ecution of his projects indicates the possession of uncommon tact, energy, patience, and enthusiasm. These qualities were aided by the address and manners of a natural gentleman. He was eminently popular in his lifetime, and his name is still regarded with affectionate veneration by his countrymen. In 1846 congress passed an act appropriating $76,300 in full of the claims of Fulton against the United States for inventing floating steam batteries, superintending the construction of the steam frigate Fulton, and for the great benefits conferred on the country by his improvements in the application of steam to navigation.-In Sparks's "American Biography" (1st series, vol. x.) there is a life of Fulton by James Renwick. "The Life of Robert Fulton,' by C. D. Colden, 1 vol. 8vo., was published in New York in 1817.

FULVIA, a Roman lady, of the illustrious Fulvian family, born about 80, died about 40 B. C. She was married successively to 3 renowned men, Clodius, Curio, and Mark Antony, and had part in arranging the fearful proscriptions of the 2d triumvirate. When the head of Cicero was brought to her, she pierced the tongue with her needle. To withdraw Antony from Egypt, where the charms of Cleopatra detained him, and to take revenge upon Octavianus, who had affronted her by repudiating his wife, her daughter Clodia, she excited her brother-in-law Lucius Antonius to make war upon Octavianus. The war was unsuccessful, and Fulvia escaped to Greece, was reproached by Antony, who met her at Athens, and died of shame and regret at Sicyon.

FUMIGATION, a method of applying gases and substances reduced to vapor to individuals, infected articles and localities, for medicinal or hygienic purposes. By an inaccuracy of language this name is very generally given to the medicinal agents themselves; strictly speaking, the word bears the same relation to vapors that lotion, bath, and drink bear to liquids. The substances generally used in this manner are water, alcohol, ethers, chlorine, chlorides of the oxides, sulphur, mercurials, the aromatic oily principles of plants, benzoin, camphor, iodine, &c. When directed to the air passages, they are more properly said to be applied by inhalation. When applied to the whole body, fumigations are effected either in common rooms or in apparatus constructed for the purpose, and may be either emollient and soothing, or aromatic and stimulant; in scrofulous and cutaneous diseases iodine and sulphur fumigations are frequently employed in hospitals. When locally applied, they are directed by suitable contrivances to any portion of the body. The necessary vapors are obtained by heat or chemical action; and when the great absorbing power of the skin is taken into consideration, it may easily be believed that its extensive surface may be naturally used for the introduction of most important medicinal agents. Fumigations intended to decompose miasmata, to purify the air of a district or apartments, or to remove infec

tion from individuals or fomites (i. e., articles liable to retain contagious effluvia), are more properly called disinfectants. Aromatic and odorous substances, like benzoin, camphor, vinegar, and essential oils, vapors of sugar and burned rags, and other domestic fumigations, are not disinfectants, as they do not destroy miasmata, but merely substitute one odor for another; true disinfectants are nitric and chlorohydric acids, chlorides of lime, soda, and potash, which act both upon the infecting substance and upon the mephitic air. Fumigations of nitric acid are obtained by decomposing nitre by sulphuric acid with the aid of heat. The chlorine disinfectant so highly extolled by Guyton de Morveau is made by decomposing common salt and the deutoxide of manganese by sulphuric acid. These 2 fumigations, on account of their irritating properties, can only be applied to rooms and infected articles after the removal of the inhabitants. The chlorides of lime and soda (the latter in the convenient form of Labarraque's solution), and the disengagement of chlorine by burning chloric ether in a fluid lamp, are familiar and effectual ways of fumigating infected rooms and closets, even in the presence of the sick; infected garments may be sprinkled with chlorinated waters, or may be exposed in closed vessels to temperatures even higher than the boiling point of water.

FUNCHAL, a seaport town on the S. E. coast of the island of Madeira, of which it is the capital, in lat. 33° 38' N., long. 16° 54′ 30′′ W.; pop. 20,000. It stands on a wide shallow bay, embraced by the steep promontories of Punta da Cruz on the W., and Cape Garajao on the E., and enclosed in the rear by broken volcanic ridges. The streets are narrow, winding, and ill paved; there are no public buildings of much elegance, and the numerous churches and convents lack all architectural beauty. The English residents, who number 400 or 500, and other foreigners, have nearly all the trade, which formerly consisted chiefly in exporting wine to England and the British colonies; but the grape crop having utterly failed of late, no wine has been made since 1851, and the rearing of the cochineal insect has been undertaken in place of it. The harbor is indifferent. Fresh meat and poultry are sold at very high prices, but the richest fruits, excellent fish, and vegetables may be had cheaply in abundance. The town is resorted to by invalids on account of its delightful climate. The mean temperature is about 68° F., and the difference between the hottest and coldest months (August and February) averages only 10°.

