wells at Daliki, near Bushire, but several attempts to tap the oil have been unsuccessful. There are no valuable oyster-banks in Persian waters, and all the Persian Gulf pearls are obtained from banks on the coast of Arabia and near Bahrein. (A. H.-S.)
FARTHING (A.S. feórtha, fourth, +ing, diminutive), the
smallest English coin, equal to the fourth of a penny. It
became a regular part of the coinage from the reign of Edward I.,
and was, up to the reign of Mary, a silver coin. No farthing was
struck in the reign of Elizabeth, but a silver three-farthing piece
was issued in that reign, with a profile bust of the queen crowned,
with a rose behind her head, and inscribed “E.D.G. Rosa sine
spina.” The copper farthing was first introduced in the reign
of James I., a patent being given to Lord Harington of Exton
in 1613 for the issue of copper tokens of this denomination. It
was nominally of six grains’ weight, but was usually heavier.
Properly, however, the copper farthing dates from the reign of
Charles II., in whose reign also was issued a tin farthing, with
a small copper plug in the centre, and an inscription on the edge,
“Nummorum famulus 1684.” No farthings were actually issued
in the reign of Queen Anne, though a number of patterns were
prepared (see Numismatics: medieval section, England). In
1860 the copper farthing was superseded by one struck in bronze.
In 1842 a proclamation was issued giving currency to half-farthings,
and there were several issues, but they were demonetized
in 1869. In 1897 the practice was adopted of darkening
farthings before issue, to prevent their being mistaken for
half-sovereigns.
FARTHINGALE (from the O. Fr. verdagalle, or vertugalle, a
corruption of the Spanish name of the article, verdagado, from
verdago, a rod or stick), a case or hoop, originally of bent rods,
but afterwards made of whalebone, upon which were hung the
voluminous skirts of a woman’s dress. The fashion was introduced
into England from Spain in the 16th century. In its most
exaggerated shape, at the beginning of the 17th century, the
top of the farthingale formed a flat circular surface projecting
at right angles to the bodice (see Costume).
FARUKHABAD, Farrakhabad, or Furruckabad, a city and
district of British India in the Agra division of the United
Provinces. The city is near the right bank of the Ganges, 87 m.
by rail from Cawnpore. It forms a joint municipality with
Fatehgarh, the civil headquarters of the district with a military
cantonment. Pop. (1901) 67,338. At Fatehgarh is the government
gun-carriage factory; and other industries include cotton-printing
and the manufacture of gold lace, metal vessels and
tents.
The District of Farukhabad has an area of 1685 sq. m. It is a flat alluvial plain in the middle Doab. The principal rivers are: the Ganges, which has a course of 87 m. either bordering on or passing through the district, but is not at all times navigable by large boats throughout its entire course; the Kali-nadi (84 m.) and the Isan-nadi (42 m.), both tributaries of the Ganges; and the Arind-nadi, which, after a course of 20 m. in the south of the district, passes into Cawnpore. The principal products are rice, wheat, barley, millets, pulses, cotton, sugar-cane, potatoes, &c. The grain crops, however, are insufficient for local wants, and grain is largely imported from Oudh and Rohilkhand. The district is, therefore, liable to famine, and it was severely visited by this calamity six times during the 19th century—in 1803–1804, 1815–1816, 1825–1826, 1837–1838, 1868–1869 and 1899–1900. Farukhabad is one of the healthiest districts in the Doab, but fevers are prevalent during August and September. The average annual mean temperature is almost 80° F.; the average annual rainfall, 29.4 in.
