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 344 FOSTER FOUCHE of his discoveries and speculations was given in his " Pre-Historic Races of the United States " (Chicago, 1873). He was a frequent contrib- utor of scientific papers to periodical litera- ture, and published several monographs on American ethnology and antiquities. FOSTER, Randolph S., D.D., an American cler- gyman, born at Williamsburg, Ohio, Feb. 20, 1820. He was educated at Augusta college, Ken- tucky, and in 1837 entered the itinerant ministry of the Methodist Episcopal church in connection with the Ohio conference. From 1837 to 1850 he was pastor of churches in Hillsboro, Ports- mouth, Lancaster, Springfield, and Cincinnati, and from 1850 to 1857 in New York and Brook- lyn. In 1857 he was elected president of the Northwestern university, Evanston, 111. Three years later he resumed the pastorate, and was stationed in New York and Sing Sing. The general conference of 1868 appointed him dele- gate to the British .Wesleyan conference of England, and during the same year he was elected professor of systematic theology in Drew theological seminary, Madison, N. J. In 1870 he was appointed president of this institution, retaining the chair of theology. In 1872 he was elected bishop of the M. E. church, and soon after was chosen to make an episcopal visitation in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Ger- many, Switzerland, Italy, and South Amer- ica. He has published the following works : " Objections to Calvinism " (12mo, Cincinnati, 1849) ; " Christian Purity" (revised ed., 12mo, New York, 1869); "Ministry for the Times" (18mo, New York, 1855) ; and " Theism," in the "Ingham Lectures" (12mo, 1872). FOSTER, Stephen Collins, an American ballad composer, born in Pittsburgh, Pa., July 4, 1826, died in New York, Jan. 13, 1864. Early in life he evinced a fondness for music, learned unaided to play on several instruments, and, having a good voice, delighted to sing songs of his own composition. In 1842, while he was a merchant's clerk in Cincinnati, his song " Open thy Lattice, Love " was published in Baltimore, and was very favorably received. It was followed by "Old Uncle Ned" and "O Susanna," written for the negro minstrels, which achieved such popularity that he deter- mined to devote himself thenceforth to music alone. He wrote in rapid succession a number of negro melodies, among which were " Loui- siana Belle," "Camptown Races," "My old Kentucky Home," "Massa's in the cold, cold Ground," "Nelly Ely," "O Boys, Carry me 'Long," " Old Folks at Home," and many oth- ers. These became familiar not only through- out the United States but in many distant lands, and won for him a reputation as a com- poser of simple melodies unsurpassed in his day. Between 300,000 and 400,000 copies of "The Old Folks at Home" were sold, and others attained an almost equal popularity. During the last years of his life he dropped the negro dialect and wrote many songs of sentiment, such as " Come where my Love lies Dreaming," "Willie, we have Missed You," "Jennie with the Light Brown Hair," "Fare- well, my Little Dear," "O Comrades, Fill no Glass for Me," " Come with thy Sweet Voice again," and "Old Dog Tray." Besides a critical knowledge of music, Foster possessed a general and extensive intellectual culture. He composed both the music and the words of most of his songs, of which he published over 100. His ballads have been translated into many foreign languages and published with his music, which is marked by a sweet- ness and an indefinable grace and tenderness which everywhere reaches the popular heart. FOTHERINGAY, a parish and village of North- amptonshire, England, on the river Nene, 27 m. N. E. of Northampton. Its famous castle, the birthplace of Richard III., and the scene of the imprisonment, trial, and execution of Mary, queen of Scots, was founded in the reign of the Conqueror, and pulled down by James I., soon after his accession to the Eng- lish throne. The village contains a handsome church, in which were buried Edward and Richard, dukes of York, the former slain at Agincourt and the latter at Wakefield. FOUCAIJLT, Leon, a French natural philoso- pher, born in Paris, Sept. 18, 1819, died Feb. 11, 1868. While studying medicine he was impressed by the discoveries of Daguerre, and turned his attention exclusively to optics. He rapidly acquired proficiency in this branch of natural philosophy, and in 1844 invented an electric lamp, which has been adopted by natural philosophers for physical experiments, and used as a means of lighting large factories or yards. With Hippolyte Fizeau he made a series of delicate experiments upon the phe- nomena of light. He solved a problem which had attracted the attention of Wheatstone, Arago, and many others, demonstrating that the velocity of light differs materially while passing through a vacuum or through trans- parent bodies. He was no less successful in mechanics than he had been in optics. By means of the pendulum he gave a new and striking demonstration of the rotatory motion of the earth. The gyroscope, another instru- ment with which he experimented, not only affords new indication of the earth's rotation, and serves to measure it, but furnishes a means of determining astronomical positions without observation of the heavens. (See GTEOSCOPE.) Foucault was rewarded for his labors by an appointment to an important post in the observatory at Paris, and received in 1855 the Copley medal of the royal society. FOUCHE, Joseph, a French revolutionist and minister of police, born at La Martiniere, near Nantes, May 29, 1763, died in Trieste, Dec, 25, 1820. He was sent to Paris to study theology, but without taking orders became professor of philosophy in Arras and other towns, and in 1788 was placed at the head of the college of Nantes. He afterward became an advocate, founded a republican association in Nantes,