FUNCTION (Lat. functio, performance), in mathematics, a quantity dependent on some other quantity for its value. Thus the height of the tide is a function of the hour of the day, of the moon's age, her declination, the change of her declination, the latitude, the form and position of the coast, the direction and force of the wind, &c. In algebra quantities are functions of each other when their mutual depend

hours before, on lead, and on chemical solutions. The disease in silkworms is caused by a mould (botrytis bassiana). The flies found adhering to our windows in autumn, fixed by the proboscis, are destroyed by a mould (sporendonema musca), which produces the little white rings between the abdominal segments and discharges its seed upon the glass around like a little cloud. The celebrated caterpillar fungus of New Zealand (cordyceps Robertsii), which infests the caterpillar of hepialus virescens, is a remarkable instance. Our American caterpillars are destroyed by another species (C. militaris). Onygena equina grows on the hoofs and horns of animals. Some of the microscopic species cause cutaneous disorders in the human system, and others have been found in the brains of birds. (See EPIPHYTES.) But these latter are exceptional cases. They principally affect decaying vegetation. Their vegetating fibres are of such extreme minuteness that they penetrate the hardest woods, and are thus powerful agents in their decay. Their delicate, evanescent, fragile mycelium fastens upon the fallen giants of the forest and hurries their slow decomposition. They attack the housekeeper's bread, cheese, vinegar, paste, yeast, preserves, and mustard, the farmer's corn and potatoes, the vintager's grapes, the gardener's berries, and the joiner's timber; while a host of forms prey upon the living tissues of plants, scarce any of which are free from their depredations, and many of which are assailed by a dozen different species at once. -Notwithstanding the long time which has been given to the study of fungi, there is no class of organized structures so little known. Their microscopic character, their abnormal growths, their polymorphic forms, have baffled the researches of the closest observers. Even at the present day, with all the light of modern science, the improved means of research, and the multiplied observations of a host of zealous students, a large proportion of the microscopic forms are but imperfectly understood. A century's study has left the subject an undeveloped and disputed field. It is only within a comparatively short time that an approach has been made to a clear insight into their laws of growth and reproduction. There are those, even now, who deem them to be of spontaneous or chemical origin, an opinion which their sudden appearance in vast numbers after a long rest, and their occurrence in closed cavities, have tended to establish. But this idea has been clearly disproved. That they are perfect plants, growing from and reproducing bodies analogous to seeds, is too firmly established to be questioned. When we ascertain that a single plant produces millions of these reproductive bodies, so small that they float on the air scarcely influenced by the force of gravity, that they may remain an indefinite period inert, and be called into sudden vitality by atmospheric changes favorable to their germination, their sudden appearance can be readily understood. They have been traced through their metamorphoses. The infinitesi

mally small spore has been watched in its growth into a perfect plant; and one such observation, unquestionably made, is positive proof of their being perfect plants, having a development following certain laws; and we need not resort to the unsatisfactory theory of spontaneous or accidental origin, if indeed we are able to conceive of any vast assemblage of organized structures permanently reproductive, and identical through centuries, being the result of chance chemical action.-Fungi are of purely cellular growth. They form no woody fibre like flowering plants, nor do they form chlorophyl in their tissues. They consist of mere aggregations of homogeneous cells. Though many become corky, woody, and horny in the course of their growth, they have no other identity with true wood than of density and weight, possessing none of the complex structure of flowering plants. They exhibit a wonderful variety of external forms; but the composition of them all is the same, an aggregation of simple cells. Their earliest vegetation is a prolongation of the membranes of their spores, a name given to their reproductive seminal dust, which, though performing the office of seeds, differs from true seeds in being mere individual cells. From these arises a delicate, minute, webby growth, called the mycelium, which is the true vegetation of the plant, and which gives rise to the reproductive bodies at once, or builds up a receptacle which contains them. It is this mycelium which penetrates and destroys the object on which it is parasitic. It is made up of radiating and intertwining fibres formed of rows of cells placed end to end. These are in many instances so minute that they easily traverse the tissues of living plants and the pores of solid wood. From this mycelium grow the spores, which in their simplest form consist of the terminal cell or cells, which drop off to form new plants. They are of the extremest minuteness, appearing to the eye like a mere cloud of impalpable powder. As we rise in the scale, special branches and processes are formed to bear the spores, either singly or in groups. Still more complex forms build up a special organ called the peridium, within which the spores arise contained in little sacs termed asci. The large fleshy growths which we meet with in the woods or on trees are processes belonging properly to the reproduction and not the vegetation of the plant. They are very disproportionately large compared with the mycelium, and consist of a main stem called a stipe and an expanded top called a pileus, on which these spores are borne in various ways, on gills, ribs, prickles, spores, &c. The mycelium is sometimes reduced to a mere trace of evanescent, floccose growth; while the reproductive body becomes a fleshy mass, several pounds in weight. But the spores are always minute, being sometimes only of an inch in diameter.-Fungi occupy an intermediate position between algae and lichens, into which orders they gradually merge at different points. Indeed, so

