pacity in Minnesota, The total number of flour and grist-mills grinding wheat was 13,188, of which 1655 belong to the class producing less than 100 barrels per annum. The growth of the milling industry in general during the last half-century is shown by the following statistics: In 1850 there were 11,891 establishments in the United States engaged in milling cereal products; in 1900 there were 25,258 such establishments, in 1850 the capital thus invested amounted to $54,415,581, and the value of the annual product to $136,056,736; in 1900 the capital invested amounted to $218,714,104, and the annual product to $560,719,063. Of this total product, 18,699,194 barrels of wheat flour, valued at $67,760,886, were exported.
Bibliography. The history of flour manufacture in the United States is given in One Hundred Years of American Commerce (New York, 1895). For statistics, together with considerable historical and descriptive matter, consult the United States Census for 1900, vol. ix, “Manufactures,” part iii. A complete description of the mechanical process of milling may be found in the “Report of the Statistics of Agriculture,” U. S. Census of 1880, vol. iii. The chemical composition of the various cereals used as food and of the products evolved by milling, and of the final products formed therefrom by baking and other methods of preparation, are given in part ix., Bulletin 13, “Cereals and Cereal Products,” of the Bureau of Chemistry of the United States Department of Agriculture.
FLOUR BEETLE, or Weevil. Any of several species of minute, flattened, reddish tenebrionid beetles infesting flour, meal, and all sorts of stored manufactured cereals. They may do great damage in warehouses and mills, the annual loss in the United States from this cause amounting to $100,000 or more, and constantly increasing. Our most common species are Tribolium confusum and Tribolium ferrugineum, which lay their eggs in cracks of barrels, etc., which hatch speedily into minute larvæ that feed upon the flour and then transform into pupæ. These develop into adults so rapidly that in favorably warm places several broods a year may arise. The beetles often bore holes into the wood. Nothing short of thorough scalding will efface them, but painted receptacles aid in keeping them out. Larger beetles of similar habits are called meal-worms (q.v.).
FLOURENS, flo͞o′räN′, Gustave (1838-71). A French politician and author, born in Paris. In 1863 he became deputy professor of natural history at the Collège de France, where his liberal views, particularly as expressed in a series of lectures on the history of mankind, gave offense to the clergy, who forced his resignation. He went to Belgium, and later to the East, took an important part in the Cretan insurrection, and was elected to the National Assembly of Crete, which he also represented at Athens. After his return to France in 1868, his attacks on the Empire caused his arrest (April, 1869), and upon his release from a three months' imprisonment he was wounded in a duel with the Bonapartist Paul Granier de Cassagnac (q.v.). For an attempt at armed resistance on the occasion of the arrest of Henri Rochefort (q.v.) in 1870, he was sentenced to imprisonment for three years. He escaped, however, to England, whence he returned to become a leader of the Communist element during the siege of Paris. Upon the proclamation of the Commune (March 18, 1871), he was elected a member and appointed colonel. He was killed during the march on Versailles. He published some writings of a political character, and Science de l'homme (vol. i., 1865). Consult also Souvenirs d'un philhellene; Gustave Flourens et l'insurrection crétoise de 1866-68 (Paris, 1893).
FLOURENS, Léopold Emile (1841—). A French politician, born in Paris, a brother of Gustave Flourens. He was auditor of the Imperial Council from 1863 to 1868, and in 1879 was appointed head of a department in the Ministry of Education, in which capacity he took part in all anti-clerical ordinances. In March, 1885, he became president of the departments of Legislation, Justice, and Foreign Affairs in the Government Council, and president of the Deliberative Commission on French protectorates in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1886 he became Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Goblet Cabinet, and in this capacity succeeded in peaceably adjusting the delicate affair Schnaebelé (April, 1887)—a task rendered particularly difficult by the attitude of General Boulanger, who was in favor of replying to the alleged provocation of Germany by an energetic manifesto. Flourens retained his portfolio during the Rouvier and Tirard cabinets until April, 1888. He published Organisation judiciaire et administrative de la France et de la Belgique de 1814 à 1875 (1875), for which a prize was awarded by the Academy.
FLOURENS, Marie Jean Pierre (1794-1867). A celebrated French experimental physiologist and author, born at Maureilhan, Hérault. After having obtained his degree of doctor of medicine at Montpellier, at the age of nineteen, he proceeded to Paris. He was assistant to Cuvier in 1828-30, and in 1832 he succeeded him as professor of natural history in the Jardin du Roi. In 1833 he succeeded Dulong as perpetual secretary of the Academy of Sciences, in 1835 he became professor in the Collège de France, and in 1840 the French Academy elected him a member. He was made a peer of France by Louis Philippe in 1846. He died at Montgeron, near Paris. For more than forty years Flourens was a voluminous writer on human and comparative anatomy and physiology, on natural history, and on various special departments of the history of the natural and physical sciences. Among his most important works are Recherches expérimentales sur les propriétés et les fonctions du système nerveux dans les animaux vertébrés (1824), with a supplementary volume, entitled Expériences sur le système nerveux (1825); Recherches sur le développement des os et des dents (1845); Anatomie générale de la peau et des membranes muqueuses (1843), and his Théorie expérimentale de la formation des os (1847), perhaps the most celebrated of his works. Among his smaller and popular works are his De l'instinct et de l'intelligence des animaux (1841); Histoire de la découverte de la circulation du sang (1854); De la longevité humaine, et de la quantité de vie sur le globe (1854); and Eloges historiques (3 vols., 1856-62).
FLOWER (OF. flor, flur, flour, fleur, Fr. fleur, from Lat. flos, flower, from florere, to bloom; connected with OHG. bluoma, Ger. Blume, Goth.
