FAN (AS. faun, from Lat. venous, fan, win nowing machine ; connected' with Skt. Gk.dijvat aenai, to blow-, Goth. winds, OTIG. zoint, Ger. Wind, AS., Eng. wind). An instrument or me chanical contrivance for moving the air for the sake of coolness, or for winnowing chaff from grain. In the East, the use of fans is of remote antiquity. The Hebrews, Egyptians, Chinese, and the miscellaneous population of India, all used fans as far back as history reaches. At the pres ent day, it is customary, in the better classes of houses in India, to suspend a large species of fan, known as a punkah, from the ceiling, and keep it in agitation with strings, pulled by ser vants, in order to give a degree of coolness to the air. Among the oldest notices of winnowing fans are those in the Scriptures. There, the fan is always spoken of as an instrument for driving away chaff, or for cleansing in a metaphorical sense; and such notices remind us of the simple processes of husbandry employed by a people little advanced in the arts. As can be seen from the collection of Egyptian antiquities in the Brit ish Museum, the fan as an article of female taste and luxury is of quite as old date as the agricul tural instrument. Plautus, the Latin come dian, makes one of his characters speak of the fan as used by ladies. From this Roman usage the fashion of carrying fans could scarcely fail to he banded down to Italy, Spain, and France, whence it was in later times im ported by the women of Great Britain. It is proper to say, however, that the fan was in these and also in later times not a mere article of finery. There wore walking as well as dress fans. The walking or outdoor fan, which a lady carried with her to church, or to public promenades, was of large dimensions, sufficient to screen the face from the sun, and answered the purpose of the modern parasol. In old prints, ladies are seen carrying these fans in different attitudes accord ing to fancy. The dress fan, which funned part of a lady's equipment at Court ceremonials and fashionable entortainnients. was of considerably less size than the walking fan, and altogether more elegant. In the finer kinds of these old fans, the open part of paper is painted with pretty rural scenes and groups of figures in the style of Watteau (q.v.). All were probably of French manufacture. The more cosily fan im ported from China was altogether of ivory, highly carved and pierced; but it lacked the lightness and flexibility which were essential in the ordi nary management of this article of the toilet. Strictly speaking, the fan was used less for the purposes of cooling than for giving the hands something to do, and also for symbolically ex pressing certain passing feelings.
Fans are of two kinds. those that are rigid and those that will fold. Of the former, simpler kind the modern palm-leaf fan imported from the East or \Vest Indies is a typical example, al though fans of many other materials are made in the same general form. The folding fan is said to have been a Japanese invention of the seventh century, and this country still supplies the Western world with a large part of its cheaper fans. The folding fan consists of two portions, the folded fabric and the rigid strips fastened to it and pivoted together at the other end so that they fold easily. In Japan fan-making is partly a household industry. and even the cheapest and simplest fan passes through many fingers during the course of its construction. The bamboo ribs are cut by one set of workers, the designs for the fabric made by a second, and the printing by a third. The printed sheets and bamboo strips are now given to workmen, who first fold the sheets by putting them between two sheets of heavily oiled paper which are properly creased, and then putting them under pressure. The sheets are then spread with paste, the strips applied and then pivoted. A designer plans and directs every step of the process. deciding upon shape. design. and color ing. Modern fans are made of an endless variety of materials, including all the finer textiles, feathers. paper, ivory, and woods. Great oppor tunity for the display of taste and artistic ability is afforded in the design and fabrication of fans.
FAN, or FANNER. In agriculture, a ma chine employed to winnow grain. In passing through the machine, the grain is rapidly agitat ed in a sieve, and, falling through a strong cur rent of wind created by a rotary fan. the chaff is blown out, the eleanied grain falling out at an orifice beneath. The apparatus is composed chief ly of wood, and though ordinarily moved by the hand, it is sometimes connected with the driving power of a threshing-machine. The fan super seded the old and slow process of winnowing. which consisted in throwing up the grain by means of sieves or shovels, while a current of wind, blowing across the threshing-floor, carried away the chaff. It is said that a machine for the winnowing of grain was for the first time made in Scotland, by Andrew Rodger, a farmer, on the estate of Cavers, in Roxburghshire, in the year 1737. See IMPLEMENTS, AGRICULTURAL.