mainly spent in his native village. He died at Padua in 1768 before the completion of the great work on which he had long co-operated with Facciolati. This was the vast Latin Lexicon (see Facciolati), which has formed the basis of all similar works that have since been published. He was engaged with his Herculean task for nearly 35 years, and the transcription of the manuscript by Luigi Violato occupied eight years more.
FORCHHAMMER, JOHANN GEORG (1794–1865), Danish
mineralogist and geologist, was born at Husum, Schleswig, on
the 24th of July 1794, and died at Copenhagen on the 14th of
December 1865. After studying at Kiel and Copenhagen from
1815 to 1818, he joined Oersted and Lauritz Esmarch in their
mineralogical exploration of Bornholm, and took a considerable
share in the labours of the expedition. In 1820 he obtained
his doctor’s degree by a chemical treatise De mangano, and
immediately after set out on a journey through England, Scotland
and the Faeroe Islands. In 1823 he was appointed lecturer
at Copenhagen University on chemistry and mineralogy; in
1829 he obtained a similar post in the newly established polytechnic
school; and in 1831 he was appointed professor of
mineralogy in the university, and in 1848 became curator of the
geological museum. From 1835 to 1837 he made many contributions
to the geological survey of Denmark. On the death of
H. C. Oersted in 1851, he succeeded him as director of the
polytechnic school and secretary of the Academy of Sciences.
In 1850 he began with J. Steenstrup and Worsaae various
anthropological publications which gained a high reputation.
As a public instructor Forchhammer held a high place and contributed
potently to the progress of his favourite studies in his
native country. He interested himself in such practical questions
as the introduction of gas into Copenhagen, the establishment
of the fire-brigade at Rosenberg and the boring of artesian wells.
Among his more important works are—Loerebog i de enkelte Radicalers Chemi (1842); Danmarks geognostiske Forhold (1835); Om de Bornholmske Kulformationer (1836); Dit myere Kridt i Danmark (1847); Bidrag til Skildringen af Danmarks geographiske Forhold (1858). A list of his contributions to scientific periodicals, Danish, English and German, will be found in the Catalogue of Scientific Papers published by the Royal Society of London. One of the most interesting and most recent is “On the Constitution of Sea Water at Different Depths and in Different Latitudes,” in the Proceedings of the Roy. Soc. xii. (1862–1863).
FORCHHAMMER, PETER WILHELM (1801–1894), German
classical archaeologist, was born at Husum in Schleswig on the
23rd of October 1801. He was educated at the Lübeck gymnasium
and the university of Kiel, with which he was connected for
nearly 65 years. In 1830–1834 and 1838–1840 he travelled in
Italy, Greece, Asia Minor and Egypt. In 1843 he was appointed
professor of philology at Kiel and director of the archaeological
museum founded by himself in co-operation with Otto Jahn.
He died on the 8th of January 1894. Forchhammer was a
democrat in the best sense of the word, and from 1871 to 1873
represented the progressive party of Schleswig-Holstein in the
German Reichstag. His published works deal chiefly with
topography and ancient mythology. His travels had convinced
him that a full and comprehensive knowledge of classical
antiquity could only be acquired by a thorough acquaintance
with Greek and Roman monuments and works of art, and a
detailed examination of the topographical and climatic conditions
of the chief localities of the ancient world. These principles
are illustrated in his Hellenika. Griechenland. Im Neuen das
Alte (1837), which contains his theory of the origin and explanation
of the Greek myths, which he never abandoned, in spite of
the attacks to which it was subjected. According to him, the
myths arose from definite local (especially atmospheric and
aquatic) phenomena, and represented the annually recurring
processes of nature as the acts of gods and heroes; thus, in
Achill (1853), the Trojan War is the winter conflict of the elements
in that district. Other similar short treatises are: Die Gründung
Roms (1868); Daduchos (1875), on the language of the myths
and mythical buildings; Die Wanderungen der Inachostochter
Io (1880); Prolegomena zur Mythologie als Wissenschaft und
Lexikon der Mythensprache (1891). Amongst his topographical
works mention may be made of: Topographie von Athen (1841);
Beschreibung der Ebene von Troja (1850), a commentary on a
map of the locality executed by T. A. Spratt (see Journal of
the Royal Geographical Society, xii., 1842); Topographia Thebarum
Heptapylarum (1854); Erklärung der Ilias (1884), on
the basis of the topographical and physical peculiarities of the
plain of Troy. His Demokratenbüchlein (1849), in the main a
discussion of the Aristotelian theory of the state, and Die
Athener und Sokrates (1837), in which, contrary to the almost
universal opinion, he upheld the procedure of the Athenians
as perfectly legal and their verdict as a perfectly just one, also
deserve notice.
