the see owing to the attempts of Henry VIII. to subject Scotland to England and to the efforts of his rivals, Gavin Douglas, the poet, and John Hepburn, prior of St Andrews, and their supporters. Eventually, however, he resigned some of his many benefices, the holding of which had made him unpopular, and through the good offices of the regent, John Stewart, duke of Albany, obtained the coveted archbishopric and the primacy of Scotland. Afterwards he was one of the vice-regents of the kingdom and he died on the 11th of March 1521. As archbishop he issued a series of constitutions which are printed in J. Robertson’s Concilia Scotiae (1866). Mr Andrew Lang (History of Scotland, vol. i.) describes Forman as “the Wolsey of Scotland, and a fomenter of the war which ended at Flodden.”
See the biography of the archbishop which forms vol. ii. of The Archbishops of St Andrews, by J. Herkless and R. K. Hannay (1909).
FORMAN, SIMON (1552–1611), English physician and astrologer, was born in 1552 at Quidham, a small village near Wilton, Wiltshire. At the age of fourteen he became apprentice to a druggist at Salisbury, but at the end of four years he exchanged this profession for that of a schoolmaster. Shortly afterwards he entered Magdalen College, Oxford, where he studied chiefly medicine and astrology. After continuing the same studies in Holland he commenced practice as a physician in Philpot Lane, London, but as he possessed no diploma, he on this account underwent more than one term of imprisonment. Ultimately, however, he obtained a diploma from Cambridge university, and established himself as a physician and astrologer at Lambeth, where he was consulted, especially as a physician, by many persons of rank, among others by the notorious countess of Essex. He expired suddenly while crossing the Thames in a boat on the 12th of September 1611.
A list of Forman’s works on astrology is given in Bliss’s edition of the Athenae Oxonienses; many of his MS. works are contained in the Bodleian Library, the British Museum and the Plymouth Library. A Brief Description of the Forman MSS. in the Public Library, Plymouth, was published in 1853.
FORMERET, a French architectural term for the wall-rib carrying the web or filling-in of a vault (q.v.).
FORMEY, JOHANN HEINRICH SAMUEL (1711–1797), Franco-German author, was born of French parentage at Berlin on the 31st of May 1711. He was educated for the ministry, and at the age of twenty became pastor of the French church at Brandenburg. Having in 1736 accepted the invitation of a congregation in Berlin, he was in the following year chosen professor of rhetoric in the French college of that city and in 1739 professor of philosophy. On the organization of the academy of Berlin in 1744 he was named a member, and in 1748 became its perpetual secretary. He died at Berlin on the 7th of March 1797. His principal works are La Belle Wolfienne (1741–1750, 6 vols.), a kind of novel written with the view of enforcing the precepts of the Wolfian philosophy; Bibliothèque critique, ou mémoires pour servir à l’histoire littéraire ancienne et moderne (1746); Le Philosophe chrétien (1750); L’Émile chrétien (1764), intended as an answer to the Émile of Rousseau; and Souvenirs d’un citoyen (Berlin, 1789). He also published an immense number of contemporary memoirs in the transactions of the Berlin Academy.
FORMIA (anc. Formiae, called Mola di Gaeta until recent times), a town of Campania, Italy, in the province of Caserta, from which it is 48 m. W.N.W. by rail. Pop. (1901) 5514 (town); 8452 (commune). It is situated at the N.W. extremity of the Bay of Gaeta, and commands beautiful views. It lay on the ancient Via Appia, and was much frequented as a resort by wealthy Romans. There was considerable imperial property here and along the coast as far as Sperlonga, and there are numerous remains of ancient villas along the coast and on the slopes above it. The so-called villa of Cicero contains two well-preserved nymphaea with Doric architecture. Its site is now occupied by the villa Caposele, once a summer residence of the kings of Naples. There are many other modern villas, and the sheltered hillsides (for the mountains rise abruptly behind the town) are covered with lemon, orange and pomegranate gardens. The now deserted promontory of the Monte Scauri to the E. is also covered with remains of ancient villas; the hill is crowned by a large tomb, known as Torre Giano. To the E. at Scauri is a large villa with substructions in “Cyclopean” work. The ancient Formiae was, according to the legend, the home of the Laestrygones, and later a Spartan colony (Ὁρμίαιδιὰ τὸ εὔορμον, Strabo v. 3. 6, p. 233). It was a Volscian town, and, like Fundi, received the civitas sine suffragio from Rome in 338 (or 332 B.C.) because the passage through its territory had always been secure. This was strategically important for the Romans, as the military road definitely constructed by Appius Claudius in 312 B.C., still easily traceable by its remains, and in part followed by the high-road, traversed a narrow pass, which could easily be blocked, between Fundi and Formiae. In 188 B.C., with Fundi, it received the full citizenship, and, like it, was to a certain extent under the control of a praefectus sent from Rome, though it retained its three aediles. Mamurra was a native of Formia. Cicero possessed a favourite villa here, and was murdered in its vicinity in 43 B.C., but neither the villa nor the tomb can be identified with any certainty. It was devastated by Sextus Pompeius, and became a colony, with duoviri as chief magistrates, under Hadrian. Portus Caietae (the modern Gaeta) was dependent upon it.
