quantities. Wax and ambergris are the other exports. The Portuguese never effected a regular settlement here.

FLORUS (Lucius Annæus), a Latin historian of the same family with Seneca and Lucan. He flourished in the reigns of Trajan and Adrian; and wrote an Abridgment of the Roman History, of which there have been many editions. It is composed in a florid and poetical style; and is rather a panegyric on many of the great actions of the Romans, than a faithful and correct recital of their history. He also wrote poetry, and entered the lists against the emperor Adrian, who satirically reproaches him with frequenting places of dissipation.

FLORY, a cross, differs from the potence, by having the flowers at the ends circumflex and turning down. See diagram azure (a cross flory), argent a chief gules—name Henricson.

FLOS'CULOUS, adj. Lat. flosculus. Composed of flowers; having the nature or form of flowers.

The outward part is a thick and carnous covering, and the second a dry and flosculous coat. Browne.

FLOS FOEMINEUS, a flower which is furnished with the pointal or female organ of generation, but wants the stamina or male organ. Female flowers may be produced apart from the male, either on the same root or on distinct plants. Birch and mulberry are examples of the first case; willow and poplar of the second.

FLOS MASCULUS, a male flower. By this name, Linnæus and the sexualists distinguish a flower which contains the stamen, or male organ of generation; but not the stigma or female organ. See BOTANY.

Goods that

FLOT'SON, n. s. From flote. swim without an owner on the sea. FLOTSON, OF FLOTSOM, signifies goods lost by shipwreck; which, with jetson and lagan, are generally given to the lord admiral, when the owners are not known. See JETSON and LAGAN.

FLOUNCE, v. n., v. a. & n. s. Swed flunsa, Dut. plonsen, to plunge. To move with violence in the water or mire; to struggle or dash in the water; to move with weight and tumult; hence, metaphorically, to move with passionate agitation. The noun and active verb have a different application; yet the derivation from the neuter is traceable, if not obvious: a flounce is any thing sewed to the garment, and hanging loose so as to swell and shake; and to flounce is thus to deck with flounces.

Six flouncing Flanders mares
Are even as good as any two of theirs.

Prior.

With his broad fins and forky tail he laves The rising surge, and flounces in the waves.

Addison's Ovid.

VOL. IX.

When I'm duller than a post,

Nor can the plainest word pronounce, You neither fume, nor fret, nor flounce.

Swift

She was flounced and furbelowed from head to foct; every ribbon was crinkled, and every part of her garments in curl. Addison.

They have got into the fashion of flouncing the petticoat so very deep, that it looks like an entire coat of lutestring. Pope.

Nay, oft in dreams invention we bestow, To change a flounce, or add a furbelow. Id. FLOUNDER, n. s. & v. n. Danish flynder; Scotch fluke. The verb is derived from flounce. The noun is the name of a small flat fish: the verb signifies to struggle with violent and irregular motions; as a horse in the mire. It is figuratively applied to a public speaker, when he plunges from one subject to another without the least order or connexion. Mental and verbal confusion, by which a man exposes himself to contempt.

The bread I would have in flower, so as it might be baked still to serve their necessary want. Spenser I can make my audit up, that all

From me do back receive the flower of all,
And leave me but the bran.
Shakspeare.

But by thy care twelve urns of wine be filled,
Next these in worth, and firm those urns be sealed;
Be twice ten measures of the choicest flour
Prepared, e'er yet descends the evening hour.
Pope's Odyssey.

FLOUR (St.), a town of France, in the department of the Cantal, standing on a perpendicular basalt rock, accessible only on one side. It is full 200 feet above the level of the road, and contains a population of 5300. General Desaix, the favorite companion of Buonaparte, was born here. It is thirty-four miles east of Aurillar and fifty south of Clermont.

FLOURISH, v. n., v. a. & n. s., Į Lat. floreo, FLOURISHER, n. s. floresco, from flos, floris. See FLORAL. It is equally applied to vigor and to beauty; to strength and to embellishment; to prosperity and its accompaniments; to splendor and ambitious show; to bravery and the parade of it. Something more than the thing itself; an adjunct for the purpose of recommendation and effect: thus it is applied to florid language; to speak with ambitious copiousness and elegance; to boast; to brag; to adorn; to grace; to ornament. It has also other applications: e. g. to describe various figures by intersecting lines; to work figures with a needle; to play in wanton and irregular motions. In music, to play some prelude without any settled

rule.

2

Ali that I shall say will be but like bottoms of thread close wound up, which, with a good needle, perhaps may be flourished into large works. Id. War with Spain. They count him of the green-haired eld, they may, or in his flower;

For not our greatest flourisher can equal him in power. Chapman.

The Ægyptians of old, and many flourishing commonwealths since, have enjoyned labour and exercise to all sorts of men, to be of some vocation and calling, and to give an account of their time, to prevent those grievous mischiefs that come by idleness.

Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy.

