FUMIGATION, is the employment of fumes or vapors to purify articles of sip= pare], and goods or apartments supposed to be imbued with some infections or contagious poison or fumes. The vapors of vinegar, the fumes of burning sulphur, explosion of gunpowder, have been long prescribed and practised, but they have in all probability little or no efficacy. The diffusion of such powerful agents as chlorine gas, muriatic acid gas, or nitric acid vapor, should alone be trusted to for the destruction of morbific effluvia. FUNICULAR MACHINE. In mecha nics, if a body fixed to two or more ropes is sustained by powers which act by means of those ropes, the assemblage is called the funicular machine, or rope machine. If a rope is stretched horizon tally between two points, its own weight alone will prevent it from becoming per fectly straight, whatever force be em ployed in stretching it; and a very small force applied at its middle point, at right angles to its direction, will be sufficient to overcome a very great resistance at the points to which its extremities are attached. In this manner a very small
force may be made to raise a very great weight to a minute height. This method of applying force is familiar to seamen, who frequently have recourse to it in bracing their sails.
FUR. The coated skins of wild ani mals, especially of those of high northern latitudes ; such as the wolf, bear, beaver, &c. The hair of fur is cleansed, and the skin is generally slightly tanned or taw ed. The most valuable furs, such as ermine and sable, come chiefly from Russia. When unprepared, or merely dried the fur skins go under the name of peitry.