(John Reinhold, L.L.D.) professor of natural history in the university of Halle, member of the academy of sciences at Berlin, and of other learned societies, was born at Dantzig, in West Prussia, in the month of October 1729, and was formerly a Protestant clergyman at Dantzig. He had a numerous family, and the emoluments of his office were slender. He therefore quitted Dantzig, and went, first to Russia, and thence to England, in quest of a better settlement than his own country afforded. In the dissenting academy at Warrington he was appointed tutor in the modern languages, with the occasional office of lecturing in various branches of natural history. For the first department he was by no means well qualified; his extraordinary knowledge of languages, ancient and modern, being unaccompanied by a particle of taste; and his use of them being all barbarous, though fluent. As a natural historian, a critic, geographer, and antiquary, he ranked much higher; but, unfortunately, these were acquisitions of little value in his academical department.

At length he obtained the appointment of naturalist and philosopher (if the word may be so used) to the second voyage of discovery undertaken by Capt. Cook; and from 1772 to 1775 he accompanied that immortal navigator round the world. On his return he resided in London, till the improper conduct of himself and his son made it expedient for them both to leave the kingdom. Fortunately he received an invitation to Halle, where, for 18 years, he was a member of the philosophical and medical faculties. Among his works are: An Introduction to Mineralogy, or, An accurate Classification of Fossils and Minerals, &c. London, 1768, 8vo. A Catalogue of the Animals of North America, with short Directions for collecting, preserving, and transporting all kinds of Natural Curiosities, London, 1771, 8vo. Observations made during a Voyage round the World, on Physical Geography, &c. London, 1778. He was the author of a great many productions in English, Latin, or German, and of several papers in the Philosophical Transactions. He translated into English, Bougainville's Voyage round the World, and Kalm's, Bolten's, and Reidell's Travels. He was employed likewise, when in England, in the Critical Review; and he wrote various detached papers on different subjects, which have been inserted in foreign journals and the transactions of learned academies.

He died at Halle on the 16th of December 1798, in the 70th year of his age.

(George), the son of the preceding, was born at Dantzig, and accompanied his father to England when he was about twelve years of age. He entered a student in the academy at Warrington, and soon acquired a very perfect use of the English tongue. He also distinguished himself greatly by his attainments in science and literature in general; adding to an excellent memory, quick parts and a fertile imagination. His temper was mild and amiable; in which he much differed from his father, one of the most quarrelsome and irritable of men; by which disposition, joined to a total want of prudence in common concerns, he lost almost all the friends his talents had acquired him, and involved himself and family in perpetual difficulties.

The case was very different with the subject of this memoir; for when Dr Forster was appointed naturalist to captain Cook, his son, through the interest of the friends whom his good nature had made, was associated with him in his office. The voyage continued during the space of three years; and on their return the two Forsters published jointly a botanical work in Latin, containing the characters of a number of new genera of plants, discovered by them in their circumnavigation. Thus far they acted properly in the service of government for the advancement of science; but in publishing another work their conduct was not proper.

The father had come under an engagement not to publish separately, from the authorized narrative, any account of the voyage; and this engagement he and his son were determined to violate. An account of the voyage, therefore, was published in English and German by Georges; and the language, which is correct and elegant, was undoubtedly his; but those who knew both him and his father, are satisfied that the matter proceeded from the joint stock of their observations and reflections. Several parts of the work, and particularly the elaborate investigations relative to the languages spoken by the natives of the South Sea Islands, and the speculations concerning their successive migrations, are thought to be strongly impressed with the genius of the elder Forster.

That a work thus surreptitiously ushered into the world was not patronized by those with whom the authors had so ungratefully broken faith, could excite no wonder, even though the publication itself had been otherwise unexceptionable; but this was far from being the case. It abounds with reflections injurious to the government whose servants they had been, and not just to the navigators employed on voyages of discovery. The younger Forster, too, had some time before published a book replete with factious sentiments; and the coldness with which he and his father were both treated in consequence of such conduct, determined them to leave London.

We have already related all that we know of the father, who was recommended to our notice only by his connection with the illustrious Cook; and of the son, there is a short account in the Monthly Magazine, by Charles Pougers, fraught with those impious and factious reflections which so frequently disgrace a miscellany, which would otherwise be highly valuable. According to this author, George Forster was desirous to settle in France. Avaricious of glory, and an idolater of liberty, Paris was the city most suitable to his taste and character of any in Europe. Notwithstanding this, he was soon constrained to leave it; the interest of his family demanded this sacrifice; for a learned man, who fails round the world, may enrich his memory, but he will not better his fortune. He was accordingly obliged to accept the place of professor of natural history in the university of Cassel. But his factious spirit accompanied him whithersoever he went. It is well known, that the petty princes of Germany have long been in the practice of hiring out their troops to more opulent sovereigns engaged in war. This practice, which we are not disposed to defend, not only scandalizes our Cosmopolite, but so irritated ritated his temper and offended his pride; because, forsooth, the Prince of Hesse-Cassel would not by him be persuaded to relinquish it, that he did every thing in his power, we are told, to withdraw himself from a situation so unsuitable to a thinking being. Everything in his power! Did the Prince retain him in the university contrary to his inclination? The university of Cassel must be contemptible indeed, if the pretensions of such a man as George Forster were of such consequence to it.

