marshes or stagnant pools, and is occasionally completely covered with water. When the drainage system has ceased to act or is entirely diverted owing to any cause, the flood plain may become a level area of great fertility, similar in appearance to the floor of an old lake. The flood plain differs, however, inasmuch as it is not altogether flat. It has a gentle slope down-stream, and often for a distance from the sides towards the centre.
FLOOR (from O. Eng. flor, a word common to many Teutonic languages, cf. Dutch vloer, and Ger. Flur, a field, in the feminine, and a floor, masculine), generally the lower horizontal surface of a room, but specially employed for one covered with boarding or parquetry. The various levels of rooms in a house are designated as “ground-floor,” “first-floor,” “mezzanine-floor,” &c. The principal floor is the storey which contains the chief apartments whether on the ground- or first-floor; in Italy they are always on the latter and known as the “piano nobile.” The storey below the ground-floor is called the “basement-floor,&rdqrdquo; even if only a little below the level of the pavement outside; the storey in a roof is known as the “attic-floor.” The expressions one pair, two pair, &c., apply to the storeys above the first flight of stairs from the ground (see also Carpentry).
FLOORCLOTH, a rough flannel cloth used for domestic
cleaning; also a generic term applied to a variety of materials
used in place of carpets for covering floors, and known by such
trade names as kamptulicon, oil-cloth, linoleum, corticine, cork-carpet,
&c. Kamptulicon (καμπτός, flexible, οὐλος, thick) was
patented in 1844 by E. Galloway, but did not attract much
attention till about 1862. It was essentially a preparation of
india-rubber masticated up with ground cork, and rolled out
into sheets between heavy steam-heated rollers, sometimes
over a backing of canvas. Owing to its expensiveness, it has
given place to cheaper materials serving the same purpose.
Oil-cloth is a coarse canvas which has received a number of
coats of thick oil paint, each coat being rubbed smooth with
pumice stone before the application of the next. Its surface
is ornamented with patterns printed in oil colours by means of
wooden blocks. Linoleum (linum, flax, oleum, oil), patented by
F. Walton in 1860 and 1863, consists of oxidized linseed oil and
ground cork. These ingredients, thoroughly incorporated with
the addition of certain gummy and resinous matters, and of
pigments such as ochre and oxide of iron as required, are pressed
on to a rough canvas backing between steam-heated rollers.
Patterns may be printed on its surface with oil paint, or by an
improved method may be inlaid with coloured composition
so that the colours are continuous through the thickness of the
linoleum, instead of being on the surface only, and thus do not disappear
with wear. Lincrusta-Walton is a similar material to linoleum,
also having oxidized linseed oil as its base, which is stamped
out in embossed patterns and used as a covering for walls.
FLOQUET, CHARLES THOMAS (1828–1896), French statesman, was born at St Jean-Pied-de-Port (Basses-Pyrénées) on the 2nd of October 1828. He studied law in Paris, and was called to the bar in 1851. The coup d’état of that year aroused the strenuous opposition of Floquet, who had, while yet a student, given proof of his republican sympathies by taking part in the fighting of 1848. He made his name by his brilliant and fearless attacks on the government in a series of political trials, and at the same time contributed to the Temps and other influential journals. When the tsar Alexander II. visited the Palais de Justice in 1867, Floquet was said to have confronted him with the cry “Vive la Pologne, monsieur!” He delivered a scathing indictment of the Empire at the trial of Pierre Bonaparte for killing Victor Noir in 1870, and took a part in the revolution of the 4th of September, as well as in the subsequent defence of Paris. In 1871 he was elected to the National Assembly by the department of the Seine. During the Commune he formed the Ligue d’union républicaine des droits de Paris to attempt a reconciliation with the government of Versailles. When his efforts failed, he left Paris, and was imprisoned by order of Thiers, but soon released. He became editor of the République Française, was chosen president of the municipal council, and in 1876 was elected deputy for the eleventh arrondissement. He took a prominent place among the extreme radicals, and became president of the group of the “Union républicaine.” In 1882 he held for a short time the post of prefect of the Seine. In 1885 he succeeded M. Brisson as president of the chamber. This difficult position he filled with such tact and impartiality that he was re-elected the two following years. Having approached the Russian ambassador in such a way as to remove the prejudice existing against him in Russia since the incident of 1867, he rendered himself eligible for office; and on the fall of the Tirard cabinet in 1888 he became president of the council and minister of the interior in a radical ministry, which pledged itself to the revision of the constitution, but was forced to combat the proposals of General Boulanger. Heated debates in the chamber culminated on the 13th of July in a duel between Floquet and Boulanger in which the latter was wounded. In the following February the government fell on the question of revision, and in the new chamber of November Floquet was re-elected to the presidential chair. The Panama scandals, in which he was compelled to admit his implication, dealt a fatal blow to his career: he lost the presidency of the chamber in 1892, and his seat in the house in 1893, but in 1894 was elected to the senate. He died in Paris on the 18th of January 1896.
See Discours et opinions de M. Charles Floquet, edited by Albert Faivre (1885).
FLOR, ROGER DI, a military adventurer of the 13th-14th
century, was the second son of a falconer in the service of the
emperor Frederick II., who fell at Tagliacozzo (1268), and when
eight years old was sent to sea in a galley belonging to the
Knights Templars. He entered the order and became commander
of a galley. At the siege of Acre by the Saracens in
1291 he was accused and denounced to the pope as a thief and
an apostate, was degraded from his rank, and fled to Genoa,
where he began to play the pirate. The struggle between the
kings of Aragon and the French kings of Naples for the possession
of Sicily was at this time going on; and Roger entered the
service of Frederick, king of Sicily, who gave him the rank of
vice-admiral. At the close of the war, in 1302, as Frederick was
anxious to free the island from his mercenary troops (called
Almúgavares), whom he had no longer the means of paying,
Roger induced them under his leadership to seek new adventures
in the East, in fighting against the Turks, who were ravaging
the empire. The emperor Andronicus II. accepted his offer of
service; and in September 1303 Roger with his fleet and army
arrived at Constantinople. He was adopted into the imperial
family, was married to a grand-daughter of the emperor, and
was made grand duke and commander-in-chief of the army and
the fleet. After some weeks lost in dissipation, intrigues and
bloody quarrels, Roger and his men were sent into Asia, and after
some successful encounters with the Turks they went into winter
quarters at Cyzicus. In May 1304 they again took the field,
and rendered the important service of relieving Philadelphia,
then invested and reduced to extremities by the Turks. But
Roger, bent on advancing his own interests rather than those
of the emperor, determined to found in the East a principality
for himself. He sent his treasures to Magnesia, but the people
slew his Catalans and seized the treasures. He then formed the
siege of the town, but his attacks were repulsed, and he was
compelled to retire. Being recalled to Europe, he settled his
troops in Gallipoli and other towns, and visited Constantinople
to demand pay for the Almúgavares. Dissatisfied with the small
sum granted by the emperor, he plundered the country and
carried on intrigues both with and against the emperor, receiving
reinforcements all the while from all parts of southern Europe.
Roger was now created Caesar, but shortly afterwards the young
emperor Michael Palaeologus, not daring to attack the fierce
and now augmented bands of adventurers, invited Roger to
Adrianople, and there contrived his assassination and the
massacre of his Catalan cavalry (April 4, 1306). His death was
avenged by his men in a fierce and prolonged war against the
Greeks.
See Moncada, Expedicion de los Catalanes y Aragoneses contre Turcos y Griegos (Paris, 1840).
