions speak of a capital and of a king who fought with the Tatars. They are mentioned as Mordens as early as the 6th century, but do not now use the name, calling themselves after one of their two divisions, Moksha or Erza. Their country is still covered with forest to a large extent. Their language is on the one side allied to Cheremissian. On the other it shows a nearer approach to Finnish (Suomi) than the other Eastern languages of the family, but it has also constructions peculiar to itself.

The Lapps are found in Norway, Sweden and Finland. They call themselves Sabme, but are called Finns by the Norwegians. They are the shortest and most brachycephalic race in Europe. The majority are nomads who live by Lapps. pasturing reindeer, and are known as Mountain Lapps, but others have become more or less settled and live by hunting or fishing. From ancient times the Lapps have had a great reputation among the Finns and other neighbouring nations for skill in sorcery.

The Esthonians are the peasantry of the Russian province Esthonia and the neighbouring districts. They were serfs until 1817 when they were liberated, but their condition remained unsatisfactory and led to a serious rebellion in Esthonians. 1859. They are practically a branch of the Finns, and are hardly separable from the other Finnish tribes inhabiting the Baltic provinces. The name Est or Ehst, by which they are known to foreigners, appears to be the same as the Aestii of Tacitus, and to have properly belonged to quite a different tribe. They call themselves Mā mēs, or country people, and their land Rahwama or Wiroma (cf. Finnish, Virolaiset, Esthonians.) Though not superior to other tribes in general intelligence, they have become more civilized owing to their more intimate connexion with the Russian and German population around them.

Livs, Livlanders or Livonians is the name given to the old Finnish-speaking population of west Livland or Livonia and north Kurland. We hear of them as a warlike and predatory pagan tribe in the middle ages, and it is Livonians. possible that they were a mixed Letto-Finnish race from the beginning. In modern times they have become almost completely absorbed by Letts, and their language is only spoken in a few places on the coast of Kurland. It has indeed been disputed if it still exists. It is known as Livish or Livonian and is allied to Esthonian.

The Votes (not to be confounded with the Votiaks), also called southern Chudes and Vatjalaiset, apparently represent Votes. the original inhabitants of Ingria, the district round St Petersburg, but have decreased before the advance of the Russians and also of Karelians from the north. They are heard of in the 11th century, but now occupy only about thirty parishes in north-west Ingria.

The Vepsas or Vepses, also called Northern Chudes, are another tribe allied to the Esthonians, but are more numerous than the Vepsas. Votes. They are found in the district of Tikhvinsk and other parts of the government of Old Novgorod, and apparently extended farther east into the government of Vologda in former times. Linguistically both the Votes and Vepsas are closely related to the Esthonians.

The Finns proper or Suomi, as they call themselves, are the most important and civilized division of the group. They inhabit at present the grand duchy of Finland and the adjacent governments, especially Olonetz, Tver and Finns. St Petersburg. Formerly a tribe of them called Kainulaiset was also found in Sweden, whence the Swedes call the Finns Qven. At present there are two principal subdivisions of Finns, the Tavastlanders or Hämäläiset, who occupy the southern and western parts of the grand duchy, and the Karelians or Karjalaiset found in the east and north, as far as Lake Onega and towards the White Sea.

The former, and generally speaking, all the inhabitants of the grand duchy have undergone a strong Swedish influence. There is a considerable admixture of Swedish blood; the language is full of Swedish words; Christianity is universal; and the upper classes and townspeople are mainly Swedish in their habits and speech, though of late a persistent attempt has been made to Russify the country. The Finns have much the same mental and moral characteristics as the other allied tribes, but have reached a far higher intellectual and literary stage. Several collections of their popular and mythological poetry have been made, the most celebrated of which is the Kalewala, compiled by Lönnrot about 1835, and there is a copious modern literature. The study of the national languages and antiquities is prosecuted in Helsingfors and other towns with much energy: several learned societies have been formed and considerable results published, partly in Finnish. It is clear that this scientific activity, though animated by a patriotic Finnish spirit, owes much to Swedish training in the past. Besides the literary language there are several dialects, the most important of which is that of Savolaks.

The Karelians are not usually regarded as separate from the Finns, though they are a distinct tribe as much as the Vepsas and Votes. Living farther east they have come less under Swedish and more under Russian influence than Karelians. the inhabitants of West Finland; but, since many of the districts which they inhabit are out of the way and neglected, this influence has not been strong, so that they have adopted less of European civilization, and in places preserved their own customs more than the Westerners. They are of a slighter and better proportioned build than the Finns, more enterprising, lively and friendly, but less persevering and tenacious. They number about 260,000, of whom about 63,000 live in Olonetz and 195,000 in Tver and Novgorod, but in the southern districts are less distinguished from the Russian population. They belong to the Russian Church, whereas the Finns of the grand duchy are Protestants. There also appear to be authentic traces of a Karelian population in Kaluga, Yaroslavl, Vladimir, Vologda and Tambov. It was among them that the Kalewala was collected, chiefly in East Finland and Olonetz.

There is some difference of opinion as to whether the Samoyedes should be included among the Finno-Ugrian tribes or be given the rank of a separate division equivalent to Finno-Ugrian and Turkish. The linguistic question is Samoyedes. discussed below. The Samoyedes are a nomad tribe who wander with their reindeer over the treeless plains which border on the White and Kara seas on either side of the Urals. In culture and habits they resemble the Finno-Ugrian tribes, and there seems to be no adequate reason for separating them.

Various other peoples have been referred to the Finno-Ugrian group, but some doubt must remain as to the propriety Other inclusions. of the classification, either because they are now extinct, or because they are suspected of having changed their language.

The original Bulgarians, who had their home on the Volga before they invaded the country which now bears their name, were probably a tribe similar to the Magyars, though all record of their language is lost. It has been disputed whether the Khazars, who in the middle ages occupied parts of south Russia and the shores of the Caspian, were Finno-Ugrians or Turks, and there is the same doubt about the Avars and Pechenegs, which without linguistic evidence remains insoluble. Nor is the difference ethnographically important. The formation of hordes of warlike bodies, half tribes, half armies, composed of different races, was a characteristic of Central Asia, and it was probably often a matter of chance what language was adopted as the common speech.

At the present day the Bashkirs, Meshchers and Tepters, who speak Tatar languages, are thought to be Finnish in origin, as are also the Chuvashes, whose language is Tatar strongly modified by Finnish influence. The little known Soyots of the head-waters of the Yenisei are also said to be Finno-Ugrians.

The name Chude appears to be properly applied to the Vepsas and Votes but is extended by popular usage in Russia to all Finno-Ugrian tribes, and to all extinct tribes of whatever race who have left tombs, monuments or relics of mining operations in European Russia or Siberia. Some Russian archaeologists use it specifically of the Permian group. But its extension is so vague that it is better to discard it as a scientific term.

II. Languages.—The Finno-Ugric languages are generally considered as a division of the Ural-Altaic group, which consists of four families: Turkish, Mongol, Manchu and Finno-Ugric, including Samoyede unless it is reckoned separately as a fifth. The chief character of the group is that agglutination, or the addition of suffixes, is the only method of word-formation, prefixes and significant change of vowels being unknown, as is also gender. This suggests an affinity with many other languages, such as the ancient Accadian or Sumerian, and Japanese. A connexion between the Finno-Ugric and Dravidian languages has also been suggested. On the other hand, the more highly developed agglutinative languages, such as Finnish, approach the inflected Aryan type, so that the Aryan languages may have been developed from an ancestor not unlike the Ural-Altaic group.

The Finno-Ugrian languages are distinguished from the other divisions of the Ural-Altaic group both in grammar and vocabulary. Compared with Mongol and Manchu they have a much greater wealth of forms, both in declension and conjugation; the suffixes form one word with the root and are not wholly or partially detachable postpositions; the pronominal element is freely represented in the suffixes added to both verbs and nouns. These features are also found in the Turkish languages, but Finno-Ugrian has a much greater variety of cases denoting position or motion, and the union of the case termination with the noun is more complete; in some languages the object can be incorporated in the verb, which does not occur in Turkish, but the negative is rarely (Cheremissian) thus incorporated after the Turkish fashion (e.g. yazmak, “to write”; yazmamak, “not to write”), and in some languages takes pronominal suffixes (Finnish en tule, et tule, eivät tule, “I, you, they do not come”). Vowel-harmony is completely observed in Finnish and Magyar, but in the other languages is imperfectly developed, or has been lost under Russian influence. Relative pronouns and particles exist and are fully developed in some languages. The tendency to form compounds, which is not characteristic of Turkish, is very marked in Finnish and Hungarian, and is said also to be found in Samoyede, Cheremissian and Syryenian. The original order in the sentence seems to be that the governing word follows the word governed, but there are many exceptions to this, particularly in Hungarian where the arrangement is very free.

In vocabulary the pronouns agree fairly well with those of Turkish, Mongol and Manchu, but there is little resemblance between the numbers. Many of the languages contain numerous Tatar and Turkish loan-words, but with this exception the resemblance of vocabulary is not striking and indicates an ancient separation. But the similarity in the process of word-building and of the elements used, even if they have not the same sense, as well as analogies in the general construction of sentences and in some details (e.g. the use of the infinitive or verbal substantive), seem to justify the hypothesis of an original relationship with the Turkish languages, which in their turn have connexions with the other groups.

Samoyede is classed by some as a separate group and by some among the Finno-Ugrian languages, but it at any rate displays a far closer resemblance to them in both grammar and vocabulary than do any of the Turkish languages. The numerals are different, but the personal and interrogative pronouns and many common words (e.g. joha, “river,” Finn. joki; sava, “good,” Finn, hywä; kole, “fish,” Finn, kala) show a considerable resemblance. The inflection of nouns is very like that found in Finno-Ugrian but that of the verb differs, verb and noun being imperfectly differentiated. In detail, however, the verbal suffixes show analogies to those of Finno-Ugrian. Vowel-harmony and weakening of consonants occur as in Finnish.

Excluding Samoyede, the Finno-Ugrian languages may be divided into two sections: (1) Ugrian, comprising Ostiak, Vogul and Magyar; and (2) Finnish. The Permian languages (Syryenian, Permian and Votiak) form a distinct group within this latter section, and the remainder may be divided into the Volga group (Cheremissian and Mordvinian) and the West Finnish (Lappish, Esthonian and Finnish proper).

The Ugrian languages appear to have separated from the Finnish branch before the systems of declension or conjugation were developed. Their case suffixes seem to be later formations, though we find, t, tl or k for the plural and traces of l as a local suffix. Ostiak and Vogul, like Samoyede, have a dual. Moods and tenses are less numerous but the number of verbal forms is increased by those in which the pronominal object is incorporated. Hungarian has naturally advanced enormously beyond the stage reached by Ostiak and Vogul, and shows marks of strong European influence, but also retains primitive features. Vowel-harmony is observed (várok, “I await,” but verek, “I strike”). The verb has two sets of terminations, according as it is transitive or intransitive, and the pronominal object is sometimes incorporated. Alone among Finno-Ugrian languages it has developed an article, and the adjective is inflected when used as a predicate though not as an attribute (Jó emberek, “good men,” but Az emberek jók, “the men are good”). There is great freedom in the order of words and, as in Finnish, a tendency to form long compounds.

