Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/90

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82 FANTI of a single piece of cloth wrapped loosely around the hody. They pay a nominal obedi- ence to chiefs called caboceers, besides whom every village has its local magistrate. They formerly governed or influenced a seaboard district extending about 100 m. along the coast. About 1807, becoming involved in a war with the king of Ashantee, they obtained the active interference of the English, who had a small fort in Anamboe, one of their towns ; but this alliance, while it plunged the British into a disastrous quarrel, proved of no benefit to the Fantees, whose territory after a long struggle was occupied by the victorious Ashantees. In 1823 the Fantees, encouraged by the British, rebelled, but were again subdued, the British being defeated by the Ashantees, and their commander, Sir Charles McCarthy, captured and put to death. In 1826, however, the Brit- ish defeated the Ashantees and compelled them to retire to their own territories. From that time for nearly half a century the Fantees were unmolested under British protection. But in 1872 the Dutch possessions on the Gold Coast were transferred by treaty to Great Britain, and in 1873 Koffee Calcalli, king of Ashantee, complaining that some of the stipula- tions of his treaties with the Dutch had been violated by the British, declared war against them, overran and ravaged the Fantee terri- tories, and in September was threatening Cape Coast Castle with a numerous army. The British government, holding itself bound to protect its allies, the Fantees, sent a powerful force to the Gold Coast under command of Gen. Wolseley, who in November was advan- cing toward Copmassie, the Ashantee capital, driving before him the army of Koffee Calcalli, which was estimated to be about 40,000 strong. (See GOLD COAST.) FANTI, Manfredo, an Italian general, born in Carpi, Modena, about 1810, died April 5, 1865. He took part in 1831 in the unsuccessful insur- rection against the Austrians, served afterward in the French army, passed into the royal ser- vice of Spain in 1835, and returned at the out- break of the revolution of 1848 to Italy, where he became a major general in the Sardinian army. In 1855 he commanded one of the four brigades sent to the Crimea, and in the war of 1859 took part as lieutenant general in the battles of Magenta and Solferino. In January, 1860, he accepted the portfolios of war and of marine in the cabinet of Count Cavour, in Feb- ruary became senator, and in September com- manded the expedition against the Papal States. He left the cabinet in 1861, and in 1862 be- came commandant general of the military de- partment of Florence. FARADAY, Michael, an English chemist and natural philosopher, born at Newington, Sur- rey, Sept. 22, 1791, died at Hampton Court, Aug. 25, 1867. His father was a blacksmith, of feeble health, and very poor. A short dis- tance from their home in London was a book- seller's and bookbinder's shop kept by George FARADAY Riebau, and there Faraday went, when 13 years of age, as an errand boy, on trial, for one year. It was a part of his duty at first to carry round the newspapers that were lent out by his mas- ter. At the end of a year he became an ap- prentice to Riebau, the indentures to continue seven years. " In consideration of his faithful service," no premium was given to the master. Faraday says of himself: " While an apprentice I loved to read the scientific books which were under my hands, and among them delighted in Marcet's 'Conversations on Chemistry' and the electrical treatises in the ' Encyclopedia Britannica.' I made such simple experiments as could be defrayed in their expense by a few pence per week, and also constructed an elec- trical machine, first with a glass vial, and after- ward with a real cylinder, as well as other electrical apparatus of a corresponding kind." " My master," he says, " allowed me to go occa- sionally of an evening to hear the lectures de- livered by Mr. Tatum on natural philosophy at his house, 53 Dorset street. The charge was one shilling per lecture, and my brother Robert (who was a blacksmith) made me a present of the money for several." That he might be able to illustrate scientific lectures, he took lessons in drawing of a Mr. Masquirier, who also lent him Taylor's "Perspective," "which I studied closely," he says, " copied all the drawings, and made some other simple ones." Among the notes Faraday has left of his own life occurs the following: "During my ap- prenticeship I had the good fortune, through the kindness of Mr. Dance, who was a cus- tomer of my master's shop, and also a member of the royal institution, to hear four of the last lectures of Sir Humphry Davy in that locality. Of these I made notes, and then wrote out the lectures in a fuller form, interspersing them with such drawings as I could make. I wrote to Sir Humphry Davy, sending as a proof of my earnestness the notes I had taken." He was invited by Davy to call upon him, which resulted in his appointment as assistant in the laboratory of the royal institution, whither he went in March, 1813. In October of the same year he went with Davy abroad, as amanu- ensis and assistant in experiments. The tour lasted only a year and a half, but was full of the most vivid interest to young Faraday. In the latter part of April, 1815, they returned to England, and Faraday, now 23 years of age, resumed his place as assistant in the labora- tory, and was also made assistant in the mine- ralogical collection, and superintendent of the apparatus, at a salary of 30 shillings per week. During the year 1816 he gave seven lectures before the " City Philosophical Society:" 1, on the general properties of matter ; 2, on the at- traction of cohesion; 3, on chemical affinity; 4, on radiant matter ; 5, 6, and 7, on oxygen, chlorine, iodine, fluorine, hydrogen, and nitro- gen. His first paper appeared in the "Quar- terly Journal of Sciences," and was an analy- sis of some caustic lime from Tuscany, which