FINNS, geographically, the name of- the inhabitants of Finland; but in ethnology, that of a considerable branch of the Ugrian race, dwelling for the most part in Finland, though with some representatives in Sweden and Norway as well. The Ugrians have been classed among the nations said to have a Mongolian origin. 'Dr. Latham places them among the " Turanian Altaic Mongolidx," and divides them into Ugrians of the east, and Ugrians of the west. The western Ugrians consist of Lapps, Finns, Permians, and other nations or tribes in the n. and n.w. of Russia, and of the Magyars in Hungary. The Magyars are the most numerous, and next after these come the F., comprising about 2,000,000 of individuals. All the other tribes of western Ugrians do not together comprise so many. The F., in common with the other Ugrians, are of the Mongolian type. A recent traveler, Mr. Bayard Taylor, describes them as having " high cheek bones, square, strong jaws, full, yet firm lips, low broad foreheads, dark eyes and hair, and a deeper, warmer red on the cheeks than on those of the rosy Swedes. The average height is, perhaps, not quite equal to that of the latter race, but in physical vigor there is no inferiority, and there are among them many men of splendid stature, strength, and proportion." Other travelers bear similar testimony to the physical appearance of the F. proper, or those of pure Finnish blood; but although these form the majority, there are many, in the towns especially, who pass for F., while, in reality, they are quite as much entitled to be called SwedeS, or even Russians, on account of the frequent inter marriages of the F. with individuals of those two nations. F., from having been originally a nomadic race, have for many centuries been stationary and civilized. Long before the arrival of the German and Slavic nations in the n. of Europe, the Ugrians, or Ogres (for the name so common in fiction is really of historic origin), possessed it, and were gradually pushed further n. and e. by the new invaders. Both F. and Lapps, there is good reason to believe, originally extended much further s. than they do at present, occupying, perhaps, the whole of Sweden and Norway. "The Finns," says Prichard, "were, in the time of Tacitus, as savage as the Lapps; but the former, dur ing the succeeding ages, became so far civilized as to exchange a nomadic life for one of agricultural pursuits; while the Lapps have ever continued to be barbarous nomades, as well as the Siberian tribes of the same race—namely, the Woguls and Ostiaks. The Finns, as well as their brethren the Beormahs, or Finns of the White sea, had probably undergone this change long before the time when they were visited by Otther, the guest of Alfred. When the Finns were conquered by the Swedes, they had long been a set tled people, but one of curious, and singular, and isolated character." The Finnish language, like that of the other Ugrian nations, belongs to the Turanian family of languages, and hence offers some striking points of resemblance to the lan guages and dialects of the Turks, Tartars, Mongols, Mandshurians, Tungusians, and even Magyars or Hungarians. In Finnish, the nouns are not inflected, but an additional
word is required to denote the variations of case, number, and sex. The prepositions and pronouns are suffixed to the words they modify. The verbs have only two tenses, past and present; the future being expressed by adding to the present some word indi cating a future action or state of being. Bask considers the Finnish to be the most har monious of tongues. Many Swedish, and a few Russian words have, of course, become incorporated with the language, in consequence of the social and political relations of the F. with those two countries. The F. of our time are doubtless the same race as the Fenni of Tacitus, and the Phinnoi of Strabo and Ptolemy, though not occupying the same geographical area. " The nearest approach to a name at once general and native," says Dr. Latham, ;'is 'Suomelainen, meaning swamp, morass, or fen people; the term Finn and Finlander being of foreign origin." With respect to the social habits, morals, and manners of the F., all travelers are unanimous in praising them. They are of a cheerful disposition, affectionate towards each other, and honest and honorable in' their dealings with strangers. They are also cleanly in their persons, being much addicted to the use of the vapor-bath, to which circumstance may be attributed the strongly marked difference in physical appearance between them and the stunted Lapps, to whom, in language as well as many other respects, they stand closely related.
FINS (allied to Let. pinna or penna, see letter F), organs adapted for swimming or locomotion in water. The limits of the application of the term are rather vague. It is always applied to the locomotive organs of fishes, when they possess special organs of locomotion, as almost all of them do; and equally to those organs (the pectoral and ventral fins) which are homologous to the limbs of other vertebrate animals, and to those (the vertical fins) which may be said to be superadded to them, and to belong to fishes alone; equally also to those which are furnished with rays, having a membrane stretched on them, as is generally the case in all the F. of fishes, and to those which consist, as in some fishes, of a mere fold of the skin, and which, when they exist in fishes, are in reality not very much organs of locomotion. The name F. is given to the locomotive organs of eetaeea, but not to those of any other mammalkt, even when, as in the case of the hind-feet of seals, they approach very" nearly to the character of the F. of fishes. Nor is it ever given to, the webbed feet of birds. But it is often given to the swimming organs of invertebrate animals, as to the expansions of the mantle which serve this pur pose in the cephalopoda, and which are entirely destitute of rays.