ing by the great mass of the people; they have been usually despised as the unsightly evidences of decay, rather than eagerly collected as delicious food, which many of them are. Badham states that the return of taxed mushrooms in Rome during a period of 10 years gave a yearly average of between 60,000 and 80,000 lbs. weight, beside the untold quantity consumed which did not fall under government notice. He estimates that in that city alone the annual consumption would reach a value of $20,000. They form an extensive article of food for the poor all over Europe, and some species are sought for at high prices by the rich. The species commonly cultivated, the mush room proper, is the agaricus campestris, which grows wild in old fields and pastures, but is propagated by planting its spawn, which is the mycelium of the plant, in hot-beds. Although this is the most widely used, many other species are equally excellent. The truffle (tuber cibarium) grows beneath the ground, and is eaten with avidity by different animals. Dogs are trained to scent it out by those who collect truffles for market. Their reputation as aphrodisiacs is thought to be unfounded, having its origin in the old doctrine of resemblances. Polyporus tuberaster grows from the celebrated fungus stone pietra funghia, which is a mass of earth traversed by the mycelium of the plant; the latter is watered from time to time and produces successive crops. The heads of poplar trees are watered in autumn, and they then bear the agaricus caudicinus, greatly esteemed. Blocks of the hazel tree are singed over straw and watered, and they produce in abundance the polyporus corylinus. Among other species eaten, the principal are agaricus prunulus, orcella, procerus, and exquisitus, lactarius deliciosus, cantharellus cibarius, boletus edulis, marasmius oreades, hydnum repandum, fistulina hepatica, morchella esculenta, and helvella crispa. These are all fleshy fungi. Many other species known to be at times poisonous are eaten in different countries in different ways. They are dried, pickled, salted, and cooked in an endless variety of fashions. Some of the most virulent poisons are found among fungi, and many fatal accidents have arisen from the eating of poisonous species, yet fungi which are known to be ordinarily injurious are eaten with impunity by some. Rye meal containing large quantities of ergot produces a terribly disgusting and fatal gangrenous disease; while the ergots themselves are eaten largely in the north of Europe by children, under the name of St. John's bread, without any such result. Pickling and salting renders many innocuous. Agaricus muscarius is one of the most injurious; yet it is used as a means of intoxication by the Kamtchatkadales. One or two of them are sufficient to produce a slight intoxication, which is peculiar in its character. It stimulates the muscular powers, and greatly excites the nervous system, leading the partakers into the most ridiculous extravagances. The only fungus used at the

present day in medicine is the ergot of rye, sometimes employed in cases of protracted labor. Several others have been used in times past like the cordyceps Sinensis, a sphærioid species parasitic on a caterpillar; but these are now thought to be of no value. The lycoperdons or puff-balls have been used as styptics. Some polypori make admirable razor strops when sliced with a sharp knife. Polyporus fomentarius and igniarius have for many years furnished the punk which is used as tinder; the corky portion being pounded till its compact mass of soft, silky fibres becomes loosened and flexible. Agaricus muscarius is used as fly poison.-Some fungi are among the greatest pests of the agriculturist. The rusts, smuts, and bunt of grain are all fungi of the genera uredo, ustilago, and puccinia. Their mycelium penetrates the tissues of the plants, destroys their vitality, and bursting through their cuticles, covers them with myriads of their orange, brown, yellow, or black spores. They probably induce decay by a chemical influence which they exert on the juices of the infested plant, as well as by their mechanical interference with its organism. It has been a question how their spores are carried into the tissues, where their earliest growth is entirely separated from the outer atmosphere. But when we remember their extreme minuteness, we can understand that they may be drawn up with the fluids which enter the roots, or receive them directly into their tissues through the infinity of breathing pores with which the surfaces of the plants they infest are perforated. The mildews of the grape and other fruits are myceloid growths, which in certain stages have been thought to be perfect plants (oidium), from their possessing a power of reproduction. Certain cells take on a vesicular growth filled with a mass of minute bodies which were thought to be the true fruit. But the later observations of Léveillé, Tulasne, and others, have shown that these are arrested stages of growth of an entirely different ascigerous genus, erysiphe. These produce their fruit in minute black pustules, from the base of which peculiar radiating processes arise, sometimes of great beauty. The mildews grow on the surface of fruits, and injure them more by choking up their pores and mechanically confining them with their dense, felty growth, than by abstracting their juices. The potato rot is accompanied by a rapid growth of the mycelium of botrytis infestans, which penetrates the leaves, stems, and tubers, inducing rapid decay. It appears on the surface in the form of a minute white mould. Many other plants are similarly affected. Boleti are sometimes traversed by a minute mould, sepedonium chrysospermum, which gives a golden yellow hue to the flesh. Dry rot in timber is caused by the penetrating mycelium of merulius lacrymans and polyporus destructor. The black excrescent growth on plum trees is occasioned by the sphæria morbosa, which covers the warts its mycelium has made with its minute black, compacted perithecia. The fairy rings which, in olden times, were