The Finnish languages are not divided from the Ugrian by any striking differences, but show greater resemblances to one another in details. None of them have a dual and only Mordvinian an objective conjugation. The case system is elaborate and generally comprises twelve or fifteen forms. The negative conjugation is peculiar; there are negative adjectives ending in tem or tom and abessive cases (e.g. Finnish syyttä, without a cause, tiedotta, without knowledge).

Permian, Syryenian and Votiak exhibit this common development less fully than the more western languages. They are less completely inflected than the Finnish languages and more thoroughly agglutinative in the strict sense. In vocabulary, e.g. the numerals, they show resemblances to the Ugrian division. Syryenian has older literary remains than any Finno-Ugrian language except Hungarian. In the latter part of the 14th century Russian missionaries composed in it various manuals and translations, using a special alphabet for the purpose.

Unlike the Finnish and Esthonian branch, the languages of the Volga Finns (Mordvinian and Cheremissian) have been influenced by Russian and Tatar rather than by Scandinavian, and hence show apparent differences. But Mordvinian has points of detailed resemblance to Finnish which seem to point to a comparatively late separation, e.g. the use of kemen for ten, -nza as the possessive suffix of the third personal pronoun, the regular formation of the imperfect with i, the infinitive with ma, and the participle with f (Finnish va). On the other hand it has many peculiarities. It retains an objective conjugation like the Ugrian languages, and has developed two forms of declension, the definite and indefinite.

Cheremissian has affinities to both the Permian languages and Mordvinian. It resembles Syryenian in its case terminations and also in marking the plural by interposing a distinct syllable (Syry. yas, Cher. vlya) between the singular and the case suffixes. Most of the numerals are like Syryenian but kändekhsye, indekhsye, for eight and nine, recall Finnish forms (kahdeksan, yhdeksän), as do also the pronouns.

The connexion between the various West Finnish languages is more obvious than between those already discussed. Lappish (or Lapponic) forms a link between them and Mordvinian. Its pronouns are remarkably like the Mordvinian equivalents, but the general system of declension and conjugation, both positive and negative, is much as in Finnish. Superficially, however, the resemblance is somewhat obscured by the difference in phonetics, for Lappish has an extraordinary fondness for diphthongs and also an unusually ample provision of consonants.

The affinity of Esthonian (together with Votish, Vepsish and Livish) to Finnish is obvious not only to the philologist but to the casual learner. In a few cases it shows older forms than Finnish, but on the whole is less primitive and has assumed under foreign influence the features of a European language even more thoroughly. The vowel-harmony is found only in the Dorpat dialect and there imperfectly, the pronominal affixes are not used, and the negative has become an unvarying particle, though in Vepsish and Votish it takes suffixes as in Finnish. On the other hand, the laws for the change of consonants, the general system of phonetics, the declension, the pronouns and the positive conjugation of the verb all closely resemble Finnish. Esthonian has two chief dialects, those of Reval and Dorpat, and a certain amount of literary culture, the best-known work being the national epic or Kalewi-poeg.

Finnish proper is divided into two chief dialects, the Karelian or Eastern, and the Tavastland or Western. The spoken language of the Karelians is corrupt and mixed with Russian, but the Kalewala and their other old songs are written in a pure Finnish dialect, which has come to be accepted as the ordinary language of poetry throughout modern Finland, just as the Homeric dialect was used by the Greeks for epic poetry. It is more archaic than the Tavastland dialect and preserves many old forms which have been lost elsewhere, but its utterance is softer and it sometimes rejects consonants which are retained in ordinary speech, e.g. saa’a, kosen for saada, kosken.

The affinity of Finnish to the more eastern languages of the group is clear, but it has been profoundly influenced by Scandinavian and in its present form consists of non-Aryan material recast in an Aryan and European mould. Not only are some of the simplest words borrowed from Scandinavian, but the grammar has been radically modified. Un-Aryan peculiarities have been rejected, though perhaps less than in Esthonian. The various forms of nouns and verbs are not merely roots with a string of obvious suffixes attached, but the termination forms a whole with the root as in Greek and Latin inflections; the adjective is declined and compared and agrees with its substantive; compound tenses are formed with the aid of the auxiliary verb, and there is a full supply of relative pronouns and particles.

Finnish and Hungarian together with Turkish are interesting examples of non-Aryan languages trying to participate, by both translation and imitation, in the literary life of Europe, but it may be doubted if the experiment is successful. The sense of effort is felt less in Hungarian than in the other languages; though they are admirable instruments for terse conversation or popular poetry, there appears to be some deep-seated difference in the force of the verb and the structure of phrases which renders them clumsy and complicated when they attempt to express sentences of the type common in European literature.

III. Civilization and Religion.—The Finno-Ugric tribes have not been equally progressive; some, such as the Finns and Magyars, have adopted, at least in towns, the ordinary civilization of Europe; others are agriculturists; others still nomadic. The wilder tribes, such as the Ostiaks, Voguls and Lapps, mostly consist of one section which is nomadic and another which is settling down. The following notes apply to traces of ancient conditions which survive sporadically but are nowhere universal. Few except the Hungarians have shown themselves warlike, though we read of conflicts with the Russians in the middle ages as they advanced among this older population. But most Finno-Ugrians are astute and persevering hunters, and the Ostiaks still shoot game with a bow. The tribes are divided into numerous small clans which are exogamous. Marriage by capture is said to survive among the Cheremiss, who are still polygamous in some districts, but purchase of the bride is the more general form. Women are treated as servants and often excluded from pagan religious ceremonies. The most primitive form of house consists of poles inclined towards one another and covered with skins or sods, so as to form a circular screen round a fire; winter houses are partly underground. Long snow-shoes are used in winter and boats are largely employed in summer. The Finns in particular are very good seamen. The Ostiaks and Samoyedes still cast tin ornaments in wooden moulds. The variation of the higher numerals in the different languages, which are sometimes obvious loan words, shows that the original system did not extend beyond seven, and the aptitude for calculating and trading is not great. Several thousands of the Ostiaks, Voguls and Cheremiss are still unbaptized, and much paganism lingers among the nominal Christians, and in poetry such as the Kalewala. The deities are chiefly nature spirits and the importance of the several gods varies as the tribes are hunters, fishermen, &c. Sun or sky worship is found among the Samoyedes and Jumala, the Finnish word for god, seems originally to mean sky. The Ostiaks worship a water-spirit of the river Obi and also a thunder-god. We hear of a forest-god among the Finns, Lapps and Cheremiss. There are also clan gods worshipped by each clan with special ceremonies. Traces of ancestor-worship are also found. The Samoyedes and Ostiaks are said to sacrifice to ghosts, and the Ostiaks to make images of the more important dead, which are tended and honoured, as if alive, for some years. Images are found in the tombs and barrows of most tribes, and the Samoyedes, Ostiaks and Voguls still use idols, generally of wood. Animal sacrifices are offered, and the lips of the idol sometimes smeared with blood. Quaint combinations of Christianity and paganism occur; thus the Cheremiss are said to sacrifice to the Virgin Mary. The idea that disease is due to possession by an evil spirit, and can be both caused and cured by spells, seems to prevail among all tribes, and in general extraordinary power is supposed to reside in incantations and magical formulae. This belief is conspicuous in the Kalewala, and almost every tribe has its own collection of prayers, healing charms and spells to be used on the most varied occasions. A knowledge of these formulae is possessed by wizards (Finnish noita) corresponding to the Shamans of the Altaic peoples. They are exorcists and also mediums who can ascertain the will of the gods; a magic drum plays a great part in their invocations, and their office is generally hereditary. The non-Buddhist elements of Chinese and Japanese religion present the same features as are found among the Finno-Ugrians—nature-worship, ancestor-worship and exorcism—but in a much more elaborate and developed form.

IV. History.—Most of the Finno-Ugrian tribes have no history or written records, and little in the way of traditions of their past. In their later period the Hungarians and Finns enter to some extent the course of ordinary European history. For the earlier period we have no positive information, but the labours of investigators, especially in Finland, have collected a great number of archaeological and philological data from which an account of the ancient wanderings of these tribes may be constructed. Barrows containing skulls and ornaments may mark the advance of a special form of culture, and language may be of assistance; if we find, for instance, a language with loan words of an archaic type, we may conclude that it was in contact with the other language from which it borrowed at the time when such forms were current. But clearly all such deductions contain a large element of theory, and the following sketch is given with all reserve.

The Finno-Ugrian tribes originally lived together east of the Urals and spoke a common language. It is not certain if they were all of the same physical type, for the association of different races speaking one language is common in central Asia. They were hunters and fishermen, not agriculturists. At an unknown period the Finns, still undivided, moved into Europe and perhaps settled on the Volga and Oka. They had perhaps arrived there before 1500 B.C., learned some rudiments of agriculture, and developed their system of numbers up to ten. They were still in the neolithic stage. About 600 B.C. they came in contact with an Iranian people, from whom they learned the use of metals, and borrowed numerals for a hundred (Finnish sata, Ostiak sāt, Magyar szaz; cf. Zend sata) and a thousand (Magyar ezer; cf. hazanra and hazar). Magyar and some other languages also borrowed a word for ten (tíz, cf. das). This Iranian race may perhaps have been the Scythians, who are believed by many authorities to have been Iranians and to be represented by the Osetians of the Caucasus. There was probably a trade route up the Volga in the 4th century B.C. About that time the Western Finns must have broken away from the Mordvinians and wandered north-westwards. At a period not much later than the Christian era, they must have come in contact with Letto-Lithuanian peoples in the Baltic provinces, and also with Scandinavians. Whether they came in contact with the latter first in the Baltic provinces or in Finland itself is disputed, as there may have been Scandinavians in the Baltic provinces. But the distribution of tombs and barrows seems to indicate that they entered Finland not from the east through Karelia but from the Baltic provinces by sea to Satakunta and the south-east coast, whence they extended eastwards. From both Lithuanians and Scandinavians they borrowed an enormous quantity of culture-words and probably the ideas and materials they indicate. Thus the Finnish words for gold, king and everything concerned with government are of Scandinavian origin. Their migration to Finland was probably complete about A.D. 800. Meanwhile the Slav tribes known later as Russians were coming up from the south and pressed the Finns northwards, overwhelming but not annihilating them in the country between St Petersburg and Moscow. The same movement tended to drive the Eastern Finns and Ugrians backwards towards the east. The Finns know the Russians by the name of Venäjä, or Wends, and as this name is not used by Slavs themselves but by Scandinavians and Teutons, it seems clear that they arrived among the Finns as greater strangers than the Scandinavians and known by a foreign name. Christianity was perhaps first preached to the Finns as early as A.D. 1000, but there was a long political and religious struggle with the Swedes. At the end of the 13th century Finland was definitely converted and annexed to Sweden, remaining a dependency of that country until 1809, when it was ceded to Russia.

