FERGUSSON, John, of Cairnbrock, Ayrshire, was born in 1787. He was for a time a merchant in America, but returned to Scotland in 1810, on succeeding to the estate of his uncle George. His enormous wealth came chiefly from maternal uncles of the name of Service, who belonged to Ayrshire, and made fortunes as merchants in London and New York. Mr. Fergusson passed the later years of life almost wholly in Irvine, and in comparative seclusion. He died in January, 1856, leaving property amounting to £1,250,000 sterling. His will recognized all relations on the side of both parents, and to the extent of £681,000. The admitted legatees, above one hundred in number, received from £500 to £50,000, according to the degree of proximity. He left £20,000 to twenty-four personal friends. To the town of Irvine he made liberal bequests; £1000 to the poor; £1000 for educational purposes; £50 to each of the six churches; £5000 as a fund, the interest of which was to be given to deserving women above forty years of age in reduced circumstances, having never received parochial relief; and £5000 to men in the same condition. He left £20,000 for religious societies and institutions in Scotland, and £10,000 for ragged or industrial schools. The residue of his estate is consolidated into the Fergusson Bequest Fund, the interest of which is devoted to the furtherance of educational, missionary, and ministerial operations, and public libraries, in the six western counties of Scotland, and in connection with the quoad sacra churches of the Establishment, the Free Church, the United Presbyterian, the Reformed Presbyterian, and the Independent churches. For the management of this permanent fund, the trustees are by the will of Mr. Fergusson increased to thirteen, chosen in the following proportion from the denominations above-mentioned—three of the Established Church, four of the Free Church, four of the United Presbyterian Church, one of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, and one of the Independent Church.—J. L. A.
FERHAD-PACHA, an Ottoman general and minister, died in 1596. Ferhad rose from the humblest station to be the grand-vizier of Amurath III. He experienced the usual changes of fortune which attend oriental courtiers. He rose and fell according to the caprice of his master. In disgrace at the death of Amurath III., he was again raised to favour on the accession of Mahomet III.; but losing a great battle, he was accused of treason by one of his old enemies, and put to death.—R. M., A.
FERID ED-DIN-ATHAR, a Persian sofi and author, was killed at the taking of Schadyakh in 1122. Possessed of an immense fortune, he lived for some time in great magnificence, but becoming a convert to the doctrines of the sofis, he abandoned his former manner of life, retired to the monastery of the scheik Rokn ed-din Asaf, and gave himself up to the fanaticism peculiar to the most devoted followers of Mahomet. He was a prolific writer; but his works, whether in poetry or verse, are characterized by such a high-flown mysticism as renders them unintelligible to the ordinary European reader.—R. M., A.
FERISHTA, Mohammed Kasim, a Persian historian, was born at Asterabad, capital of the province of that name, most probably in the year 1570. He was the son of a learned preceptor, Gholam Ali Hindoo Shah, who, after a long course of travel, settled at Ahmudnugger in the Deccan, and was appointed to instruct Miran Hossein the son of Murtuza Nizan Shah in the Persian language. After the death of his father who did not long survive the date of this appointment, he was warmly befriended by Miran Hossein, who procured for him the dignities of privy councillor and captain of the royal guard. In the troubles that followed the death of Murtuza and of Miran Hossein, Ferishta repaired to Bejabore, where he was introduced at the court of Ibrahim Adil Shah II., in whose service he passed the remainder of his life. It is probable that he died in 1611 at the age of 41. It was at the request of Ibrahim that he undertook to prepare his great work "The History of India," one of the fullest and most trustworthy sources of information regarding the rise of the Mohammedan power in India. A translation of the first two books of this work was published by Colonel Dow in his history of Hindostan, 1768; and of the third book there is a translation in Mr. Jonathan Scott's history of the Deccan. A translation of the whole from the pen of Colonel Briggs was published in London in 1829, four vols. 8vo. The history is divided into twelve books, preceded by an account of Hindoo history before the time of the Mohammedans. To the first ten books are given the titles of various Mohammedan sovereignties; the eleventh book is an account of Malabar, and the twelfth an account of the European settlers in Hindostan. In the preface Ferishta mentions thirty-five historians whose works he had consulted, and there are quotations from many more in his pages. Among oriental historians, he is a rare example of a good critic and a faithful narrator.—J. S., G.
