FLEISCHER FLEMISH LANGUAGE 267 whig principles. It was nevertheless published and praised in Addison's "Spectator." FLEISCHER, Heinrich Lebereeht, a German ori- entalist, born at Schandau, Feb. 21, 1801. He studied in Leipsic and Paris, and was professor at Leipsic from 1835 to 1860. Since then he has occupied the chair of the Arabic, Persian, and Turkish languages at the university of Berlin, and ranks among the best Arabic scholars of Germany. His translation of Zamahshari's "Golden Necklaces" (Leipsic, 1835) involved him in a protracted controversy with Ham- mer-Purgstall. He continued the edition of the Arabic text of the "Thousand and One Nights," which was commenced by Habicht (completed in 12 vols., Breslau, 1843). Among his principal works are his editions of Abul- feda's Historia Ante-Islamica (with transla- tion, 1831), of Beidhawi's " Commentary on the Koran " (1844-'8), and a free translation of Mirza Mohammed Ibrahim's modern Persian grammar (1847). FLEMING, a N. E. county of Kentucky, bound- ed S. W. by Licking river ; area estimated at 500 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 13,398, of whom 1,556 were colored. The E. part is hilly and the W. undulating. The soil is generally good. Near Licking river is a remarkable de- posit of iron fulgurites, the oxide being formed into regular tubes of various diameters, from that of a pistol barrel to several inches. The chief productions in 1870 were 53,011 bushels of wheat, 26,466 of rye, 686,538 of Indian corn, 78,242 of oats, 26,483 of potatoes, 219,970 Ibs. of butter, 27,854 of wool, and 305,954 of to- bacco. There were 4,705 horses, 2,915 milch cows, 6,019 other cattle, 9,552 sheep, and 1,904 swine; 2 flour mills, 3 saw mills, and 2 distilleries. Capital, Flemingsburg. FLEMING, John, a Scottish naturalist, born at Kirkroads, near Bathgate, Linlithgowshire, in 1785, died in Edinburgh, Nov. 18, 1857. Al- though possessing an unusual taste for the natural sciences, he entered the ministry, and about 1807 was licensed as a preacher. In 1808, while engaged in a survey of the western isles, he accepted the living of Bressay in Shet- land. About the same time appeared his "Economical Mineralogy of the Orkney and Zetland Islands;" and thenceforth for nearly 30 years his attention was pretty equally divided between his clerical duties and his scientific pursuits. In 1810 he exchanged the living of Bressay for that of Flisk, in Fife- shire. His contributions to public journals and to learned societies now became frequent. In 1822, having furnished the article "Ich- thyology " for the " Encyclopaedia Britannica," and those on " Helminthology " and " Insecta " for the "Edinburgh Encyclopedia," besides numerous papers for the " Proceedings " of the Wernerian society and the royal society of Edinburgh, and the "Edinburgh Philosophical Journal," he published his first important work, the "Philosophy of Zoology" (2 vols., Edinburgh). In the second volume he enun- ciated a system of classification at variance with those of Linnasus and Cuvier, and known as the binary or dichotomous system, the lead- ing feature of which consists in arranging ani- mals according to their positive and negative characters. In his " History of British Ani- mals" (Edinburgh, 1828), the first decided at- tempt was made by a British naturalist to ex- hibit the paleontological history of animals, by the side of those belonging to our epoch. The great principle laid down by him, from which he never receded, is that the revolutions which have taken place in the animal kingdom have been produced by the changes which ac- companied the successive depositions of the strata. In 1832 he was called to the chair of natural philosophy at King's college, Aberdeen ; but in 1843, having identified himself with the Free church, he was obliged to retire from his professorship. Two years later he was elected to the chair of natural science in the New (Free church) college, Edinburgh, with which he remained connected until his death. In ad- dition to the works enumerated, Dr. Fleming published " Molluscous Animals, including Shell Fish" (Edinburgh, 1837), "The Temperature of the Seasons " (1851), " The Lithology of Edinburgh " (1858), and considerably more than 100 papers, principally on zoology, pa- leontology, and geology. FLEMISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. The Vlaemsch or Duytsch, one of the many Teu- tonic dialects, is the vernacular of the Vlamin- gen (about 2,500,000) in the Belgian provinces of East and West Flanders, Antwerp, and Lim- burg, in North Brabant, Holland, and in some parts of the French department of Le Nord, and also scattered in the Wallonic (Gallo-Ro- manic) provinces of Belgium ; French also being spoken in the large cities and used in official documents. It is akin to the Frisian and to the Hollandish or Dutch, which is its younger branch. It is more palatal and nasal than the Dutch, which is more guttural. The difference between the Flemish and Dutch languages con- sists principally in the orthography of words containing in Dutch the double vowels aa, ii or ij, oo, uu, which in Flemish retain the older forms ae, y, oe, ue. All words containing these double vowels are pronounced alike in the two languages, with one partial exception. In West Flanders and the department of Le Nord, France, where the old Flemish is spoken in the greatest purity, the y has the sound of the English short i in pin, instead of that of long i in mine, like its Dutch analogue ij ; as in Myn- heer, Mijnheer. In the provinces of East Flan- ders, Antwerp, and Brabant, however, the y has the long sound. The main difference be- tween Flemish and High German consists in the change of sch (German) into 8, and the harsh sz into t. So little alteration has taken place in the Flemish language, that many old manu- scripts can be easily deciphered at the present day. The earliest Flemish manuscript, Eei- naert de Vos (" Reynard the Fox "), attributed