The Ugrians and Eastern Finns took no part in the westward movement and did not fall under western influences but came into contact with Tatar tribes and were more or less Tatarized. In some cases this took the form of the adoption of a Tatar language, in others (Mordvin, Cheremis and Votiak) a large number of Tatar words were borrowed. We also know that there were considerable settlements of these tribes, perhaps amounting to states, on the Volga and in south-eastern Russia. Such was Great Bulgaria, which continued until destroyed by the Mongols in 1238. The pressure of tribes farther east acting on these settlements dislodged sections of them from time to time and created the series of invasions which devastated the East Roman empire from the 5th century onwards. But we do not know what were the languages spoken by the Huns, Bulgarians, Pechenegs and Avars, so that we cannot say whether they were Turks, Finns or Ugrians, nor does it follow that a horde speaking a Ugrian language were necessarily Ugrians by race. An inspection of the performances of the various tribes, as far as we can distinguish them, suggests that the Turks or Tatars were the warlike element. The names Hun and Hungarian may possibly be the same as Hiung-nu, but we cannot assume that this tribe passed across Asia unchanged in language and physique. The Hungarians entered on their present phase at the end of the 9th century of this era, when they crossed the Carpathians and conquered the old Pannonia and Dacia. For half a century or so before this invasion they are said to have inhabited Atelkuzu, probably a district between the Dnieper and the Danube. The isolated groups of Hungarians now found in Transylvania and called Szeklers are considered the purest descendants of the invading Magyars. Those who settled in the plains of Hungary probably mingled there with remnants of Huns, Avars and earlier invaders, and also with subsequent invaders, such as Pechenegs and Kumans.

Bibliography.—Among the older writers may be mentioned Strahlenberg (Das nord- und östliche Theil von Europa und Asia, 1730), Johann Gottlieb Georgi (Description de toutes les nations de l’empire de la Russie, French tr., St Petersburg, 1777); but especially the various works of Matthias A. Castrén (1852-1853) and W. Schott (1858). Modern scientific knowledge of the Finno-Ugrians and their languages was founded by these two authors. Among newer works some of the most important separate publications are: J.R. Aspelin, Antiquités du nord finno-ougrien (1877-1884); J. Abercromby, Pre- and Proto-historic Finns (1898); and A. Hackmann, Die ältere Eisenzeit in Finnland (1905).

The recent literature on the origin, customs, antiquities and languages of these races is voluminous, but is contained chiefly not in separate books but in special learned periodicals. Of these there are several: Journal de la Société Finno-ougrienne (Helsingfors) (Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seuran Aikakauskirja); Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen (Helsingfors and Leipzig); Mitteilungen der archäologischen, historischen und ethnographischen Gesellschaft der Kais. Universität zu Kasan; Keleti Szemle or Revue orientale pour les études ouralo-altaïques (Budapest). In all of these will be found numerous valuable articles by such authors as Ahlqvist, Halévy, Heikel, Krohn, Muncácsi, Paasonen, Setälä, Smurnow, Thomsen and Vambéry.

The titles of grammars and dictionaries will be found under the headings of the different languages. For general linguistic questions may be consulted the works of Castrén, Schott and Otto Donner, also such parts of the following as treat of Finno-Ugric languages: Byrne, Principles of the Structure of Language, vol. i. (1892); Friedrich Müller, Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft II., Band ii., Abth. 1882; Steinthal and Misleli, Abriss der Sprachwissenschaft (1893).

(C. El.)

FINSBURY, a central metropolitan borough of London, England, bounded N. by Islington, E. by Shoreditch, S. by the city of London and W. by Holborn and St Pancras. Pop. (1901) 101,463. The principal thoroughfares are Pentonville Road, from King’s Cross east to the Angel, Islington, continuing E. and S. in City Road and S. again to the City in Moorgate Street; Clerkenwell Road and Old Street, crossing the centre from W. to E., King’s Cross Road running S.E. into Farringdon Road, and so to the City; St John Street and Road and Goswell Road (the residence of Dickens’ Pickwick) running S. from the Angel towards the City; and Rosebery Avenue running S.W. from St John Street into Holborn. The commercial character of the City extends into the southern part of the borough; the residential houses are mostly those of artisans. Local industries include working in precious metals, watch-making, printing and paper-making.

An early form of the name is Vynesbury, but the derivation is not known. The place was supposed by some to take name from an extensive fen, a part of which, commonly known as Moorfields (cf. Moorgate Street), was drained in the 16th century and subsequently laid out as public grounds. It was a frequent resort of Pepys, who mentions its houses of entertainment and the wrestling and other pastimes carried on, also that it furnished a refuge for many of those whose houses were destroyed in the fire of London in 1666. Bookstalls and other booths were numerous at a somewhat later date. The borough includes the parish of Clerkenwell (q.v.), a locality of considerable historic interest, including the former priory of St John, Clerkenwell, of which the gateway and other traces remain. Among several other sites and buildings of historical interest the Charterhouse (q.v.) west of Aldersgate Street, stands first, originally a Carthusian monastery, subsequently a hospital and a school out of which grew the famous public school at Godalming. Bunhill Fields, City Road, was used by the Dissenters as a burial-place from the middle of the 17th century until 1832. Among eminent persons interred here are John Bunyan, Daniel Defoe, Susanna, mother of John and Charles Wesley, and George Fox, founder of the Society of Friends. A neighbouring chapel is intimately associated with the Wesleys, and the house of John Wesley is opened as a museum bearing his name. Many victims of the plague were buried in a pit neighbouring to these fields, near the junction of Goswell Road and Old Street. To the south of the fields lies the Artillery Ground, the training ground of the Honourable Artillery Company, so occupied since 1641, with barracks and armoury. Sadler’s Wells theatre, Rosebery Avenue, dating as a place of entertainment from 1683, preserves the name of a fashionable medicinal spring, music room and theatre, the last most notable in its connexion with the names of Joseph Grimaldi the clown and Samuel Phelps. Other institutions are the technical college, Leonard Street, and St Mark’s, St Luke’s and the Royal chest hospitals. At Mount Pleasant is the parcels department of the general post office, and at Clerkenwell Green the sessions house for the county of London (north side of the Thames). Adjacent to Rosebery Avenue are reservoirs of the New River Head. The municipal borough coincides with the east and central divisions of the parliamentary borough of Finsbury, each returning one member. The borough council consists of a mayor, 9 aldermen and 54 councillors. Area, 589.1 acres.

FINSTERWALDE, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Prussia, on the Schackebach, a tributary of the Little Elster, 28 m. W.S.W. of Cottbus by rail. Pop. (1905) 10,726. The town has a Gothic church (1581), a château, schools, cloth and cigar factories, iron-foundries, flour and saw mills and factories for machine building. The town, which is first mentioned in 1288, came into the possession of electoral Saxony in 1635 and of Prussia in 1815.

FIORENZO DI LORENZO (c. 1440-1522), Italian painter, of the Umbrian school, lived and worked at Perugia, where most of his authentic works are still preserved in the Pinacoteca. There is probably no other Italian master of importance of whose life and work so little is known. In fact the whole edifice that modern scientific criticism has built around his name is based on a single signed and dated picture (1487) in the Pinacoteca of Perugia—a niche with lunette, two wings and predella—and on the documentary evidence that he was decemvir of that city in 1472, in which year he entered into a contract to paint an altarpiece for Santa Maria Nuova—the pentatych of the “Madonna and Saints” now in the Pinacoteca. Of his birth and death and pupilage nothing is known, and Vasari does not even mention Fiorenzo’s name, though he probably refers to him when he says that Cristofano, Perugino’s father, sent his son to be the shop drudge of a painter in Perugia, “who was not particularly distinguished in his calling, but held the art in great veneration and highly honoured the men who excelled therein.” Certain it is that the early works both of Perugino and of Pinturicchio show certain mannerisms which point towards Fiorenzo’s influence, if not to his direct teaching. The list of some fifty pictures which modern critics have ascribed to Fiorenzo includes works of such widely varied character that one can hardly be surprised to find great divergence of opinion as regards the masters under whom Fiorenzo is supposed to have studied. Pisanello, Verrocchio, Benozzo Gozzoli, Antonio Pollaiuolo, Benedetto Bonfigli, Mantegna, Squarcione, Filippo Lippi, Signorelli and Ghirlandajo have all been credited with this distinguished pupil, who was the most typical Umbrian painter that stands between the primitives and Perugino; but the probability is that he studied under Bonfigli and was indirectly influenced by Gozzoli. Fiorenzo’s authentic works are remarkable for their sense of space and for the expression of that peculiar clear, soft atmosphere which is so marked a feature in the work of Perugino. But Fiorenzo has an intensity of feeling and a power of expressing character which are far removed from the somewhat affected grace of Perugino. Of the forty-five pictures bearing Fiorenzo’s name in the Pinacoteca of Perugia, the eight charming St Bernardino panels are so different from his well-authenticated works, so Florentine in conception and movement, that the Perugian’s authorship is very questionable. On the other hand the beautiful “Nativity,” the “Adoration of the Magi,” and the “Adoration of the Shepherds” in the same gallery, may be accepted as the work of his hand, as also the fresco of SS. Romano and Rocco at the church of S. Francesco at Deruta. The London National Gallery, the Berlin and the Frankfort museums contain each a “Madonna and Child” ascribed to the master, but the attribution is in each case open to doubt.

See Jean Carlyle Graham, The Problem of Fiorenzo di Lorenzo (Perugia, 1903); Edward Hutton, The Cities of Umbria (London).

(P. G. K.)

FIORENZUOLA D’ARDA, a town of Emilia, Italy, in the province of Piacenza, from which it is 14 m. S.E. by rail, 270 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 7792. It is traversed by the Via Aemilia, and has a picturesque piazza with an old tower in the centre. The Palazzo Grossi also is a fine building. Alseno lies 4 m. to the S.E., and near it is the Cistercian abbey of Chiaravalle della Colomba, with a fine Gothic church and a large and beautiful cloister (in brick and Verona marble), of the 12th-14th century.

FIORILLO, JOHANN DOMINICUS (1748-1821), German painter and historian of art, was born at Hamburg on the 13th of October 1748. He received his first instructions in art at an academy of painting at Bayreuth; and in 1761, to continue his studies, he went first to Rome, and next to Bologna, where he distinguished himself sufficiently to attain in 1769 admission to the academy. Returning soon after to Germany, he obtained the appointment of historical painter to the court of Brunswick. In 1781 he removed to Göttingen, occupied himself as a drawing-master, and was named in 1784 keeper of the collection of prints at the university library. He was appointed professor extraordinary in the philosophical faculty in 1799, and ordinary professor in 1813. During this period he had made himself known as a writer by the publication of his Geschichte der zeichnenden Künste, in 5 vols. (1798-1808). This was followed in 1815 to 1820 by the Geschichte der zeichnenden Künste in Deutschland und den vereinigten Niederlanden, in 4 vols. These works, though not attaining to any high mark of literary excellence, are esteemed for the information collected in them, especially on the subject of art in the later middle ages. Fiorillo practised his art almost till his death, but has left no memorable masterpiece. The most noticeable of his painting is perhaps the “Surrender of Briseis.” He died at Göttingen on the 10th of September 1821.

FIR, the Scandinavian name originally given to the Scotch pine (Pinus sylvestris), but at present not infrequently employed as a general term for the whole of the true conifers (Abielineae); in a more exact sense, it has been transferred to the “spruce” and “silver firs,” the genera Picea and Abies of most modern botanists.

The firs are distinguished from the pines and larches by having their needle-like leaves placed singly on the shoots, instead of growing in clusters from a sheath on a dwarf branch. Their cones are composed of thin, rounded, closely imbricated scales, each with a more or less conspicuous bract springing from the base. The trees have usually a straight trunk, and a tendency to a conical or pyramidal growth, throwing out each year a more or less regular whorl of branches from the foot of the leading shoot, while the buds of the lateral boughs extend horizontally.

In the spruce firs (Picea), the cones are pendent when mature and their scales persistent; the leaves are arranged all round the shoots, though the lower ones are sometimes directed laterally. In the genus Abies, the silver firs, the cones are erect, and their scales drop off when the seed ripens; the leaves spread in distinct rows on each side of the shoot.

