FOBTY IMMORTALS 180 FOSSA and in hogs, sheep and cattle, grain, fruit, and produce. It has large stock yards with a daily capacity of over 30,000 head of cattle, and large packing houses. It has several important indus- tries, including flour and stock-feed mills, rolling mills, railroad repair shops, foundries, cotton and oil mills, clothing- factories, chemical works, etc. There has been built, at a cost of nearly $1,500,- 000 a large storage dam on the west fork of the Trinity river, 7 miles from the city, with a storage capacity of 30 billion gallons of water. Fort Worth is the seat of the Fort Worth University, the Texas Christian University, and the Southwestern Baptist Theological Sem- inary, and has a Masonic Orphans' Home and School, several academies, a number of denominational schools, and technical, art, and music schools. There are a public library and the Medical Li- brary. The city is supplied with an ex- cellent system of roads and has over 30 parks or park places; about 100 churches; and 10 hospitals. There were in 1920 5 National banks. Fort Worth was founded as a military post in 1849, becoming the county-seat in 1860, and was incorporated in 1873. Pop. (1910) 73,312; (1920) 106,482. FORTY IMMORTALS, THE, the members of the French Academy. See Academy, French. FORUM, an open space in Roman cities, generally surrounded by a cov- ered colonnade, that fronted an ambula- tory, and buildings of various kinds, such as temples, courts of law, prisons, granaries, etc. In the later period of the empire, when Rome had attained the summit of its glory, there were 19 fora within its limits, which were divided into two classes, some being especially s<t apart for public meetings and the proceedings of the law courts, while others were devoted to business purposes and the requirements of trade. The Forum Romanum, the first that was erected in Rome, served equally for the purposes of trade and all public meet- ings, as well as for the administration of justice by the consuls, decemvirs, and other magistrates of Rome. This forum was subsequently distinguished for its magniiicence ; the shops were removed, and many temples of the heathen gods, the senate-house, and the comitium, were erected in its immediate vicinity, and in communication with it. It was also adorned with arches, statues, and pulpits, from which public meetings were addressed, and which were called rostra, from being surrounded with the brazen beaks (rostra) , or ornaments of the prows of the ships of war that had been captured by the Roman triremes. Ex- hibitions of gladiators were often shown in the forum. The Roman forum corre- sponded to the agora of the Greeks, and no Roman city or colony was without this important center for the transac- tion of business and public affairs. Plans of the forum at Pompeii and the prin- cipal forum of Rome are given in "Pom- peii," a work published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. See Rome. FOSCARI, FRANCESCO, a doge of Venice; born in 1372, in 1416 was named procurator of St. Mark's and in 1423 was elected doge. His son, Giacopo, be- ing accused of ordering the assassina- tion of a senator Donati, the enemies of the family created such commotion in the state, that he was banished from the city, the father having to ratify the sentence. Love of his country, and de- votion of his wife, compelled the ban- ished Foscari to revisit Venice, where he was again made prisoner, put to the question of the rack, and a second time banished, dying soon after of his wounds. The bereaved father went mad, in which state the enemies of his family compelled him to abdicate. He died three days after a spasm, upon hearing the bells of St. Mark's announce to Ven- ice the election of a new ruler. Byron wrote on the subject a tragedy entitled "The Two Foscari." He died in Venice, Nov. 1, 1457. FOSCOLO, UGO (fos'ko-16) , an Italian poet and patriot; born on the island of Zante, Jan. 26, 1778. His tragedy "Thy- este" was received with great favor at Venice in 1797. "The True Story of Two Luckless Lovers, or Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis" (1799), afterward re- written and renamed "Italy" (1802), voices his disappointment that the French armies did not liberate Italy; as did an outspoken apostrophe to Bona- parte. In 1807 was published his finest poem, "The Graves." His second tra- gedy, "Ajax," brought out at Milan in 1809, caused his expulsion from Lom- bardy; he went to Florence and there produced the tragedy "Ricciarda" (1813) ; compelled to flee from Italy, he composed in Switzerland the bitter satire against his enemies, "The One-Volume Book of the Super-Revelations of the Cleric Didumus, Least of the Prophets. He wrote many critical and literary essays. He died in London, in 1827. FOSSA, in zoology, a term applied to certain depressions on the external surface, generally the seat of cutaneous glands, as the lachrymal fossae in deer and antelopes.
