Fire Island
the most W. end of a strip of the Great South Beach, Suffolk co., N. Y., 40 miles long, averaging onehalf mile W., off Long Island, between Great South Bay andie Atlantic Ocean. It is reached by ferry from Babylon. The beach took its name from the fires built there as signals to vessels during the war with England, in 1812. Between the beach and the mainland, in Great South Bay, are five small islands. About 45 miles E. of the inlet to the bay Great South Beach joins the mainland. The entire strip is dotted with popular and well-known watering-places. To the east there is a lighthouse 185 feet high with a revolving light.
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Fire-brick
A brick made of fire-clay, and other refractory materials for use in cupolas and other furnaces, and for that reason must be capable of sustaining intense heat without fusing. See REFRACTORY MATERIALS; FIRE-CLAY.
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Fireball
a ball filled with powder or other combustibles, intended to be thrown among enemies, and to injure by explosion, or to set fire to their works. Bombs and grenades were thus employed in the World War (1914-1918). A popular name applied to a certain class of meteors which exhibit themselves as globular masses of light moving with great velocity, and not infrequently passing unbroken across the sky until lost in the horizon. They differ from ordinary meteors, probably, more in volume and brilliancy than in any other distinctive characteristic.
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Fireless Cooker
a mechanical arrangement by which hot or partially cooked food can be kept at a temperature which will complete the cooking and allow the food to be served still heated. To this end the cooking pot has to be inclosed in a box or other receptacle provided with insulating material in sufficient thickness and quantity. The insulating materials most in use are asbestos and mineral wool, but there is great variety in the materials that may be used, the object in every case being to conserve the heat sufficiently to allow the food to be thoroughly cooked, and to keep it at the required temperature for a given time. Among the fireless cookers on the market, some supplement the insulating material with metal plates that may be heated and placed under the pot. The principle is a simple one and has been used by housewives in various forms from time immemorial, so that there is a great variety in the mechanical devices employed. The chief considerations are that the arrangements should be convenient and the danger of causing fire be obviated.
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Fireless Engine
vapor or steam engine, acting independently of any heating apparatus or combustion. In its simplest form the engine consists of a tank filled with water and condensed steam, from which valves allow the steam to emerge and exert pressure on cylinder and piston. By this device sufficient steam is capable of being stored to carry a locomotive and several cars over a distance of several miles. The engine may be replenished with a fresh supply of steam as occasion requires. This form of steam engine has been found serviceable under certain conditions, but there are other forms of fireless engines which have been found convenient. In one form, invented in 1870, by Lamm of Louisiana, the motive power was furnished by vapor of ammonia, and the engine was used for a number of years in running street cars. Its great advantage was that the vapor of ammonia could be used over and over again, a reservoir of water absorbing the vapor as it emerged from the engine and releasing it again when the proper temperature was reached. The advantages to be derived from the use of engines that can dispense with the use of fire-boxes are many, and they have been developed to a still higher level by the arrival of compressed-air and similar locomotives.
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Firelock
a musket or other gun, with a lock furnished with a flint and steel, by means of which fire is produced in order to discharge it; distinguished from the old matchlock, which was fired with a match.
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Fireplace
. See Heating And Ventilating
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Fireproof Cement
A very tenacious and fireproof cement for metals is said to be made by mixing pulverized asbestos with waterglass, to be had in any drug store; it is said to be steam tight, and resist any temperature.
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Firkin
a small wooden cask used chiefly for butter, tallow, lard, soap, fish, etc. The first syllable of the term is derived from an old English word akin to the German vier, meaning four. A firkin is accordingly a little cask holding a fourth of a barrel. According to the laws of England the beer firkin contains nine gallons. A firkin of honey contains eight gallons; a firkin of butter, fifty-six pounds; a firkin of soap, sixty-four pounds; a firkin of fish, twenty-one pounds. See Cooper
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First Fruit
the fruit or produce first matured or collected in any season; first profits of anything; first or earliest effects of anything, in a good or bad sense. In ecclesiology, that portion of the fruits of the earth and other natural produce, which, by the usage of the Jews and other ancient nations, was offered to God. The mediæval ecclesiastical impost known under the name of primitiæ, or first fruits, and sometimes of annates or annalia, was the first year's whole profits, first of a bishopric, and afterward of any benefice, claimed by by the Pope. This claim was the subject of many contests in Germany, in France, and in England. Henry VIII. withdrew the right of first fruits from the Pope, in order to transfer it to the king; and he established a special court for the administration of first fruits. In the reign of Anne, the revenues arising from this impost in England were vested in a board, to be applied for the purpose of supplementing the incomes of small benefices.
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Fischart
JOHANN (fish'ärt), a German satirist; born in Mainz, in 1545. He took the doctor's degree in the University of Basel, in 1574, and afterward was an official of the Imperial Chamber of Justice at Spires. The period of his literary production lies between 1575 and 1581, while he assisted his brother-in-law Jobin, who had a printing office in Strassburg burg . Among his compositions in verse may be mentioned: "The Jester in Rhyme" (1571); "Description of the Four-Cornered Hat" (1580), against the Jesuits; the "Flöhhatz Weibertratz" (1573); "Podagramic Book of Consolation" (1577), "The Hive of the Holy Roman Swarm" (1579). In imitation of Rabelais's "Gargantua," but giving free play to his own native humor and wit, he wrote of "The Wondrous Deeds, Thoughts and Words of the Famous Heroes and Lords Grandgusier, Gargantua, and Pantagruel" (1575). He died in Forbach, in 1591.
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