The most important of the firs, in an economic sense, is the Norway spruce (Picea excelsa), so well known in British plantations, though rarely attaining there the gigantic height and grandeur of form it often displays in its native woods. Under favourable conditions of growth it is a lofty tree, with a nearly straight, tapering trunk, throwing out in somewhat irregular whorls its widespreading branches, densely clothed with dark, clear green foliage. The boughs and their side-branches, as they increase in length, have a tendency to droop, the lower tier, even in large trees, often sweeping the ground—a habit that, with the jagged sprays, and broad, shadowy, wave-like foliage-masses, gives a peculiarly graceful and picturesque aspect to the Norway spruce. The slender, sharp, slightly curved leaves are scattered thickly around the shoots; the upper one pressed towards the stem, and the lower directed sideways, so as to give a somewhat flattened appearance to the individual sprays. The elongated cylindrical cones grow chiefly at the ends of the upper branches; they are purplish at first, but become afterwards green, and eventually light brown; their scales are slightly toothed at the extremity; they ripen in the autumn, but seldom discharge their seeds until the following spring.

The tree is very widely distributed, growing abundantly on most of the mountain ranges of northern and central Europe; while in Asia it occurs at least as far east as the Lena, and in latitude extends from the Altaic ranges to beyond the Arctic circle. On the Swiss Alps it is one of the most prevalent and striking of the forest trees, its dark evergreen foliage often standing out in strong contrast to the snowy ridges and glaciers beyond. In the lower districts of Sweden it is the predominant tree in most of the great forests that spread over so large a portion of that country. In Norway it constitutes a considerable part of the dense woods of the southern dales, flourishing, according to Franz Christian Schübeler, on the mountain slopes up to an altitude of from 2800 to 3100 ft., and clothing the shores of some of the fjords to the water’s edge; in the higher regions it is generally mingled with the pine. Less abundant on the western side of the fjelds, it again forms woods in Nordland, extending in the neighbourhood of the coast nearly to the 67th parallel; but it is, in that arctic climate, rarely met with at a greater elevation than 800 ft. above the sea, though in Swedish Lapland it is found on the slope of the Sulitelma as high as 1200 ft., its upper limit being everywhere lower than that of the pine. In all the Scandinavian countries it is known as the Gran or Grann. Great tracts of low country along the southern shores of the Baltic and in northern Russia are covered with forests of spruce. It everywhere shows a preference for a moist but well-drained soil, and never attains its full stature or luxuriance of growth upon arid ground, whether on plain or mountain—a peculiarity that should be remembered by the planter. In a favourable soil and open situation it becomes the tallest and one of the stateliest of European trees, rising sometimes to a height of from 150 to 170 ft., the trunk attaining a diameter of from 5 to 6 ft. at the base. But when it grows in dense woods, where the lower branches decay and drop off early, only a small head of foliage remaining at the tapering summit, its stem, though frequently of great height, is rarely more than 1½ or 2 ft. in thickness. Its growth is rapid, the straight leading shoot, in the vigorous period of the tree, often extending 2½ or even 3 ft. in a single season. In its native habitats it is said to endure for several centuries; but in those countries from which the commercial supply of its timber is chiefly drawn, it attains perfection in from 70 to 90 years, according to soil and situation.

Plate I.

SILVER FIR (Abies pectinata). A, Cone and foliage.	SPRUCE FIR (Picea excelsa). B, Cone and foliage.
HEMLOCK SPRUCE (Tsuga canadensis) C, Cone, seed and foliage.	DOUGLAS FIR (Pseudo-tsuga Douglasii). D, Cone, seed and foliage.
Photos by Henry Irving.

Plate II.

CYPRESS (Cupressus sempervirens).A, Cone and branchlets.		JUNIPER (Juniperus communis).B, Fruit and foliage.
ARAUCARIA (A. imbricata, Chile pine or monkey-puzzle).C, Seed-bearing cone and a single scale with seed.	YEW (Taxus baccata).D, Seed and foliage.
Photos by Henry Irving.

In the most prevalent variety of the Norway spruce the wood is white, apt to be very knotty when the tree has grown in an open place, but, as produced in the close northern forests, often of fine and even grain. Immense quantities are imported into Britain from Norway, Sweden and Prussia, under the names of “white Norway,” “Christiania” and “Danzig deal.” The larger trees are sawn up into planks and battens, much used for the purposes of the builder, especially for flooring, joists and rafters. Where not exposed to the weather the wood is probably as lasting as that of the pine, but, not being so resinous, appears less adapted for out-door uses. Great quantities are sent from Sweden in a manufactured state, in the form of door and window-frames and ready-prepared flooring, and much of the cheap “white deal” furniture is made of this wood. The younger and smaller trees are remarkably durable, especially when the bark is allowed to remain on them; and most of the poles imported into Britain for scaffolding, ladders, mining-timber and similar uses are furnished by this fir. Small masts and spars are often made of it, and are said to be lighter than those of pine. The best poles are obtained in Norway from small, slender, drawn-up trees, growing under the shade of the larger ones in the thick woods, these being freer from knots, and tougher from their slower growth. A variety of the spruce, abounding in some parts of Norway, produces a red heartwood, not easy to distinguish from that of the Norway pine (Scotch fir), and imported with it into England as “red deal” or “pine.” This kind is sometimes seen in plantations, where it may be recognized by its shorter, darker leaves and longer cones. The smaller branches and the waste portion of the trunks, left in cutting up the timber, are exported as fire-wood, or used for splitting into matches. The wood of the spruce is also employed in the manufacture of wood-pulp for paper.

The resinous products of the Norway spruce, though yielded by the tree in less abundance than those furnished by the pine, are of considerable economic value. In Scandinavia a thick turpentine oozes from cracks or fissures in the bark, forming by its congelation a fine yellow resin, known commercially as “spruce rosin,” or “frankincense”; it is also procured artificially by cutting off the ends of the lower branches, when it slowly exudes from the extremities. In Switzerland and parts of Germany, where it is collected in some quantity for commerce, a long strip of bark is cut out of the tree near the root; the resin that slowly accumulates during the summer is scraped out in the latter part of the season, and the slit enlarged slightly the following spring to ensure a continuance of the supply. The process is repeated every alternate year, until the tree no longer yields the resin in abundance, which under favourable circumstances it will do for twenty years or more. The quantity obtained from each fir is very variable, depending on the vigour of the tree, and greatly lessens after it has been subjected to the operation for some years. Eventually the tree is destroyed, and the wood rendered worthless for timber, and of little value even for fuel. From the product so obtained most of the better sort of “Burgundy pitch” of the druggists is prepared. By the peasantry of its native countries the Norway spruce is applied to innumerable purposes of daily life. The bark and young cones afford a tanning material, inferior indeed to oak-bark, and hardly equal to that of the larch, but of value in countries where substances more rich in tannin are not abundant. In Norway the sprays, like those of the juniper, are scattered over the floors of churches and the sitting-rooms of dwelling-houses, as a fragrant and healthful substitute for carpet or matting. The young shoots are also given to oxen in the long winters of those northern latitudes, when other green fodder is hard to obtain. In times of scarcity the Norse peasant-farmer uses the sweetish inner bark, beaten in a mortar and ground in his primitive mill with oats or barley, to eke out a scanty supply of meal, the mixture yielding a tolerably palatable though somewhat resinous substitute for his ordinary flad-brod. A decoction of the buds in milk or whey is a common household remedy for scurvy; and the young shoots or green cones form an essential ingredient in the spruce-beer drank with a similar object, or as an occasional beverage. The well-known “Danzig-spruce” is prepared by adding a decoction of the buds or cones to the wort or saccharine liquor before fermentation. Similar preparations are in use wherever the spruce fir abounds. The wood is burned for fuel, its heat-giving power being reckoned in Germany about one-fourth less than that of beech. From the widespreading roots string and ropes are manufactured in Lapland and Bothnia: the longer ones which run near the surface are selected, split through, and then boiled for some hours in a ley of wood-ashes and salt, which, dissolving out the resin, loosens the fibres and renders them easily separable, and ready for twisting into cordage. Light portable boats are sometimes made of very thin boards of fir, sewn together with cord thus manufactured from the roots of the tree.

The Norway spruce seems to have been the “Picea” of Pliny, but is evidently often confused by the Latin writers with their “Abies,” the Abies pectinata of modern botanists. From an equally loose application of the word “fir” by our older herbalists, it is difficult to decide upon the date of introduction of this tree into Britain; but it was commonly planted for ornamental purposes in the beginning of the 17th century. In places suited to its growth it seems to flourish nearly as well as in the woods of Norway or Switzerland; but as it needs for its successful cultivation as a timber tree soils that might be turned to agricultural account, it is not so well adapted for economic planting in Britain as the Scotch fir or larch, which come to perfection in more bleak and elevated regions, and on comparatively barren ground, though it may perhaps be grown to advantage on some moist hill-sides and mountain hollows. Its great value to the English forester is as a “nurse” for other trees, for which its dense leafage and tapering form render it admirably fitted, as it protects, without overshading, the young saplings, and yields saleable stakes and small poles when cut out. For hop-poles it is not so well adapted as the larch. As a picturesque tree, for park and ornamental plantation, it is among the best of the conifers, its colour and form contrasting yet harmonizing with the olive green and rounded outline of oaks and beeches, or with the red trunk and glaucous foliage of the pine. When young its spreading boughs form good cover for game. The fresh branches, with their thick mat of foliage, are useful to the gardener for sheltering wall-fruit in the spring. In a good soil and position the tree sometimes attains an enormous size: one in Studley Park, Yorkshire, attained nearly 140 ft. in height, and the trunk more than 6 ft. in thickness near the ground. The spruce bears the smoke of great cities better than most of the Abietineae; but in suburban localities after a certain age it soon loses its healthy appearance, and is apt to be affected with blight (Eriosoma), though not so much as the Scotch fir and most of the pines.

The black spruce (Picea nigra) is a tree of more formal growth than the preceding. The branches grow at a more acute angle and in more regular whorls than those of the Norway spruce; and, though the lower ones become bent to a horizontal position, they do not droop, so that the tree has a much less elegant appearance. The leaves, which grow very thickly all round the stem, are short, nearly quadrangular, and of a dark greyish-green. The cones, produced in great abundance, are short and oval in shape, the scales with rugged indented edges; they are deep purple when young, but become brown as they ripen. The tree also occurs in the New England states and extends over nearly the whole of British North America, its northern limit occurring at about 67° N. lat., often forming a large part of the dense forests, mostly in the swampy districts. A variety with lighter foliage and reddish bark is common in Newfoundland and some districts on the mainland adjacent. The trees usually grow very close together, the slender trunks rising to a great height bare of branches; but they do not attain the size of the Norway spruce, being seldom taller than 60 or 70 ft., with a diameter of 1½ or 2 ft. at the base. This species prefers a peaty soil, and often grows luxuriantly in very moist situations. The wood is strong, light and very elastic, forming an excellent material for small masts and spars, for which purpose the trunks are used in America, and exported largely to England. The sawn timber is inferior to that of P. excelsa, besides being of a smaller size. In the countries in which it abounds, the log-houses of the settlers are often built of the long straight trunks. The spruce-beer of America is generally made from the young shoots of this tree. The small twigs, tied in bundles, are boiled for some time in water with broken biscuit or roasted grain; the resulting decoction is then poured into a cask with molasses or maple sugar and a little yeast, and left to ferment. It is often made by the settlers and fishermen of the St Lawrence region, being esteemed as a preventive of scurvy. The American “essence of spruce,” occasionally used in England for making spruce-beer, is obtained by boiling the shoots and buds and concentrating the decoction. The resinous products of the tree are of no great value. It was introduced into Britain at the end of the 17th century.

