January 1883. Of his concert-music only the Jubelouvertüre is now ever heard. His strength lay in the facility of his melodies.
FLOTSAM, JETSAM and LIGAN, in English law, goods lost
at sea, as distinguished from goods which come to land, which
are technically designated wreck. Jetsam (the same word as
jettison, from Lat. jactare, to throw) is when goods are cast into
the sea, and there sink and remain under water; flotsam (floatson,
from float, Lat. flottare) is where they continue floating on the
surface of the waves; ligan (or lagan, from lay or lie) is where
they are sunk in the sea, but tied to a cork or buoy in order to
be found again. Flotsam, jetsam and ligan belong to the
sovereign in the absence only of the true owner. Wreck, on the
other hand (i.e. goods cast on shore), was by the common law
adjudged to the sovereign in any case, because it was said by
the loss of the ship all property was gone out of the original
owner. This singular distinction which treated goods washed
ashore as lost, and goods on and in the sea as not lost, is no doubt
to be explained by the primitive practice of plundering wrecked
ships. (See Wreck.)
FLOUNDER, a common term for flat-fish. The name is also
more specially given to certain varieties, according to local
usage. Thus the Pleuronectes flesus is the common flounder
of English terminology, found along the coasts of northern
Europe from the Bristol Channel to Iceland. It is particularly
partial to fresh water, ascending the Rhine as far as Cologne.
It rarely exceeds a length of 12 in. or a weight of 112 ℔. In
American terminology the principal fish of the name are the
“summer flounders” or “deep-sea flounders,” also known
in America as “plaice” (Paralichthys dentatus), as long as 3 ft.
and as heavy as 15 ℔; the “four-spotted flounders” (Paralichthys
oblongus); the “common” or “winter” flounder
(Pseudopleuronectes americanus); the “diamond flounder”
(Hysopsetta guttulata); and the “pole flounder” (Glyptocephalus
cynoglossus).
FLOUR and FLOUR MANUFACTURE. The term “flour”
(Fr. fleur, flower, i.e. the best part) is usually applied to the
triturated farinaceous constituents of the wheat berry (see
Wheat); it is, however, also used of other cereals and even of
leguminoids when ground into a fine powder, and of many other
substances in a pulverulent state, though in these cases it is
usual to speak of rye flour, bean flour, &c. The flour obtained
from oats is generally termed oatmeal. In Great Britain wheaten
flour was commonly known in the 16th and 17th centuries as
meal, and up to the beginning of the 19th century, or perhaps
later, the term mealing trade was not infrequently used of the
milling trade.
The ancestor of the millstone was apparently a rounded stone about the size of a man’s fist, with which grain or nuts were pounded and crushed into a rude meal. These stones are generally of hard sandstone and were evidently used against another stone, which by dint of continual Primitive grinding. hammering was broken into hollows. Sometimes the crusher was used on the surface of rocks. St Bridget’s stone, on the shore of Lough Macnean, is supposed to have been a primitive Irish mill; there are many depressions in the face of the table-like rock, and it is probable that round this stone several women (for in early civilization the preparation of flour was peculiarly the duty of the women) would stand and grind, or rather pound, meal. Many such stones, known as Bullan stones, still exist in Ireland. Similar remains are found in the Orkneys and Shetlands, and it is on record that some of these stones have been used for flour-making within historic times. Richard Bennett in his History of Corn Milling remarks that the Seneca Indians to this day boil maize and crush it into a paste between loose stones. In the same way the Omahas pound this cereal in holes in the rocks, while the Oregon Indians parch and pound the capsules of the yellow lily, much after the fashion described by Herodotus in his account of the ancient Egyptians. In California the Indian squaws make a sort of paste by crushing acorns between a round stone or “muller,” and a cuplike hollow in the surface of a rock. Crushing stones are of different shapes, ranging from the primitive ball-like implement to an elongated shape resembling the pestle of a mortar. Mullers of the latter type are not infrequent among prehistoric remains in America, while Dr Schliemann discovered several specimens of the globular form on the reputed site of the city of Troy, and also among the ruins of Mycenae. As a matter of fact stone mullers survived in highly civilized countries into modern days, if indeed they are now altogether extinct.
The saddle-stone is the connecting link between the primitive pounder, or muller, and the quern, which was itself the direct ancestor of the millstones still used to some extent in the manufacture of flour. The saddle-stone, the first true grinding implement, consisted of a stone with Saddle-stone. a more or less concave face on which the grain was spread, and in and along this hollow surface it was rubbed and ground into coarse meal. Saddle-stones have been discovered in the sand caves of Italy, among the lake dwellings of Switzerland, in the dolmens of France, in the pit dwellings of the British Isles, and among the remains of primitive folk all the world over. The Romans of the classical period seem to have distinguished the saddle-stone from the quern. We find allusions to the mola trusatilis, which may be translated “the thrusting mill”; this would fairly describe a backwards and forwards motion. The mola versatilis evidently referred to the revolving millstone or quern. In primitive parts of the world the saddle-stone is not yet extinct, as for instance in Mexico. It is known as the metata, and is used both for grinding maize and for making the maize cakes known as tortillas. The same implement is apparently still in use in some parts of South America, notably in Chile.
According to Richard Bennett, the quern, the first complete milling machine, originated in Italy and is in all probability not older than the 2nd century B.C. This is, however, a controverted point. Querns are still used in most primitive countries, nor is it certain that they have altogether Quern. disappeared from remoter districts of Scotland and Ireland. Whatever was their origin, they revolutionized flour milling. The rotary motion of millstones became the essential principle of the trituration of grain, and exists to-day in the rolls of the roller mill. The early quern appears to have differed from its descendants in that it was somewhat globular in shape, the lower stone being made conical, possibly with the idea that the ground flour should be provided with a downward flow to enable it to fall from the stones. This type did not, however, persist. Gradually the convexity disappeared and the surface of the two stones became flat or very nearly so. In the upper stone was a species of funnel, through which the grain passed as through a hopper, making its way thence, as the stone revolved, into the space between the running and the bed stone. The ground meal was discharged at the periphery. The runner, or upper stone, was provided with a wooden handle by which the stone was revolved. The typical Roman mill of the Augustan age may be seen at Pompeii. Here, in what is believed to have been a public pistrinum or mill, were found four pairs of millstones. The circular base of these mills is 5 ft. in diameter and 1 ft. high, and upon it was fastened the meta, a blunt cone about 2 ft. high, on which fitted the upper millstone or catillus, also conical. These mills were evidently rotated by slave labour, as there was no room for the perambulation of a horse or donkey, while the side-lugs in which the handle-bars were inserted are plainly visible. Slave labour was generally used up to the introduction of Christianity, but was finally abolished by the emperor Constantine, though even after his edict mills continued to be driven by criminals.
The Romans are credited by some authorities with having first applied power to the driving of millstones, which they connected with water-wheels by a horizontal spindle through the intervention of bevel gearing. But long after millstones had been harnessed to water power Use of power. slave labour was largely employed as a motive force. The watermill of the Romans was introduced at a relatively early period into Britain. Domesday Book shows that England was covered by mills of a kind at the time of the Norman conquest, and