And all the powers of hell in full applause Flourished their snakes, and tossed their flaming

Villanies have not the same countenance, when there are great interests, plausible colours, and flourishes of wit and rhetorick interposed between the sight and the object. L'Estrange.

The so much repeated ornament and flourish of their former speeches was commonly the truest word they spoke, though least believed by them.

South's Sermons. As they are likely to over-flourish their own case, so their flattery is hardest to be discovered.

Collier. Who knows not that the coachman lashing by, Oft with his flourish cuts the heedless eye?

Gay.

mock; to jeer; to insult; to treat with contempt.

Scambling, out-facing, fashion-mongering boys, That lie, and coy, and flout, deprave and slander, Go antickly, and show outward hideousness.

You must flout my insufficiency.

Shakspeare. Id.

She railed at her, that she should be so immodest to write to one she knew would flout her. Id. The Norweyan banners flout the sky, And fan our people cold.

Id. Macbeth.

He would ask of those that had been at the other's table, Tell truly, was there never a flout or dry blow given? Bacon,

Flouting persons for their constancy in devotion, or their strict adherence to a conscientious practice of duty, is most detestable. Barrow.

She opened it, and read it out,
With many a smile and leering flout.

Phillida flouts me.

Hudibras. Walton's Angler. Their doors are barred against a bitter flout; Snarl, if you please; but you shall snarl without.

Dryden.

With talents well endued,
To be scurrilous and rude;
When you pertly raise your snout,
Fleer and gibe, and laugh and flout. Swift.
FLOW, v. n., v. a. & n. s. Sax. Fleopan;
FLOW'INGLY, adv.
Goth. floa; Fr.

fluer; Lat. fluo; Gr. ßXvw, or pλvw,connected with pew, which signifies literally to flow. Flow is a generic term, and thus differs from stream and gust, which are modes of flowing. The continued running of water either in a large body,

But man, associated and leagued with man By regal warrant, or self-joined by bond For interest sake, or swarming into clans Beneath one head for purposes of war, Like flowers selected from the rest, and bound And bundled close to fill some crowded vase, Fades rapidly, and, by compression marred, Contracts defilement not to be endured. Cowper.

Bow their white heads, admire the changing clime, Shake from their candied trunks the tinkling rime; With bursting buds their wrinkled barks adorn, And wed the timorous floret to her thorn.

Darwin.

moderately blown, and on a clear day before noon; for conserves, roses must be taken in the bud. Flowers were in great request at the entertainments of the ancients, being provided by the master of the feast, and brought in before the second course; or, as some think, at the beginning of the entertainment. They not only adorned their heads, necks, and breasts, with flowers, but often bestrewed the beds whereon they lay, and all parts of the room with them. But the head was chiefly regarded. See GARLAND. Flowers were likewise used in bedecking

tombs.

A method of preserving flowers in their natural beauty through the whole year has been much sought after. Some have attempted it by gathering them when dry and not too much opened, and burying them in dry sand; but this, though it preserves their figure well, takes off from the liveliness of their color. 1. Muntingius prefers the following method to all others. Gather the flowers, when they are not yet tho roughly open in the middle of a dry day; put them into a good earthen vessel glazed within; fill the vessel up to the top with them; and when full sprinkle them over with some good French wine, with a little salt in it: then set them in a cellar, tying down the mouth of the pot. After this they may be taken out at pleasure; and, on setting them in the sun, or within reach of the fire, they will open as if growing naturally; and not only the color, but the smell also will be preserved. The flowers of plants are by much the most difficult parts of them to preserve in any tolerable degree of perfection; of which we have instances in all the horti sicci, or collections of dried plants. In these the leaves, stalks, roos, and seeds of the plants appear very well preserved; the strong texture of these parts making color in many species naturally remaining. But them always retain their natural form, and the where these fade, the plant is little worse for use as to the knowing the species by it. But it is very much otherwise in regard to flowers; these are naturally by much the most beautiful parts of the plants to which they belong; but they are so much injured in the common way of drying, that they not only lose, but change their colors one into another, by which means they occasion nany errors; and they usually also wither up, so as to lose their very form and natural shape. The primrose and cowslip afford remarkable instances of the change of colors in the flowers of dried specimens for those of this class of plants easily dry in their natural shape; but they lose their yellow, and, instead of it, acquire a fine green color, much superior to that of the leaves in their most perfect state. The flowers of all the violet kind lose their beautiful blue, and become of a dead white: so that in dried specimens there is no difference between the blue-flowered violet and the white-flowered. 2. Another method of preserving both flowers and fruit found throughout the whole year, is also given by the same author. Take of salt-petre one pound, armenian bole two pounds, clean common sand three pounds; mix all well together; then gather fruit of any kind that is not fully ripe, with the stalk to each; put these in, one by one, into

wide-mouthed glass, laying them in good order: tie over the top with an oil cloth, and carry them into a dry cellar, and set the whole upon a bed of the prepared matter, of two inches thick, in a box. Fill up the remainder of the box with the same preparation; and let it be four inches thick all over the top of the glass, and all round its sides. Flowers are to be preserved in the same sort of glasses, and in the same manner; and they may be taken up after a whole year as plump and fair as when they were buried.