The white spruce (Picea alba), sometimes met with in English plantations, is a tree of lighter growth than the black spruce, the branches being more widely apart; the foliage is of a light glaucous green; the small light-brown cones are more slender and tapering than in P. nigra, and the scales have even edges. It is of comparatively small size, but is of some importance in the wilds of the Canadian dominion, where it is found to the northern limit of tree-vegetation growing up to at least 69°; the slender trunks yield the only useful timber of some of the more desolate northern regions. In the woods of Canada it occurs frequently mingled with the black spruce and other trees. The fibrous tough roots, softened by soaking in water, and split, are used by the Indians and voyageurs to sew together the birch-bark covering of their canoes; and a resin that exudes from the bark is employed to varnish over the seams. It was introduced to Great Britain at the end of the 17th century and was formerly more extensively planted than at present.

The hemlock spruce (Tsuga canadensis) is a large tree, abounding in most of the north-eastern parts of America up to Labrador; in lower Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia it is often the prevailing tree. The short leaves are flat, those above pressed close to the stem, and the others forming two rows; they are of a rather light green tint above, whitish beneath. The cones are very small, ovate and pointed. The large branches droop, like those of the Norway spruce, but the sprays are much lighter and more slender, rendering the tree one of the most elegant of the conifers, especially when young. When old, the branches, broken and bent down by the winter snows, give it a ragged but very picturesque aspect. The trunk is frequently 3 ft. thick near the base. The hemlock prefers rather dry and elevated situations, often forming woods on the declivities of mountains. The timber is very much twisted in grain, and liable to warp and split, but is used for making plasterers’ laths and for fencing; “shingles” for roofing are sometimes made of it. The bark, split off in May or June, forms one of the most valuable tanning substances in Canada. The sprays are sometimes used for making spruce-beer and essence of spruce. It was introduced into Great Britain in about the year 1736.

The Douglas spruce (Pseudo-tsuga Douglasii), one of the finest conifers, often rises to a height of 200 ft. and sometimes considerably more, while the gigantic trunk frequently measures 8 or 10 ft. across. The yew-like leaves spread laterally, and are of a deep green tint; the cones are furnished with tridentate bracts that project far beyond the scales. It forms extensive forests in Vancouver Island, British Columbia and Oregon, whence the timber is exported, being highly prized for its strength, durability and even grain, though very heavy; it is of a deep yellow colour, abounding in resin, which oozes from the thick bark. It was introduced into Britain soon after its rediscovery by David Douglas in 1827, and has been widely planted, but does not flourish well where exposed to high winds or in too shallow soil.

Of the Abies group, the silver fir (A. pectinata), may be taken as the type,—a lofty tree, rivalling the Norway spruce in size, with large spreading horizontal boughs curving upward toward the extremities. The flat leaves are arranged in two regular, distinct rows; they are deep green above, but beneath have two broad white lines, which, as the foliage in large trees has a tendency to curl upwards, give it a silvery appearance from below. The large cones stand erect on the branches, are cylindrical in shape, and have long bracts, the curved points of which project beyond the scales. When the tree is young the bark is of a silvery grey, but gets rough with age. This tree appears to have been the true “Abies” of the Latin writers—the “pulcherrima abies” of Virgil. From early historic times it has been held in high estimation in the south of Europe, being used by the Romans for masts and all purposes for which timber of great length was required. It is abundant in most of the mountain ranges of southern and central Europe, but is not found in the northern parts of that continent. In Asia it occurs on the Caucasus and Ural, and in some parts of the Altaic chain. Extensive woods of this fir exist on the southern Alps, where the tree grows up to nearly 4000 ft.; in the Rhine countries it forms great part of the extensive forest of the Hochwald, and occurs in the Black Forest and in the Vosges; it is plentiful likewise on the Pyrenees and Apennines. The wood is inferior to that of Picea excelsa, but, being soft and easily worked, is largely employed in the countries to which it is indigenous for all the purposes of carpentry. Articles of furniture are frequently made of it, and it is in great esteem for carving and for the construction of stringed instruments. Deficient in resin, the wood is more perishable than that of the spruce fir when exposed to the air, though it is said to stand well under water. The bark contains a large amount of a fine, highly-resinous turpentine, which collects in tumours on the trunk during the heat of summer. In the Alps and Vosges this resinous semi-fluid is collected by climbing the trees and pressing out the contents of the natural receptacles of the bark into horn or tin vessels held beneath them. After purification by straining, it is sold as “Strasburg turpentine,” much used in the preparation of some of the finer varnishes. Burgundy pitch is also prepared from it by a similar process as that from Picea excelsa. A fine oil of turpentine is distilled from the crude material; the residue forms a coarse resin. Introduced into Britain at the beginning of the 17th century, the silver fir has become common there as a planted tree, though, like the Norway spruce, it rarely comes up from seed scattered naturally. There are many fine trees in Scotland; one near Roseneath, figured by Strutt in his Sylva Britannica, then measured more than 22 ft. round the trunk. In the more southern parts of the island it often reaches a height of 90 ft., and specimens exist considerably above that size; but the young shoots are apt to be injured in severe winters, and the tree on light soils is also hurt by long droughts, so that it usually presents a ragged appearance; though, in the distance, the lofty top and horizontal boughs sometimes stand out in most picturesque relief above the rounded summits of the neighbouring trees. The silver fir flourishes in a deep loamy soil, and will grow even upon stiff clay, when well drained—a situation in which few conifers will succeed. On such lands, where otherwise desirable, it may sometimes be planted with profit. The cones do not ripen till the second year.

The silver fir of Canada (A. balsamea), a small tree resembling the last species in foliage, furnishes the “Canada balsam”; it abounds in Quebec and the adjacent provinces.

Numerous other firs are common in gardens and shrubberies, and some furnish valuable products in their native countries; but they are not yet of sufficient economic or general interest to demand mention here.

For further information see Veitch’s Manual of Coniferae (2nd ed., 1900).

FIRDOUSĪ, Firdausī or Firdusī, Persian poet. Abu ’l Kāsim Mansur (or Hasan), who took the nom de plume of Firdousī, author of the epic poem the Shāhnāma, or “Book of Kings,” a complete history of Persia in nearly 60,000 verses, was born at Shadab, a suburb of Tūs, about the year 329 of the Hegira (941 A.D.), or earlier. His father belonged to the class of Dihkans (the old native country families and landed proprietors of Persia, who had preserved their influence and status under the Arab rule), and possessed an estate in the neighbourhood of Tūs (in Khorasan). Firdousī’s own education eminently qualified him for the gigantic task which he subsequently undertook, for he was profoundly versed in the Arabic language and literature and had also studied deeply the Pahlavi or Old Persian, and was conversant with the ancient historical records which existed in that tongue.

The Shāhnāma of Firdousī (see also [Persia]: Literature) is perhaps the only example of a poem produced by a single author which at once took its place as the national epic of the people. The nature of the work, the materials from which it was composed, and the circumstances under which it was written are, however, in themselves exceptional, and necessarily tended to this result. The grandeur and antiquity of the empire and the vicissitudes through which it passed, their long series of wars and the magnificent monuments erected by their ancient sovereigns, could not fail to leave numerous traces in the memory of so imaginative a people as the Persians. As early as the 5th century of the Christian era we find mention made of these historical traditions in the work of an Armenian author, Moses of Chorene (according to others, he lived in the 7th or 8th century). During the reign of Chosroes I. (Anushirvan) the contemporary of Mahomet, and by order of that monarch, an attempt had been made to collect, from various parts of the kingdom, all the popular tales and legends relating to the ancient kings, and the results were deposited in the royal library. During the last years of the Sassanid dynasty the work was resumed, the former collection being revised and greatly added to by the Dihkan Danishwer, assisted by several learned mobeds. His work was entitled the Khoda’ināma, which in the old dialect also meant the “Book of Kings.” On the Arab invasion this work was in great danger of perishing at the hands of the iconoclastic caliph Omar and his generals, but it was fortunately preserved; and we find it in the 2nd century of the Hegira being paraphrased in Arabic by Abdallah ibn el Mokaffa, a learned Persian who had embraced Islam. Other Guebres occupied themselves privately with the collection of these traditions; and, when a prince of Persian origin, Yakūb ibn Laith, founder of the Saffarid dynasty, succeeded in throwing off his allegiance to the caliphate, he at once set about continuing the work of his illustrious predecessors. His “Book of Kings” was completed in the year 260 of the Hegira, and was freely circulated in Khorasan and Irak. Yakūb’s family did not continue long in power; but the Samanid princes who succeeded applied themselves zealously to the same work, and Prince Nūh II., who came to the throne in 365 A.H. (A.D. 976), entrusted it to the court poet Dakiki, a Guebre by religion. Dakiki’s labours were brought to a sudden stop by his own assassination, and the fall of the Samanian house happened not long after, and their kingdom passed into the hands of the Ghaznevids. Mahmūd ibn Sabuktagin, the second of the dynasty (998-1030), continued to make himself still more independent of the caliphate than his predecessors, and, though a warrior and a fanatical Moslem, extended a generous patronage to Persian literature and learning, and even developed it at the expense of the Arabic institutions. The task of continuing and completing the collection of the ancient historical traditions of the empire especially attracted him. With the assistance of neighbouring princes and of many of the influential Dihkans, Mahmud collected a vast amount of materials for the work, and after having searched in vain for a man of sufficient learning and ability to edit them faithfully, and having entrusted various episodes for versification to the numerous poets whom he had gathered round him, he at length made choice of Firdousī. Firdousī had been always strongly attracted by the ancient Pahlavi records, and had begun at an early age to turn them into Persian epic verse. On hearing of the death of the poet Dakiki, he conceived the ambitious design of himself carrying out the work which the latter had only just commenced; and, although he had not then any introduction to the court, he contrived, thanks to one of his friends, Mahommed Lashkari, to procure a copy of the Dihkan Danishwer’s collection, and at the age of thirty-six commenced his great undertaking. Abu Mansur, the governor of Tūs, patronized him and encouraged him by substantial pecuniary support. When Mahmud succeeded to the throne, and evinced such active interest in the work, Firdousī was naturally attracted to the court of Ghazni. At first court jealousies and intrigues prevented Firdousī from being noticed by the sultan; but at length one of his friends, Mahek, undertook to present to Mahmud his poetic version of one of the well-known episodes of the legendary history. Hearing that the poet was born at Tūs, the sultan made him explain the origin of his native town, and was much struck with the intimate knowledge of ancient history which he displayed. Being presented to the seven poets who were then engaged on the projected epic, Abu ’l Kāsim was admitted to their meetings, and on one occasion improvised a verse, at Mahmud’s request, in praise of his favourite Ayāz, with such success that the sultan bestowed upon him the name of Firdousī, saying that he had converted his assemblies into paradise (Firdous). During the early days of his sojourn at court an incident happened which contributed in no small measure to the realization of his ambition. Three of the seven poets were drinking in a garden when Firdousī approached, and wishing to get rid of him without rudeness, they informed him who they were, and told him that it was their custom to admit none to their society but such as could give proof of poetical talent. To test his acquirements they proposed that each should furnish an extemporary line of verse, his own to be the last, and all four ending in the same rhyme. Firdousī accepted the challenge, and the three poets having previously agreed upon three rhyming words to which a fourth could not be found in the Persian language, ’Ansari began—

“Thy beauty eclipses the light of the sun”;

Farrakhi added—

“The rose with thy cheek would comparison shun”;

’Asjadi continued—

“Thy glances pierce through the mailed warrior’s johsun”;[1]

and Firdousī, without a moment’s hesitation, completed the quatrain—

“Like the lance of fierce Giv in his fight with Poshun.”

