Fort
in the general sense of the word, a small, inclosed work, usually erected near an important fortress or fortified town, to command any of the approaches to it. Forts are also frequently erected on the sea coast, for the defense of certain positions. They are generally quadrilateral, with bastions or demibastions at the angles, but it depends mainly on the position they occupy, whether they are triangular, FORT COLLINS square, polygonal, or in the form of a crown-work or star. They consist for the most part of a rampart, surrounded with a ditch and glacis; but in some cases an outwork is constructed for the defense of any side on which it may be more easily assailed. Paris is completely girdled a chain of carefully forts, mostly pentagonal, in in the shape of an enceinte, and situated at distances varying from a mile to 2½ miles from the inner line of bastions that encircle the city. In North America, generally, the name was also applied to a trading post in the wilderness with reference to the indispensable defenses, however slight, against the surrounding savages.