Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/764

 728 F R A F R E Amongst the earliest mechanical contrivances of Fraunhofer was a machine for polishing mathematically uniform spheri cal surfaces. He was the inventor of the stage-micrometer, and of a form of heliometer; and in 1816 he succeeded in constructing for the microscope achromatic glasses of long focus, consisting of a single lens, the constituent glasses of which were in juxtaposition, but not cemented together. The great reflecting telescope at Dorpat was manufactured by Fraunhofer, and so great was the skill he attained in the making of lenses for achromatic telescopes that, in a letter to Sir David Brewster, he expressed his willingness to fur nish an achromatic glass of 18 inches diameter. For his researches published in the Denkschriften der Miinchener Akademie for 1814-15, by which he laid the foundation of solar and stellar chemistry, Fraunhofer is especially known. The dark lines of the spectrum of sunlight, earliest noted by Dr Wollaston (Phil. Trans., 1802, p. 378) were inde pendently discovered, and, by means of the telescope of a theodolite, between which and a distant slit admitting the light a prism was interposed, were for the first time care fully observed by Fraunhofer, and have on that account been designated &quot; Fraunhofer s lines.&quot; He constructed a map of as many as 576 of these lines, the principal of which he denoted by the letters of the alphabet from A to G ; and by ascertaining their refractive indices he deter mined that their relative positions are constant, whether in spectra produced by the direct rays of the sun, or by the reflected light of the moon and planets. The spectra of the stars he obtained by using, outside the object-glass of his telescope, a large prism, through which the light passed to be brought to a focus in front of the eye-piece. He showed that in the spectra of the fixed stars many of the dark lines were different from those of the solar spectrum, whilst other well-known solar lines were wanting ; and he hence concluded that it was not by any action of the ter restrial atmosphere upon the light passing through it that the lines were produced. He further expressed his belief that the dark lines D of the solar spectrum coincide with the bright lines of the sodium flame, a fact subsequently established by Brewster, Foucault, and Miller, and success fully accounted for by Kirchhoff. Fraunhofer was a mem ber of the Academy of Sciences at Munich, and of the university of Erlangen. In 1823 he was appointed conser vator of the Physical Cabinet at Munich, and in the follow ing year he received from the king of Bavaria the civil order of merit. He died at Munich, June 7, 1826, and was buried near Reichenbach, whose decease had taken place eight years previously. On his tomb is the inscription &quot; Approximavit sidera.&quot; His scientific papers were pub lished in the Denkschriften der Miinchener Akademie, Gilbert s Annalen der Physik, and Schumacher s Astrono- mische Nachrichten. See OPTICS; J. von Utzschneider, Kurzcr Umriss der Lelcns- geschichte des Herrn Dr J. von Fraunhofer, Munich, 1826; and Merz, Das Lebcnund Wirkcn Fraunhofcrs, Landshut, 1865. FRAUSTADT, a garrison town, and the chief town of a circle in the government district of Posen, Prussia, is situ ated in a flat sandy country 50 miles S.S.W. of Posen. It has an orphanage, a reformatory, a royal real-school of the first class, a higher ladies school, and an agricultural school. Its manufactures include woollen and cotton goods, hats, morocco leather, and gloves, and it has a considerable trade in corn, cattle, and wool. Fraustadt was founded by the Dutch, and until 1343 belonged to the principality of Glogau. Near the town the Swedish general Reenskiold defeated the Saxons on the 13th of February 1706. The population in 1875 was 6435. FRAYSSINOUS, DENIS ANTOINE Luc, COMTE DE (1765-1841), a Gallican prelate and Bourbonist minister, distinguished as an orator and as a controversial writer, was born of humble parentage at Curieres, in the department of Aveyron, on the 9th of May 1765. Alter a course of training, first at the diocesan seminary of Rode.i and after wards in Paris under the priests of Saint Sulpice, he was ordained priest in 1789. In 1801 he began to give private lectures on dogmatic theology in the Faubourg Saint Jacques, and at the same time to deliver, in the church of the Carmelites, a series of &quot;catechetical lectures&quot; which afterwards developed into the &quot; conferences &quot; of Saint Sulpice, to which admiring crowds were attracted by his lucid exposition and by his graceful and glowing oratory. The freedom of his language in 1809, when Napoleon had arrested the pope and declared the annexation of Rome to France, led to a prohibition of his lectures ; and the disper sion of the congregation of Saint Sulpice in 1811 was fol lowed by his temporary retirement from the capital. He returned with the Bourbons, and resumed his conferences, in 1814 ; but the events of the Hundred Days again com pelled him to withdraw into private life, from which he did not emerge until February 1816. As court preacher and almoner to Louis XVIII., he now entered upon the period of his greatest public activity and influence. His Panerjy- rique de Saint Louis, his Oraison Funebre du Prince de Conde, and other orations are said to have profoundly im pressed the public mind, and their effect was still further deepened by the publication of his Essai sur V Indifference en Matiere Religieuse (1818). In connexion with the con troversy which had been raised by the signing of the reac tionary concordat of 1817, he published, also in 1818, a treatise entitled Vrais Principes de VEglise Gallicane sur la Puissance Ecclesiastique, which though unfavourably criti cized by the Ultramontane Lamennais, was received with favour by the civil and ecclesiastical authorities. The conse cration of Frayssinous as bishop of Hermopolis &quot;in partibus,&quot; his election to the French Academy, and his appointment to the grand-mastership of the university, followed in rapid succession. In 1824, on the accession of Charles X., he became minister of public instruction and of ecclesiastical affairs under the administration of Villele ; and about the same time he was created a peer of France with the title of count. His term of office was chiefly marked by the recall of the Jesuits. In 1825 he published his conferences under the title Defense du Christianisme. The work passed through 15 editions within 18 years/and was translated into several European languages. In 1828 he, along with his colleagues in the Villele ministry, was compelled to resign office, and the subsequent revolution of July 1830 led to his retirement to Rome. Shortly afterwards he became tutor to the duke of Bordeaux at Prague, where he continued to live until 1838. The remaining years of his life were passed in great privacy on his native soil. He died at St Ge&quot;niez on the 12th of December 1841. His biography by Henrion was published in 1842, and a posthumous volume, contain ing some of his earlier &quot;conferences,&quot; appeared in 1843 (Conferences et Discours In edits). FREDERICIA, or FKIDERICLA, a fortified town of Denmark, near the south-east corner of Jutland, on the shores of the Little Belt opposite the island of Funen, about 15 miles S. of Veile. It has railway communication with both south and north, and steamboats ply regularly across the Belt. It is well built, and possesses a handsome town- hall, four churches, and a synagogue. There is a consider able shipping trade, and the industries comprise the manu facture of tobacco, salt, and chicory, and of cotton goods and hats. The population in 1870 was 7186. A small fort was erected on the site of Fredericia by Christian IV. of Denmark, and his successor, Frederick III., determined about 1650 to make it a powerful fortress. Free exercise of religion was offered to all who should settle in the new town, which at first bore the name of Frederiksodde, and