The poets asked for an explanation of this allusion, and Firdousī recited to them the battle as described in the Shāhnāma, and delighted and astonished them with his learning and eloquence.

Mahmud now definitely selected him for the work of compiling and versifying the ancient legends, and bestowed upon him such marks of his favour and munificence as to elicit from the poet an enthusiastic panegyric, which is inserted in the preface of the Shāhnāma, and forms a curious contrast to the bitter satire which he subsequently prefixed to the book. The sultan ordered his treasurer, Khojah Hasan Maimandi, to pay to Firdousī a thousand gold pieces for every thousand verses; but the poet preferred allowing the sum to accumulate till the whole was finished, with the object of amassing sufficient capital to construct a dike for his native town of Tūs, which suffered greatly from defective irrigation, a project which had been the chief dream of his childhood. Owing to this resolution, and to the jealousy of Hasan Maimandi, who often refused to advance him sufficient for the necessaries of life, Firdousī passed the later portion of his life in great privation, though enjoying the royal favour and widely extended fame. Amongst other princes whose liberal presents enabled him to combat his pecuniary difficulties, was one Rustam, son of Fakhr Addaula, the Dailamite, who sent him a thousand gold pieces in acknowledgment of a copy of the episode of Rustam and Isfendiar which Firdousī had sent him, and promised him a gracious reception if he should ever come to his court. As this prince belonged, like Firdousī, to the Shiah sect, while Mahmud and Maimandi were Sunnites, and as he was also politically opposed to the sultan, Hasan Maimandi did not fail to make the most of this incident, and accused the poet of disloyalty to his sovereign and patron, as well as of heresy. Other enemies and rivals also joined in the attack, and for some time Firdousī’s position was very precarious, though his pre-eminent talents and obvious fitness for the work prevented him from losing his post. To add to his troubles he had the misfortune to lose his only son at the age of 37.

At length, after thirty-five years’ work, the book was completed (1011), and Firdousī entrusted it to Ayāz, the sultan’s favourite, for presentation to him. Mahmud ordered Hasan Maimandi to take the poet as much gold as an elephant could carry, but the jealous treasurer persuaded the monarch that it was too generous a reward, and that an elephant’s load of silver would be sufficient. 60,000 silver dirhems were accordingly placed in sacks, and taken to Firdousī by Ayāz at the sultan’s command, instead of the 60,000 gold pieces, one for each verse, which had been promised. The poet was at that moment in the bath, and seeing the sacks, and believing that they contained the expected gold, received them with great satisfaction, but finding only silver he complained to Ayāz that he had not executed the sultan’s order. Ayāz related what had taken place between Mahmud and Hasan Maimandi, and Firdousī in a rage gave 20 thousand pieces to Ayāz himself, the same amount to the bath-keeper, and paid the rest to a beer seller for a glass of beer (fouka), sending word back to the sultan that it was not to gain money that he had taken so much trouble. On hearing this message, Mahmud at first reproached Hasan with having caused him to break his word, but the wily treasurer succeeded in turning his master’s anger upon Firdousī to such an extent that he threatened that on the morrow he would “cast that Carmathian (heretic) under the feet of his elephants.” Being apprised by one of the nobles of the court of what had taken place, Firdousī passed the night in great anxiety; but passing in the morning by the gate that led from his own apartments into the palace, he met the sultan in his private garden, and succeeded by humble apologies in appeasing his wrath. He was, however, far from being appeased himself, and determined at once upon quitting Ghazni. Returning home he tore up the draughts of some thousands of verses which he had composed and threw them in the fire, and repairing to the grand mosque of Ghazni he wrote upon the walls, at the place where the sultan was in the habit of praying, the following lines:—

“The auspicious court of Mahmud, king of Zabulistan, is like a sea. What a sea! One cannot see its shore. If I have dived therein without finding any pearls it is the fault of my star and not of the sea.”

He then gave a sealed paper to Ayāz, begging him to hand it to the sultan in a leisure moment after 20 days had elapsed, and set off on his travels with no better equipment than his staff and a dervish’s cloak. At the expiration of the 20 days Ayāz gave the paper to the sultan, who on opening it found the celebrated satire which is now always prefixed to copies of the Shāhnāma, and which is perhaps one of the bitterest and severest pieces of reproach ever penned. Mahmud, in a violent rage, sent after the poet and promised a large reward for his capture, but he was already in comparative safety. Firdousī directed his steps to Mazandaran, and took refuge with Kabus, prince of Jorjan, who at first received him with great favour, and promised him his continued protection and patronage; learning, however, the circumstances under which he had left Ghazni, he feared the resentment of so powerful a sovereign as Mahmud, who he knew already coveted his kingdom, and dismissed the poet with a magnificent present. Firdousī next repaired to Bagdad, where he made the acquaintance of a merchant, who introduced him to the vizier of the caliph, al-Qadir, by presenting an Arabic poem which the poet had composed in his honour. The vizier gave Firdousī an apartment near himself, and related to the caliph the manner in which he had been treated at Ghazni. The caliph summoned him into his presence, and was so much pleased with a poem of a thousand couplets, which Firdousī composed in his honour, that he at once received him into favour. The fact of his having devoted his life and talents to chronicling the renown of fire-worshipping Persians was, however, somewhat of a crime in the orthodox caliph’s eyes; in order therefore to recover his prestige, Firdousī composed another poem of 9000 couplets on the theme borrowed from the Koran of the loves of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife—Yūsuf and Zuleikha (edited by H. Ethé, Oxford, 1902; complete metrical translation by Schlechta-Wssehrd, Vienna, 1889). This poem, though rare and little known, is still in existence—the Royal Asiatic Society possessing a copy. But Mahmud had by this time heard of his asylum at the court of the caliph, and wrote a letter menacing his liege lord, and demanding the surrender of the poet. Firdousī, to avoid further troubles, departed for Ahwaz, a province of the Persian Irak, and dedicated his Yūsuf and Zuleikha to the governor of that district. Thence he went to Kohistan, where the governor, Nasir Lek, was his intimate and devoted friend, and received him with great ceremony upon the frontier. Firdousī confided to him that he contemplated writing a bitter exposition of his shameful treatment at the hands of the sultan of Ghazni; but Nasir Lek, who was a personal friend of the latter, dissuaded him from his purpose, but himself wrote and remonstrated with Mahmud. Nasir Lek’s message and the urgent representations of Firdousī’s friends had the desired effect; and Mahmud not only expressed his intention of offering full reparation to the poet, but put his enemy Maimandi to death. The change, however, came too late; Firdousī, now a broken and decrepit old man, had in the meanwhile returned to Tūs, and, while wandering through the streets of his native town, heard a child lisping a verse from his own satire in which he taunts Mahmud with his slavish birth:—

He was so affected by this proof of universal sympathy with his misfortunes that he went home, fell sick and died. He was buried in a garden, but Abu’l Kasim Jurjani, chief sheikh of Tūs, refused to read the usual prayers over his tomb, alleging that he was an infidel, and had devoted his life to the glorification of fire-worshippers and misbelievers. The next night, however, having dreamt that he beheld Firdousī in paradise dressed in the sacred colour, green, and wearing an emerald crown, he reconsidered his determination; and the poet was henceforth held to be perfectly orthodox. He died in the year 411 of the Hegira (1020 A.D.), aged about eighty, eleven years after the completion of his great work. The legend goes that Mahmud had in the meanwhile despatched the promised hundred thousand pieces of gold to Firdousī, with a robe of honour and ample apologies for the past. But as the camels bearing the treasure reached one of the gates of the city, Firdousī’s funeral was leaving it by another. His daughter, to whom they brought the sultan’s present, refused to receive it; but his aged sister remembering his anxiety for the construction of the stone embankment for the river of Tūs, this work was completed in honour of the poet’s memory, and a large caravanserai built with the surplus.

Much of the traditional life, as given above, which is based upon that prefixed to the revised edition of the poem, undertaken by order of Baisingar Khan, grandson of Timur-i-Leng (Timur), is rejected by modern scholars (see T. Nöldeke, “Das iranische Nationalepos,” in W. Geiger’s Grundriss der iranischen Philologie, ii. pp. 150-158).

The Shāhnāma is based, as we have seen, upon the ancient legends current among the populace of Persia, and collected by the Dihkans, a class of men who had the greatest facilities for this purpose. There is every reason therefore to believe that Firdousī adhered faithfully to these records of antiquity, and that the poem is a perfect storehouse of the genuine traditions of the country.

The entire poem (which only existed in MS. up to the beginning of the 19th century) was published (1831-1868) with a French translation in a magnificent folio edition, at the expense of the French government, by the learned and indefatigable Julius von Mohl. The size and number of the volumes, however, and their great expense, made them difficult of access, and Frau von Mohl published the French translation (1876-1878) with her illustrious husband’s critical notes and introduction in a more convenient and cheaper form. Other editions are by Turner Macan (Calcutta, 1829), J.A. Vullers and S. Landauer (unfinished; Leiden, 1877-1883). There is an English abridgment by J. Atkinson (London, 1832; reprinted 1886, 1892); there is a verse-translation, partly rhymed and partly unrhymed, by A.G. and E. Warner (1905 foll.), with an introduction containing an account of Firdousī and the Shāhnāma; the version by A. Rogers (1907) contains the greater part of the work. The episode of Sohrab and Rustam is well known to English readers from Matthew Arnold’s poem. The only complete translation is Il Libro dei Rei, by I. Pizzi (8 vols., Turin, 1886-1888), also the author of a history of Persian poetry.

See also E.G. Browne’s Literary History of Persia, i., ii. (1902-1906); T. Nöldeke (as above) for a full account of the Shāhnāma, editions, &c.; and H. Ethé, “Neupersische Litteratur,” in the same work.

(E. H. P.; X.)

[1] A sort of cuirass.

FIRE (in O. Eng. fýr; the word is common to West German languages, cf. Dutch vuur, Ger. Feuer; the pre-Teutonic form is seen in Sanskrit pū, pāvaka, and Gr. πῦρ; the ultimate origin is usually taken to be a root meaning to purify, cf. Lat. purus), the term commonly used for the visible effect of combustion (see [Flame]), operating as a heating or lighting agency.