In the early part of the 18th century, when the Mogul empire was breaking up, Mahommed Khan, a Bangash Afghan from a village near Kaimganj, governor of Allahabad and later of Malwa, established a considerable state of which the present district of Farukhabad was the nucleus, founding the city of Farukhabad in 1714. After his death in 1743, his son and successor Kaim Khan was embroiled by Safdar Jang, the nawab wazir of Oudh, with the Rohillas, in battle with whom he lost his life in 1749. In 1750 his brother, Ahmad Khan, recovered the Farukhabad territories; but Safdar Jang called in the Mahrattas, and a struggle for the possession of the country began, which ended in 1771, on the death of Ahmad Khan, by its becoming tributary to Oudh. In 1801 the nawab wazir ceded to the British his lands in this district, with the tribute due from the nawab of Farukhabad, who gave up his sovereign rights in 1802. In 1804 the Mahrattas, under Holkar, ravaged this tract, but were utterly routed by Lord Lake at the town of Farukhabad. During the mutiny Farukhabad shared the fate of other districts, and passed entirely out of British hands for a time. The native troops, who had for some time previously evinced a seditious spirit, finally broke into rebellion on the 18th of June 1857, and placed the titular nawab of Farukhabad on the throne. The English military residents took shelter in the fort, which they held until the 4th of July, when, the fort being undermined, they endeavoured to escape by the river. One boat succeeded in reaching Cawnpore, but only to fall into the hands of Nana. Its occupants were made prisoners, and perished in the massacre of the 10th of July. The other boat was stopped on its progress down the river, and all those in it were captured or killed, except four who escaped. The prisoners were conveyed back to Fatehgarh, and murdered there by the nawab on the 19th of July. The rebels were defeated in several engagements, and on the 3rd of January 1858 the English troops recaptured Fatehgarh fort; but it was not till May that order was thoroughly re-established. In 1901 the population was 925,812, showing an increase of 8% in one decade. Part of the district is watered by distributaries of the Ganges canal; it is traversed throughout its length by the Agra-Cawnpore line of the Rajputana railway, and is also served by a branch of the East Indian system. Tobacco, opium, potatoes and fruit, cotton-prints, scent and saltpetre are among the principal exports.
FASCES, in Roman antiquities, bundles of elm or birch rods
from which the head of an axe projected, fastened together by a
red strap. Nothing is known of their origin, the tradition that
represents them as borrowed by one of the kings from Etruria
resting on insufficient grounds. As the emblem of official
authority, they were carried by the lictors, in the left hand
and on the left shoulder, before the higher Roman magistrates;
at the funeral of a deceased magistrate they were carried behind
the bier. The lictors and the fasces were so inseparably connected
that they came to be used as synonymous terms. The fasces
originally represented the power over life and limb possessed by
the kings, and after the abolition of the monarchy, the consuls,
like the kings, were preceded by twelve fasces. Within the
precincts of the city the axe was removed, in recognition of the
right of appeal (provocatio) to the people in a matter of life
and death; outside Rome, however, each consul retained the
axe, and was preceded by his own lictors, not merely by a single
accensus (supernumerary), as was originally the case within the
city when he was not officiating. Later, the lictors preceded the
officiating consul, and walked behind the other. Valerius
Publicola, the champion of popular rights, further established
the custom that the fasces should be lowered before the people,
as the real representatives of sovereignty (Livy ii. 7; Florus
i. 9; Plutarch, Publicola, 10); lowering the fasces was also the
manner in which an inferior saluted a superior magistrate. A
dictator, as taking the place of the two consuls, had 24 fasces
(including the axe even within the city); most of the other
magistrates had fasces varying in number, with the exception
of the censors, who, as possessing no executive authority, had
none. Fasces were given to the Flamen Dialis and (after 42 B.C.)
even to the Vestals. During the times of the republic, a victorious
general, who had been saluted by the title of imperator by his
soldiers, had his fasces crowned with laurel (Cicero, Pro Ligario,
3). Later, under the empire, when the emperor received the
title for life on his accession, it became restricted to him, and the
laurel was regarded as distinctive of the imperial fasces (see
Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht, i., 1887, p. 373).
FASCIA (Latin for a bandage or fillet), a term used for many
objects which resemble a band in shape; thus in anatomy it is
applied to the layers of fibrous connective tissue which sheathe