FLOWERS, in chemistry, generally imply dry bodies reduced into very fine parts, either spontaneously, or by some operation of art; but the terin is chiefly applied to volatile solid substances, reduced into a kind of fine meal by sublimation. Some flowers are nothing else than the bodies themselves, which are sublimed entire, without suffering any alteration or decomposition; others are some of the constituent parts of the body subjected to sublimation.

FLOWERING OF BULBOUS PLANTS IN WATER. That these plants will grow and flower in water alone, without any earth, is evident from daily observation; but it has been generally confined to single roots. The elegant appearance that these make, however, may be greatly increased by causing several roots to grow in the same vessel; and that even in a common garden pot. Stop the hole at the bottom of the pot with a cork, and lute it with putty so as no water can get through; fit a board to the top of the pot, with a number of holes, proportioned to its size, bored in it for the bulbs, and as many smaller ones to receive sticks for supporting the flowers. Fill up the pot with water to the board, and place tulips, jonquils, narcissuses, and the like plants, in the root upon the holes, so that the bottom of the roots may touch the water: thus they will all flower early in the season, and be much more beautiful than any pot of gathered flowers; and will last many weeks in their full perfection. When the season of flowering is over, the roots will gradually sink through the holes of the board, and get loose into the water; where, instead of spoiling, they will soon increase in size, so that they cannot return through the holes, but will produce several offsets. From this it has been tried to keep the roots under water all the time of their blowing, which has succeeded very well, the flower being stronger and more beautiful than those growing from the ground. In a room properly regulated, as to heat, flowers may thus be kept in blow from before Christmas till March or April. But in this last method, as it is difficult to keep the board under water, a piece of sheet lead (four pounds to the foot) may be substituted for the board, and, besides the piece for the top, it will be necessary to have another plate of lead fitted to the bottom of the pot, with holes for the sticks corresponding with those in the upper plate, so that the sticks being put through both holes will be kept perfectly steady. Each of the leads should have a notch in the edge, for the free ascent and descent of the water. The roots thus kept under water will flower in the most vigorous and beautiful manner. To add to the virtues of the water some have tried the putting in small

quantities of nitre, and others have tried earth and sand at the bottom; but the flowers always succeed better without any addition. Instead of earthen pots, some use glass jars with the leads; in which the flowers not only succeed as well, but the progress of the roots is visible, and the supply of water is better managed. Dried bulbs have been found, by repeated experiments, to succeed in this way better than those taken fresh out of the ground; the latter, being full of moisture, are long of imbibing nourishment from their new element, the fibres they struck in the ground rot, and new ones shoot out, before they produce flowers. Narcissuses and hyacinths do well together; as also tulips and jonquils, and crocuses and snow-drops. One species of hyacinth, called Keyser's jewel, seldom or never produces seed vessels in the common way flowering in the ground; but it will often produce some pods when blown in water. Ranunculus and anemone roots have been found to shoot up their stalks very well in this way; but the flowers are usually blasted, probably for want of free air. Pinks will flower very well in this manner; and auriculas may, with care, be brought to flower, but not strongly. Roses, jessamines, and honey-suckles, may also be made to flower in this way, and will thrive and send out suckers: the best pieces to plant are suckers cut off about three inches under ground, without any fibres. Some succulent plants may also be raised in this way; for instance, the opuntia or Indian fig. If a fragment of a leaf of this plant be cut and laid by to dry for a month, till it is an absolute skin, as soon as it is put in this manner into water, it begins to plump up, and soon sends out fibrous roots, and produces new leaves as quickly as it would do in the ground. This is the more remarkable in these sorts of plants, because in their natural state in the ground, they cannot bear much water. The growing of plants in water is, however, not peculiar to those with bulbous roots, for others may be thus raised, even from seed. A bean or a pea set in this manner, will grow up to its proper standard, produce pods and ripen seed. Smaller seeds may also be raised, if sown upon a piece of woollen cloth spread on the surface of the water. Though no vegetable transplanted out of the earth into water will thrive kindly, any plant, whether raised from the root or seed in water, may be transplanted to the earth, and will succeed very well. This method of raising plants in the water, would therefore suggest an improvement upon the usual practice in raising some roots in the earth which are subject to rot there; such as anemonies, ranunculuses, and hyacinths. A bulb acidentally dropped upon the ground, will strike out both stronger and more numerous fibres than those planted in the usual way; and from this it would seem to be proper to take out the earth of the bed where the bulbs are designed to stand, to such a depth as they are to be placed under it, when set for flowering. The bulbs should then be set in their places, on the surface of this low ground; to stand there till they have shot out their fibres and their head; after which the earth should be added over them by degrees, till they are covered