So general is the knowledge of fire and its uses that it is a question whether we have any authentic instance on record of a tribe altogether ignorant of them. A few notices indeed are to be found in the voluminous literature of travel which would decide the question in the affirmative; but when they are carefully investigated, their evidence is found to be far from conclusive. The missionary Krapf was told by a slave of a tribe in the southern part of Shoa who lived like monkeys in the bamboo jungles, and were totally ignorant of fire; but no better authority has been found for the statement, and the story, which seems to be current in eastern Africa, may be nothing else than the propagation of fables about the Pygmies whom the ancients located around the sources of the Nile. Lieut. Charles Wilkes, commander of the United States exploring expedition of 1838-42, says that in Fakaafo or Bowditch Island “there was no sign of places for cooking nor any appearance of fire,” and that the natives felt evident alarm at the sparks produced by flint and steel and the smoke emitted by those with cigars in their mouths. The presence of the word afi, fire, in the Fakaafo vocabulary supplied by Hale the ethnographer of the expedition, though it might perhaps be explained as equivalent only to solar light and heat, undoubtedly invalidates the supposition of Wilkes; and the Rev. George Turner, in an account of a missionary voyage in 1859, not only repeats the word afi in his list for Fakaafo, but relates the native legend about the origin of fire, and describes some peculiar customs connected with its use. Alvaro de Saavedra, an old Spanish traveller, informs us that the inhabitants of Los Jardines, an island of the Pacific, showed great fear when they saw fire—which they did not know before. But that island has not been identified with certainty by modern explorers. It belongs, perhaps, to the Ladrones or Marianas Archipelago, where fire was unknown, says Padre Gobien, “till Magellan, wroth at the pilferings of the inhabitants, burnt one of their villages. When they saw their wooden huts ablaze, their first thought was that fire was a beast which eats up wood. Some of them having approached the fire too near were burnt, and the others kept aloof, fearing to be torn or poisoned by the powerful breath of that terrible animal.” To this Freycinet objects that these Ladrone islanders made pottery before the arrival of Europeans, that they had words expressing the ideas of flame, fire, oven, coals, roasting and cooking. Let us add that in their country numerous graves and ruins have been found, which seem to be remnants of a former culture. Thus the question remains in uncertainty: though there is nothing impossible in the supposition of the existence of a fireless tribe, it cannot be said that such a tribe has been discovered.

It is useless to inquire in what way man first discovered that fire was subject to his control, and could even be called into being by appropriate means. With the natural phenomenon and its various aspects he must soon have become familiar. The volcano lit up the darkness of night and sent its ashes or its lava down into the plains; the lightning or the meteor struck the tree, and the forest was ablaze; or some less obvious cause produced some less extensive ignition. For a time it is possible that the grand manifestations of nature aroused no feelings save awe and terror; but man is quite as much endowed with curiosity as with reverence or caution, and familiarity must ere long have bred confidence if not contempt. It is by no means necessary to suppose that the practical discovery of fire was made only at one given spot and in one given way; it is much more probable indeed that different tribes and races obtained the knowledge in a variety of ways.

It has been asserted of many tribes that they would be unable to rekindle their fires if they were allowed to die out. Travellers in Australia and Tasmania depict the typical native woman bearing always about with her a burning brand, which it is one of her principal duties to protect and foster; and it has been supposed that it was only ignorance which imposed on her the endless task. This is absurd. The Australian methods of producing fire by the friction of two pieces of wood are perfectly well known, and are illustrated in Howitt’s Native Tribes of South-East Australia, pp. 771-773. To carry a brand saves a little trouble to the men.

The methods employed for producing fire vary considerably in detail, but are for the most part merely modified applications of concussion or friction. Lord Avebury has remarked that the working up of stone into implements must have been followed sooner or later by the discovery of fire; for in the process of chipping sparks were elicited, and in the process of polishing heat was generated. The first or concussion method is still familiar in the flint and steel, which has hardly passed out of use even in the most civilized countries. Its modifications are comparatively few and unimportant. The Alaskans and Aleutians take two pieces of quartz, rub them well with native sulphur, strike them together till the sulphur catches fire, and then transfer the flame to a heap of dry grass over which a few feathers have been scattered. Instead of two pieces of quartz the Eskimos use a piece of quartz and a piece of iron pyrites. Mr Frederick Boyle saw fire produced by striking broken china violently against a bamboo, and Bastian observed the same process in Burma, and Wallace in Ternate. In Cochin China two pieces of bamboo are considered sufficient, the silicious character of the outside layer rendering it as good as native flint. The friction methods are more various. One of the simplest is what E.B. Tylor calls the stick and groove—“a blunt pointed stick being run along a groove of its own making in a piece of wood lying on the ground.” Much, of course, depends on the quality of the woods and the expertness of the manipulator. In Tahiti Charles Darwin saw a native produce fire in a few seconds, but only succeeded himself after much labour. The same device was employed in New Zealand, the Sandwich Islands, Tonga, Samoa and the Radak Islands. Instead of rubbing the movable stick backwards and forwards other tribes make it rotate rapidly in a round hole in the stationary piece of wood—thus making what Tylor has happily designated a fire-drill. This device has been observed in Australia, Kamchatka, Sumatra and the Carolines, among the Veddahs of Ceylon, throughout a great part of southern Africa, among the Eskimo and Indian tribes of North America, in the West Indies, in Central America, and as far south as the Straits of Magellan. It was also employed by the ancient Mexicans, and Tylor gives a quaint picture of the operation from a Mexican MS.—a man half kneeling on the ground is causing the stick to rotate between the palms of his hands. This simple method of rotation seems to be very generally in use; but various devices have been resorted to for the purpose of diminishing the labour and hastening the result. The Gaucho of the Pampas takes “an elastic stick about 18 in. long, presses one end to his breast and the other in a hole in a piece of wood, and then rapidly turns the curved part like a carpenter’s centre-bit.” In other cases the rotation is effected by means of a cord or thong wound round the drill and pulled alternately by this end and that. In order to steady the drill the Eskimo and others put the upper end in a socket of ivory or bone which they hold firmly in their mouth. A further advance was made by the Eskimo and neighbouring tribes, who applied the principle of the bow-drill; and the still more ingenious pump-drill was used by the Onondaga Indians. For full descriptions of these instruments and a rich variety of details connected with fire-making we must refer the reader to Tylor’s valuable chapter in his Researches. These methods of producing fire are but rarely used in Europe, and only in connexion with superstitious observances. We read in Wuttke that some time ago the authorities of a Mecklenburg village ordered a “wild fire” to be lit against a murrain amongst the cattle. For two hours the men strove vainly to obtain a spark, but the fault was not to be ascribed to the quality of the wood, or to the dampness of the atmosphere, but to the stubbornness of an old lady, who, objecting to the superstition, would not put out her night lamp; such a fire, to be efficient, must burn alone. At last the strong-minded female was compelled to give in; fire was obtained—-but of bad quality, for it did not stop the murrain.

It has long been known that the rays of the sun might be concentrated by a lens or concave mirror. Aristophanes mentions the burning-lens in The Clouds, and the story of Archimedes using a mirror to fire the ships at Syracuse is familiar to every schoolboy. If Garcilasso de la Vega can be trusted as an authority the Virgins of the Sun in Peru kindled the sacred fire with a concave cup set in a great bracelet. In China the burning-glass is in common use.

To the inquiry how mankind became possessed of fire, the cosmogonies, those records of pristine speculative thought, do not give any reply which would not be found in the relations of travellers and historians.

They say in the Tonga Islands that the god of the earthquakes is likewise the god of fire. At Mangaïa it is told that the great Maui went down to hell, where he surprised the secret of making fire by rubbing two pieces of wood together. The Maoris tell the tale differently. Maui had the fire given to him by his old blind grandmother, Mahuika, who drew it from the nails of her hands. Wishing to have a stronger one, he pretended that it had gone out, and so he obtained fire from her great toe. It was so fierce that every thing melted before the glow; even Maui and the grandmother herself were already burning when a deluge, sent from heaven, saved the hero and the perishing world; but before the waters extinguished all the blaze, Mahuika shut a few sparks into some trees, and thence men draw it now. The Maoris have also the legend that thunder is the noise of Tawhaki’s footsteps, and that lightnings flash from his armpits. At Western Point, Victoria, the Australians say the good old man Pundyil opened the door of the sun, whose light poured then on earth, and that Karakorok, the good man’s good daughter, seeing the earth to be full of serpents, went everywhere destroying serpents; but before she had killed them all, her staff snapped in two, and while it broke, a flame burst out of it. Here the serpent-killer is a fire-bringer. In the Persian Shahnama also fire was discovered by a dragon-fighter. Hushenk, the powerful hero, hurled at the monster a prodigious stone, which, evaded by the snake, struck a rock and was splintered by it. “Light shone from the dark pebble, the heart of the rock flashed out in glory, and fire was seen for the first time in the world.” The snake escaped, but the mystery of fire had been revealed.

North American legends narrate how the great buffalo, careering through the plains, makes sparks flit in the night, and sets the prairie ablaze by his hoofs hitting the rocks. We meet the same idea in the Hindu mythology, which conceives thunder to have been, among many other things, the clatter of the solar horses on the Akmon or hard pavement of the sky. The Dakotas claim that their ancestor obtained fire from the sparks which a friendly panther struck with its claws, as it scampered upon a stony hill.

Tohil, who gave the Quiches fire by shaking his sandals, was, like the Mexican Quetzelcoatl, represented by a flint stone. Guamansuri, the father of the Peruvians, produced the thunder and the lightning by hurling stones with his sling. The thunderbolts are his children. Kudai, the great god of the Altaian Tartars, disclosed “the secret of the stone’s edge and the iron’s hardness.” The Slavonian god of thunder was depicted with a silex in his hand, or even protruding from his head. The Lapp Tiermes struck with his hammer upon his own head; the Scandinavian Thor held a mallet in one hand, a flint in the other. Taranis, the Gaul, had upon his head a huge mace surrounded by six little ones. Finnish poems describe how “fire, the child of the sun, came down from heaven, where it was rocked in a tub of yellow copper, in a large pail of gold.” Ukko, the Esthonian god, sends forth lightnings, as he strikes his stone with his steel. According to the Kalewala, the same mighty Ukko struck his sword against his nail, and from the nail issued the “fiery babe.” He gave it to the Wind’s daughter to rock it, but the unwary maiden let it fall in the sea, where it was swallowed by the great pike, and fire would have been lost for ever if the child of the sun had not come to the rescue. He dragged the great pike from the water, drew out his entrails, and found there the heavenly spark still alive. Prometheus brought to earth the torch he had lighted at the sun’s chariot.

Human culture may be said to have begun with fire, of which the uses increased in the same ratio as culture itself. To save the labour expended on the initial process of procuring light, or on carrying it about constantly, primitive men hit on the expedient of a fire which should burn night and day in a public building. The Egyptians had one in every temple, the Greeks, Latins and Persians in all towns and villages. The Natchez, the Aztecs, the Mayas, the Peruvians had their “national fires” burning upon large pyramids. Of these fires the “eternal lamps” in the synagogues, in the Byzantine and Catholic churches, may be a survival. The “Regia,” Rome’s sacred centre, supposed to be the abode of Vesta, stood close to a fountain; it was convenient to draw from the same spot the two great requisites, fire and water. All civil and political interests grouped themselves around the prytaneum which was at once a temple, a tribunal, a town-hall, and a gossiping resort: all public business and most private affairs were transacted by the light and in the warmth of the common fire. No wonder that its flagstones should become sacred. Primitive communities consider as holy everything that ensures their existence and promotes their welfare, material things such as fire and water not less than others. Thus the prytaneum grew into a religious institution. And if we hear a little more of fire worship than of water worship, it is because fire, being on the whole more difficult to obtain, was esteemed more precious. The prytaneum and the state were convertible terms. If by chance the fire in the Roman temple of Vesta was extinguished, all tribunals, all authority, all public or private business had to stop immediately. The connexion between heaven and earth had been broken, and it had to be restored in some way or other—either by Jove sending down divine lightning on his altars, or by the priests making a new fire by the old sacred method of rubbing two pieces of wood together, or by catching the rays of the sun in a concave mirror. No Greek or Roman army crossed the frontier without carrying an altar where the fire taken from the prytaneum burned night and day. When the Greeks sent out colonies the emigrants took with them living coals from the altar of Hestia, and had in their new country a fire lit as a representative of that burning in the mother country.[1] Not before the three curiae united their fires into one could Rome become powerful; and Athens became a shining light to the world only, we are told, when the twelve tribes of Attica, led by Theseus, brought each its brand to the altar of Athene Polias. All Greece confederated, making Delphi its central hearth; and the islands congregated around Delos, whence the new fire was fetched every year.

