"Heresy of Priests," which makes him classed by Roman catholic writers with the Vandois and Albigeois. Petrarch has imitated his "Triumph of Love."—J. A., D.
FAIGNIENT, Noe, a musician, a native of Belgium, resided at Antwerp about the year 1570. He published four collections of sacred and secular music, in which the similarity of style to that of Orlando di Lasso is so conspicuous, that he received the cognomen of Simia Orlandi. He also contributed some pieces to a collection of madrigals which were published by Peter Phillips—G. A. M.
FAIN, Agathon Jean François, Baron, born at Paris in 1778; died in 1837. Fain having passed through several grades in the government offices in Paris, was during the consulate secretary of state. In 1806 he was given the office and title of secretaire-archiviste of the emperor, and in 1809 was created baron of the empire. He was greatly attached to Bonaparte, and remained with him till his abdication at Fontainebleau. Immediately on Bonaparte's return from Elba he was appointed chief secretary "du cabinet de l'empereur," and accompanied him to Waterloo. On the coming of the Bourbons to Paris, Fain left the city, and retiring from public life occupied himself by writing his recollections of the emperor. In 1830 Louis Philippe recalled him to the office of "secretaire du cabinet." At the close of his life he was member of the council of state. His principal works are connected with the life of the first Napoleon. His account of the campaign of 1814 is of considerable historical value.—J. A., D.
FAIPOULT. See Faypoult.
FAIRBAIRN, William, one of the most eminent engineers and cultivators of mechanical science, was born at Kelso in Roxburghshire, about the beginning of the year 1789. At the parish school of Mullochy in Ross-shire, where his father had settled for some years, he learnt writing and arithmetic very imperfectly. On his return from the north in 1803 he had the advantage of six months' tuition with his uncle at Galashiels, and improved himself in those two branches of education. While apprentice to an engine-wright at Percy Main colliery, near North Shields, he occupied his evenings, after his daily work was over, in the study of geometry and English literature. When his apprenticeship was ended, he went to London, where he was employed for two years as a journeyman mechanic. In order to increase his knowledge by seeing the practice of various places, he next set out upon a tour through England, and visited South Wales and Ireland—working throughout the whole course of his travels. At last he settled at Manchester, where about the end of the year 1817, he commenced business on his own account, without capital or connection. At first he had a hard fight for his daily bread; but by firmness and energy he overcame all his difficulties, and rose rapidly in wealth and reputation. Mr. Fairbairn, in the course of his practice, originated many important improvements in mill-work, which have since been universally adopted with most beneficial results. Amongst the most remarkable of these are the circular half-lap couplings, and the use of high speeds of revolution for the shafts which transmit power from one part of the machinery of a mill to another. When Mr. Fairbairn began business, the ordinary mode of transmitting motive power in mill-work was by means of large and heavy shafts, revolving very slowly. For these he substituted light shafts of wrought iron, revolving at high speeds, and thereby at once reduced the weight and cost of machinery, and improved its economy of power. Mr. Fairbairn was mainly instrumental in that general substitution of iron for wood, which forms one of the chief characteristics of modern machinery. He effected great improvements in the construction of water-wheels made entirely of iron, and was amongst the first to build iron ships, in which he has from time to time made improvements that have contributed much to their strength and safety. In 1829 he made an elaborate series of experiments on the traction of canal-boats, which have been published. For about a quarter of a century, Mr. Fairbairn has from time to time carried on—sometimes alone, and sometimes in conjunction with others—several series of experimental investigations relative to the strength of materials, unparalleled for extent and for practical utility. One of those series of experiments, carried on in conjunction with Mr. Hodgkinson, served to ascertain the strength of all the various kinds of iron manufactured in Britain. By another series, Mr. Fairbairn determined the tenacity of boiler plates, and of the various modes of rivetting their joints. The most important of them all, both as to its practical utility and as to its originality in a scientific point of view, is that whose results have appeared in the Philosophical Transactions for 1858 and subsequent years, on the resistance of hollow cylinders and spheres to collapse. Mr. Fairbairn by that investigation discovered what had never before been suspected, that the resistance of a hollow cylinder, such as a boiler flue, to collapsing by a pressure from without, becomes less as its length becomes greater, and may be increased by dividing it into short lengths by means of stiffening rings; a principle which at once accounts for many boiler explosions hitherto deemed mysterious, and points out how such explosions may in future be prevented. Mr. Fairbairn has lately extended those experiments to various materials. Mr. Fairbairn acted along with Robert Stephenson in the planning and execution of the celebrated Britannia and Conway tubular bridges. The idea which was first carried out in those bridges, of using hollow structures through the interior of which the traffic should pass, was originally conceived by Stephenson. The discovery of the mode of construction by which that idea was rendered practicable—(viz., a combination of rectangular cells), is due to Mr. Fairbairn; who has since erected more than a hundred iron bridges on the same principle. It had long been known that vapours at and near the pressures and temperatures at which they condense, deviate considerably from the simple law of the proportionality of the pressure to the density and absolute temperature, which holds in the case of perfect gases, the densities of vapours being greater than those which that law would assign to them; but the precise amount of such deviation had not been directly ascertained, owing to the difficulty of making accurate experiments upon it. In the case of steam, it had been calculated provisionally by means of formulæ deduced from the mechanical theory of heat; but such calculations could not of course be implicitly relied on until tested by experiment. Mr. Fairbairn and Mr. Tate, having lately succeeded in overcoming the difficulties attending the making of experiments on this subject, have for the first time determined directly the density of steam throughout an extensive range of pressures and temperatures; thus making a contribution to physical knowledge of the highest order, both as to practical utility and scientific importance. It is worthy of remark, that the results of their experiments closely agree with those deduced from the mechanical theory of heat. Mr. Fairbairn's labours for the advancement of practical science, important as they were from the commencement of his long career, have been increasing in value ever since. It is to be hoped that they may long continue so to increase, for the honour and advantage of his country and of mankind. Mr Fairbairn is a fellow of the Royal Society; a corresponding member of the Imperial Institute of France; president of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester; a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers; an honorary member of the Institution of Engineers in Scotland; and a member or honorary member of many other scientific bodies, British and Foreign. He has on several occasions been president of the mechanical section of the British Association for the advancement of science. He was a member of the jury of the mechanical department of the British Great Exhibition of 1851; and president of the corresponding jury of the French Exhibition of Industry of 1855. The greater part of his scientific writings have appeared from time to time in the Philosophical Transactions, the Reports of the British Association, and the Transactions of the Philosophical Society of Manchester, and other scientific bodies; and some have been published separately. The following is a catalogue of most of them—"On Canal Steam Navigation;" "On the Strength and other properties of Hot and Cold Blast Iron" (Reports of the British Association); "On the Strength of Iron at different temperatures" (ib.); "On the strength of Locomotive Boilers," (ib.); "On the Effect of Repeated Meltings on the Strength of Cast Iron" (ib.); "On the Irons of Great Britain" (Manchester Trans.); "On the Cohesive Strength of different qualities of Iron" (ib.); "On the Strength of Iron Plates and Rivetted Joints" (Phil. Trans.); "On the Conway and Britannia Tubular Bridges," 1 vol. 8vo.; "Useful Information for Engineers," 1 vol. 8vo (this work gives a condensed view of the results of most of the author's previous researches); "On the Application of Iron to Building purposes;" "On the Strength of Hollow Globes and Cylinders exposed to Pressure from without." His son, Thomas, was president of the executive committee of the Exhibition of Art-Treasures in Manchester, in 1857.—W. J. M. R.