FERMAT, Pierre de, a famous mathematician, was born at Toulouse in 1595, and died there in 1665. He held during the greater part of his life, and up to the time of his death, the office of one of the councillors of the parliament of Toulouse. All we know of his public life is, that he was assiduous in the discharge of his judicial functions, and was held to be one of the most eminent lawyers of his time. Of his private life nothing is known, except that he carried on a correspondence on mathematical subjects with Descartes, Torricelli, the Pascals, Frenicle, Roberval, Huyghens, Wallis, and other eminent scientific men of his time; that he was a master of many languages, and a composer of elegant verses; that his most intimate friend was one of his colleagues in the parliament of Toulouse, Monsieur de Carcavi, to whom he is said to have bequeathed the care of his manuscripts; and that he left a son, Samuel de Fermat, who after his death edited a portion of his writings.—(Eloge de Monsieur de Fermat—Journal des Sçavans, 9 Fevrier, 1665.) The mathematical studies of Fermat, on which his present fame is founded, were pursued by him as a recreation only. Their results were very imperfectly recorded, many of them having been originally scattered in the form of letters to his friends and detached notes on books; and in too many cases we possess them in the form of propositions only, of which the demonstrations have been left to after generations to rediscover. The works in which most of the remains of Fermat's mathematical writings were collected by his son after his death are entitled, respectively, "Diophanti Alexandrini Arithmeticorum libri sex, et de numeris multangulis liber unus, cum commentariis C. G. Bacheti V. C., et observationibus D. P. de Fermat, Senatoris Tolosani," Tolosæ, 1670; and "Varia Opera Mathematica D. Petri de Fermat," 1679. Fermat applied himself with much ability and success to the restoration and completion of some of the imperfect works of ancient mathematicians which have come down to modern times, and this pursuit seems to have been the means of suggesting the subjects of his own original researches. These may be classed for the most part under three heads—geometry, the calculus of probabilities, and the theory of numbers. In geometry, the most important of Fermat's labours were those in which, although he did not discover the general principles of the differential and integral calculus, he certainly came nearer to that discovery than any mathematician before the time of Newton and Leibnitz, by the particular problems which he solved. These were, the quadrature of parabolæ of all orders; and a method of finding maxima and minima, and the tangents of curves, substantially identical in principle with those now followed. The method of finding tangents was misunderstood by his contemporaries, and he did not obtain from them by it the credit which he deserved. In the calculus of probabilities, Fermat is considered to have laid the foundation of that science as it now exists. It was in the theory of numbers that the discoveries of Fermat were the most extraordinary. In this branch of mathematics he began by studying and commenting upon the works of Diophantus, and then carried his original researches to a point which succeeding mathematicians have, up to the present time, failed to reach. He left behind him a body of propositions, of which the demonstrations were lost. Many of these demonstrations were rediscovered by subsequent mathematicians, especially Euler, Lagrange, and Legendre; but some of them remain to this day a puzzle to the mathematical world, the truth of the propositions being verified by calculation in every particular case, while the general demonstrations remain unknown. Of this, perhaps, the most striking example is the celebrated theorem, that no integer which is a power of a given order higher than a square, can be the sum of two integers which are powers of the same order. The French Academy of Sciences, for several years, offered in vain a prize of three thousand francs for the general demonstration of this theorem.—W. J. M. R.
FERME, Charles, was born at Edinburgh, and was educated at the university there among its earliest students. He passed M.A. in 1587, and in 1589 was chosen one of the regents of the university. In 1600 he became principal of the newly-erected