Periodic Fires.—Because the sun loses its force after noon, and after midsummer daily shortens the length of its circuit, the ancients inferred, and primitive populations still believe, that, as time goes on, the energies of fire must necessarily decline. Therefore men set about renewing the fires in the temples and on the hearth on the longest day of summer or at the beginning of the agricultural year. The ceremony was attended with much rejoicing, banqueting and many religious rites. Houses were thoroughly cleansed; people bathed, and underwent lustrations and purifications; new clothes were put on; quarrels were made up; debts were paid by the debtor or remitted by the creditor; criminals were released by the civil authorities in imitation of the heavenly judges, who were believed to grant on the same day a general remission of sins. All things were made new; each man turned over a new page in the book of his existence. Some nations, like the Etruscans in the Old World and the Peruvians and Mexicans in the New, carried these ideas to a high degree of development, and celebrated with magnificent ceremonies the renewal of the saecula, or astronomic periods, which might be shorter or longer than a century. Some details of the festival among the Aztecs have been preserved. On the last night of every period (52 years) every fire was extinguished, and men proceeded in solemn procession to some sacred spot, where, with awe and trembling, the priests strove to kindle a new fire by friction. It was as if they had a vague idea that the cosmos, with its sun, moon and stars, had been wound up like a clock for a definite period of time. And had they failed to raise the vital spark, they would have believed that it was because the great fire was being extinguished at the central hearth of the world. The Stoics and many other ancient philosophers thought that the world was doomed to final extinction by fire. The Scandinavian bards sung the end of the world, how at last the wolf Fenrir would get loose, how the cruel fire of Loki would destroy itself by destroying everything. The Essenes enlarged upon this doctrine, which is also found in the Sibylline books and appears in the Apocrypha (2 Esdras xvi. 15).

See Dupuis, Origine de tous les cultes (1794); Burnout, Science des religions; Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, cap. xx. (1835); Adalbert Kuhn. Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Göttertranks (1859); Steinthal, Über die ursprüngliche Form der Sage von Prometheus (1861); Albert Reville, “Le Mythe de Prométhée,” in Revue des deux mondes (August 1862); Michel Bréal, Hercule et Cacus (1863); Tylor, Researches into the Early History of Mankind, ch. ix. (1865); Bachofen, Die Sage von Tanaquil (1870); Lord Avebury, Prehistoric Times (6th ed., 1900); Haug, Religion of the Parsis (1878).

(E. Re.)

[1] Curiously enough we see the same institution obtaining among the Damaras of South Africa, where the chiefs, who sway their people with a sort of priestly authority, commit to their daughters the care of a so-called eternal fire. From its hearth younger scions separating from the parent stock take away a burning brand to their new home. The use of a common prytaneum, of circular form, like the Roman temple of Vesta, testified to the common origin of the North American Assinais and Maichas. The Mobiles, the Chippewas, the Natchez, had each a corporation of Vestals. If the Natchez let their fire die out, they were bound to renew it from the Mobiles. The Moquis, Pueblos and Comanches had also their perpetual fires. The Redskins discussed important affairs of state at the “council fires,” around which each sachem marched three times, turning to it all the sides of his person. “It was a saying among our ancestors,” said an Iroquois chief in 1753, “that when the fire goes out at Onondaga”—the Delphi of the league—“we shall no longer be a people.”

FIRE AND FIRE EXTINCTION. Fire is considered in this article, primarily, from the point of view of the protection against fire that can be accorded by preventive measures and by the organization of fire extinguishing establishments.

History is full of accounts of devastation caused by fires in towns and cities of nearly every country in the civilized world. The following is a list of notable fires of early days:—

Great Britain and Ireland

798. London, nearly destroyed.

982. London, greater part of the city burned.

1086. London, all houses and churches from the east to the west gate burned.

1212. London, greater part of the city burned.

1666. London, “The Great Fire,” September 2-6.

It began in a wooden house in Pudding Lane, and burned for three days, consuming the buildings on 436 acres, 400 streets, lanes, &c., 13,200 houses, with St Paul’s church, 86 parish churches, 6 chapels, the guild-hall, the royal exchange, the custom-house, many hospitals and libraries, 52 companies’ halls, and a vast number of other stately edifices, together with three of the city gates, four stone bridges, and the prisons of Newgate, the Fleet, and the Poultry and Wood Street Compters. The fire swept from the Tower to Temple church, and from the N.E. gate to Holborn bridge. Six persons were killed. The total loss of property was estimated at the time to be £10,731,500.

1794. London, 630 houses destroyed at Wapping. Loss above £1,000,000.

1834. London, Houses of Parliament burned.

1861. London, Tooley Street wharves, &c., burned. Loss estimated at £2,000,000.

1873. London, Alexandra palace destroyed.

1137. York, totally destroyed.

1184. Glastonbury, town and abbey burned.

1292. Carlisle, destroyed.

1507. Norwich, nearly destroyed; 718 houses burned.

1544. Leith, burned.

1598. Tiverton, 400 houses and a large number of horses burned; 33 persons killed. Loss, £150,000.

1612. Tiverton, 600 houses burned. Loss over £200,000.

1731. Tiverton, 300 houses burned.

1700. Edinburgh, “the Great Fire.”

1612. Cork, greater part burned, and again in 1622.

1613. Dorchester, nearly destroyed. Loss, £200,000.

1614. Stratford-on-Avon, burned.

1644. Beaminster, burned. Again in 1684 and 1781.

1675. Northampton, almost totally destroyed.

1683. Newmarket, large part of the town burned.

1694. Warwick, more than half burned; rebuilt by national contribution.

1707. Lisburn, burned.

1727. Gravesend, destroyed.

1738. Wellingborough, 800 houses burned.

1743. Crediton, 450 houses destroyed.

1760. Portsmouth, dockyard burned. Loss, £400,000.

1770. Portsmouth, dockyard burned. Loss, £100,000.

1802. Liverpool, destructive fire. Loss, £1,000,000.

1827. Sheerness, 50 houses and much property destroyed.

1854. Gateshead, 50 persons killed. Loss, £1,000,000.

1875. Glasgow. Great fire. Loss, £300,000.

France

59. Lyons, burned to ashes. Nero offers to rebuild it.

1118. Nantes, greater part of the city destroyed.

1137. Dijon, burned.

1524. Troyes, nearly destroyed.

1720. Rennes, on fire from December 22 to 29. 850 houses burned.

1784. Brest. Fire and explosion in dockyard. Loss, £1,000,000.

1862. Marseilles, destructive fire.

1871. Paris. Communist devastations. Property destroyed, £32,000,000.

Central and Southern Europe

64. Rome burned during 8 days. 10 of the 14 wards of the city were destroyed.

1106. Venice, greater part of the city was burned.

1577. “ fire at the arsenal, greater part of the city ruined by an explosion.

1299. Weimar, destructive fire; also in 1424 and 1618.

1379. Memel was in large part destroyed, and again in 1457, 1540, 1678, 1854.

1405. Bern was destroyed.

1420. Leipzig lost 400 houses.

1457. Dort, cathedral and large part of the town burned.

1491. Dresden was destroyed.

1521. Oviedo, large part of the city destroyed.

1543. Komorn was burned.

1634. Fürth was burned by Austrian Croats.

1680. Fürth was again destroyed.

1686. Landau was almost destroyed.

1758. Pirna was burned by Prussians. 260 houses destroyed.

1762. Munich lost 200 houses.

1764. Königsberg, public buildings, &c., burned. Loss, £600,000.

1769. Königsberg, almost destroyed.

1784. Rokitzan (Bohemia) was totally destroyed. Loss, £300,000.

1801. Brody, 1500 houses destroyed.

1859. Brody, 1000 houses destroyed.

1803. Posen, large part of older portion of city burned.

1811. Forest fires in Tyrol destroyed 64 villages and hamlets.

1818. Salzburg was partly destroyed.

1842. Hamburg. A fire raged for 100 hours, May 5-7.

During the fire the city was in a state of anarchy. 4219 buildings, including 2000 dwellings, were destroyed. One-fifth of the population was made homeless, and 100 persons lost their lives. The total loss amounted to £7,000,000. After the fire, contributions from all Germany came in to help to rebuild the city.

1861. Glarus (Switzerland), 500 houses burned.

Northern Europe

1530. Aalborg, almost entirely destroyed.

1541. Aarhuus, almost entirely destroyed, and again in 1556.

1624. Opslo, nearly destroyed. Christiania was built on the site.

1702. Bergen, greater part of the town destroyed.

1728. Copenhagen, nearly destroyed. 1650 houses burned, 77 streets.

1794. Copenhagen, royal palace with contents burned.

1795. Copenhagen, 50 streets, 1563 houses burned.

1751. Stockholm, 1000 houses destroyed.

1759. Stockholm, 250 houses burned. Loss, 2,000,000 crowns.

1775. Åbo, 200 houses and 15 mills burned.

1827. Åbo, 780 houses burned, with the university.

1790. Carlscrona, 1087 houses, churches, warehouses, &c., destroyed.

1802. Gothenburg, 178 houses burned.

1858. Christiania. Loss estimated at £250,000.

1865. Carlstadt (Sweden), everything burned except the bishop’s residence, hospital and jail. 10 lives lost.

Russia

1736. St Petersburg, 2000 houses burned.

1862. St Petersburg, great fire. Loss, £1,000,000.

1752. Moscow, 18,000 houses burned.

1812. Moscow, The Russians fired the city on September 14 to drive out the army of Napoleon. The fire continued five days. Nine-tenths of the city was destroyed. Number of houses burned, 30,800. Loss, £30,000,000.

1753. Archangel, 900 houses burned.

1793. Archangel, 3000 buildings and the cathedral burned.

1786. Tobolsk, nearly destroyed.

1788. Milau, nearly destroyed.

1812. Riga, partly destroyed.

1834. Tula, destructive fire.

1848. Orel, large part of the town destroyed.

1850. Cracow, large part of the town burned.

1864. Novgorod, large amount of property destroyed.

Turkey

The following fires have occurred at Constantinople:—

1729. A great fire destroyed 12,000 houses and 7000 people.

1745. A fire lasted five days.

1750. In January, 10,000 houses burned; in April, property destroyed estimated from £1,000,000 to £3,000,000. Later in the year 10,000 houses were destroyed.

1751. 4000 houses were burned.

1756. 15,000 houses and 100 people destroyed. During the years 1761, 1765 and 1767 great havoc was made by fire.

1769. July 17. A fire raged for twelve hours, extending nearly 1 m. in length. Many of the palaces, some small mosques and nearly 650 houses were destroyed.