For a full list of his works see the obituary notice by E. Alberti in C. Bursian’s Biographisches Jahrbuch für Altertumskunde, xx. (1897); also J. Sass in Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, and A. Hoeck and L. C. Pertsch, P. W. Forchhammer (1898).
FORCHHEIM, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria,
near the confluence of the Wiesent and the Regnitz, 16 m. S.S.E.
of Bamberg. Pop. (1905) 8417. It has four Roman Catholic
churches, including the Gothic Collegiate church and a Protestant
church. Among the other public buildings are the
progymnasium and an orphanage. The industries of the town
include spinning and weaving, bleaching and dyeing, bone and
glue works, brewing and paper-making. The spacious château
occupies the site of the Carolingian palace which was destroyed
in 1246.
Forchheim is of very early origin, having been the residence of the Carolingian sovereigns, including Charlemagne, in the 9th century. Consequently many diets were held here, and here also Conrad I. and Louis the Child were chosen German kings. The town was given by the emperor Henry II. in 1007 to the bishopric of Bamberg, and, except for a short period during the 11th century, it remained in the possession of the bishops until 1802, when it was ceded to Bavaria. In August 1796 a battle took place near Forchheim between the French and the Austrians. The fortifications of the town were dismantled in 1838.
See Hübsch, Chronik der Stadt Forchheim (Nüremberg, 1867).
FORD, EDWARD ONSLOW (1852–1901), English sculptor,
was born in London. He received some education as a painter
in Antwerp and as a sculptor in Munich under Professor Wagmüller,
but was mainly self-taught. His first contribution to
the Royal Academy, in 1875, was a bust of his wife, and in
portraiture he may be said to have achieved his greatest success.
His busts are always extremely refined and show his sitters at
their best. Those (in bronze) of his fellow-artists Arthur Hacker
(1894), Briton Riviere and Sir W. Q. Orchardson (1895), Sir
L. Alma Tadema (1896), Sir Hubert von Herkomer and Sir
John Millais (1897), and of A. J. Balfour are all striking likenesses,
and are equalled by that in marble of Sir Frederick Bramwell
(for the Royal Institution) and by many more. He gained
the open competition for the statue of Sir Rowland Hill, erected
in 1882 outside the Royal Exchange, and followed it in 1883
with “Henry Irving as Hamlet,” now in the Guildhall art
gallery. This seated statue, good as it is, was soon surpassed
by those of Dr Dale (1898, in the city museum, Birmingham)
and Professor Huxley (1900), but the colossal memorial statue
of Queen Victoria (1901), for Manchester, was less successful.
The standing statue of W. E. Gladstone (1894, for the City Liberal
Club, London) is to be regarded as one of Ford’s better portrait
works. The colossal “General Charles Gordon,” camel-mounted,
for Chatham, “Lord Strathnairn,” an equestrian group for
Knightsbridge, and the “Maharajah of Mysore” (1900) comprise
his larger works of the kind. A beautiful nude recumbent
statue of Shelley (1892) upon a cleverly-designed base, which is
not quite impeccable from the point of view of artistic taste,
is at University College, Oxford, and a simplified version was
presented by him to be set up on the shore of Viareggio, where
the poet’s body was washed up. Ford’s ideal work has great
charm and daintiness; his statue “Folly” (1886) was bought
by the trustees of the Chantrey Fund, and was followed by other
statues or statuettes of a similar order: “Peace” (1890), which
secured his election as an associate of the Royal Academy,
“Echo” (1895), on which he was elected full member, “The