See T. Ashby, “Dessins inédits de Carlo Labruzzi,” in Mélanges de l’école française de Rome (1903), 410 seq. (T. As.)
FORMIC ACID, H2CO2 or H·COOH, the first member of the series of aliphatic monobasic acids of the general formula CnH2nO2. It is distinguished from the other members of the series by certain characteristic properties; for example, it shows an aldehydic character in reducing silver salts to metallic silver, and it does not form an acid chloride or an acid anhydride. Its nitrile (prussic acid) has an acid character, a property not possessed by the nitriles of the other members of the series; and, by the abstraction of the elements of water from the acid, carbon monoxide is produced, a reaction which finds no parallel in the higher members of the series. Finally, formic acid is, as shown by the determination of its affinity constant, a much stronger acid than the other acids of the series. It occurs naturally in red ants (Lat. formica), in stinging nettles, in some mineral waters, in animal secretions and in muscle. It may be prepared artificially by the oxidation of methyl alcohol and of formaldehyde; by the rapid heating of oxalic acid (J. Gay-Lussac, Ann. chim. phys., 1831 [2] 46, p. 218), but best by heating oxalic acid with glycerin, at a temperature of 100–110° C. (M. Berthelot, Ann., 1856, 98, p. 139). In this reaction a glycerol ester is formed as an intermediate product, and undergoes decomposition by the water which is also produced at the same time.
C3H5(OH)3 + H2C2O4 = C3H5(OH)2·OCHO+CO2 + H2O
C3H5(OH)2O·CHO + H2O = C3H5(OH)3 + H2CO2.
Many other synthetical processes for the production of the acid or its salts are known. Hydrolysis of hydrocyanic acid by means of hydrochloric acid yields formic acid. Chloroform boiled with alcoholic potash forms potassium formate (J. Dumas, Berzelius Jahresberichte, vol. 15, p. 371), a somewhat similar decomposition being shown by chloral and aqueous potash (J. v. Liebig, Ann., 1832, 1, p. 198). Formates are also produced by the action of moist carbon monoxide on soda lime at 190–220° C. (V. Merz and J. Tibiçira, Ber., 1880, 13, p. 23; A. Geuther, Ann., 1880, 202, p. 317), or by the action of moist carbon dioxide on potassium (H. Kolbe and R. Schmitt, Ann., 1861, 119, p. 251). H. Moissan (Comptes rend., 1902, 134, p. 261) prepared potassium formate by passing a current of carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide over heated potassium hydride,
KH + CO2 = KHCO2 and KH + 2CO = KHCO2 + C.
A concentrated acid may be obtained from the diluted acid either by neutralization with soda, the sodium salt thus obtained being then dried and heated with the equivalent quantity of anhydrous oxalic acid (Lorin, Bull. soc. chim., 37, p. 104), or the lead or copper salt may be decomposed by dry sulphuretted hydrogen at 130° C. L. Maquenne (Bull. soc. chim., 1888, 50, p. 662) distils the commercial acid, in vacuo, with concentrated sulphuric acid below 75° C.
Formic acid is a colourless, sharp-smelling liquid, which crystallizes at 0° C., melts at 8·6° C. and boils at 100·8° C. Its specific gravity is 1·22 (20°/4°). It is miscible in all proportions with water, alcohol and ether. When heated with zinc dust, the acid decomposes into carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The sodium and potassium salts, when heated to 400° C., give oxalates and carbonates of the