He got away, however; and the senate of Poland having offered him a chair in the university of Wilna, Forster accepted of the invitation. But although this office was very lucrative, and the enlightened patriots of that country did not neglect to procure him all the literary succours of which he stood in need, he could not be long happy in a semi-barbarous nation, in which liberty was suffered to expire under the intrigues of Russia and Prussia.

On this, with wonderful constancy, the man who could not endure the despotic rule of Hesse, or even the aristocracy of England, accepted of the propositions of that friend to liberty Catherine II.; who, jealous of every species of glory, wished to signalize her reign, by procuring to the Russian nation the honour of undertaking, after the example of England and France, a new voyage of discovery round the world. Unfortunately for the progress of knowledge, the war with the Ottoman Porte occasioned the miscarriage of this useful project.

But Forster could not long remain in obscurity. The different publications with which he occasionally enriched natural history and literature, increased his reputation. The Elector of Mentz accordingly appointed him president of the university of the same name; and he was discharging the functions of his new office when the French troops took possession of the capital. This philosophical traveller, who had studied society under all the various aspects arising from different degrees of civilization; who had viewed man simple and happy at Otaheite;—an eater of human flesh in New Zealand, corrupted by commerce in England, depraved in France by luxury and atheism, in Brabant by superstition, and in Poland by anarchy;—beheld with wild enthusiasm the dawnings of the French revolution, and was the first, says M. Pougens, to promulgate republicanism in Germany.

The Mayenois, who had formed themselves into a national convention, sent him to Paris, in order to solicit their reunion with the French republic. But, in the course of his mission, the city of Mentz was besieged and retaken by the Prussian troops. This event occasioned the loss of all his property; and what was still more disastrous, that of his numerous manuscripts, which fell into the hands of the Prince of Prussia.

Our biographer, after conducting his hero through these scenes of public life, proceeds to give us a view of his domestic habits and private principles. He tells us, that he formed a connection (whether a marriage or not, the studied ambiguity of his language leaves rather uncertain) with a young woman named Theresa Hayne, who, by the illumination of French philosophy, had divested herself of all the prejudices which, we trust, the ladies of this country still consider as their honour, as they are certainly the guardians of domestic peace. Miss Hayne was indignant at the very name of duty. With Eloisa she had taken it into her head, that

Love, free as air, at flight of human ties, Spreads his light wings, and in a moment dies.

She was frank enough, however, says our author, to acknowledge the errors of her imagination; and from this expression, and his calling her afterwards Forster's wife, we are led to suppose that she was actually married to him. But their union, of whatever kind, was of short duration. Though the lady is said to have been passionately attached to celebrated names, the name of George Forster was not sufficient to satisfy her. He soon ceased; we are informed, to please her; she therefore transferred her affections to another; and, as was very natural for a woman who was indignant at the name of duty, she proved false to her husband's bed. Forster, however, pretended to be such a friend to the modern rights of men and women, that he defended the character of his Theresa against crowds who condemned her conduct. Nay, we are told, that he considered himself, and every other husband who ceases to please, as the adulterer of nature. He therefore laboured strenuously to obtain a divorce, to enable Theresa Hayne to espouse the man whom she preferred to himself. Strange, however, to tell, the prejudices even of this Cosmopolite were too strong for his principles. While he was endeavouring to procure the divorce, he made preparations at the same time, by the study of the oriental languages, to undertake a journey to Thibet and Indostan, in order to remove from that part of the world, in which both his heart and his person had experienced so severe a shock. But the chagrin occasioned by his misfortunes, joined to a feverish affection, to which he had been long subject, and which he had contracted at sea during the voyage of circumnavigation, abridged his life, and prevented him from realizing this double project. He died at Paris, at the age of thirty-nine, on the 13th of February 1792.

This is a strange tale; but we trust it will not prove useless. The latter part of it at least shows, that when men divest themselves of the principles of religion, they often degenerate from the dignity of philosophers to the level of mere sensualists; and that the woman who can, in defiance of decorum and honour, transfer her affections and her person from man to man, ranks no higher in the scale of being than a female brute of more than common sagacity. It shews likewise, that the contempt of our modern fates for those partial attachments which unite individuals in one family, is a mere pretence; that the dictates of nature will be heard; and the laws of nature's God obeyed. George Forster, though he was such a zealous advocate for liberty and equality, as to vindicate the adultery of his wife; yet felt so sensibly the wound which her infidelity inflicted on his honour, that he could not survive it, but perished, in consequence, in the flower of his age.

Royal Fort, is one whose line of defence is at least 26 fathoms long.

Star Fort, is a fence or redoubt, constituted by re-entering and salient angles, having commonly from five to eight points, and the sides flanking each other.

Fossil Meal, otherwise called bituminous mineral argaric, arganic, and guhr, is, according to M. Fabbroni, a mixed earth, which exhales an argillaceous odour, and throws out a light whitish smoke when sprinkled with water. It is abundant in Tuscany, where it is employed for cleaning plate. It does not effervesce with acids; is fusible in the fire, in which it loses an eighth part of its weight, though it becomes scarcely diminished in bulk; and, according to the analysis made by M. Fabbroni, consists of the following component parts: siliceous earth 55; magnesia 15; water 14; argil 12; lime 3; iron 1. With this earth, which is found near Caffeldelpiano in the territories of Sienna, M. Fabbroni composed bricks, which, either baked or unbaked, floated in water. Hence he infers, that the floating bricks, which Pliny mentions as peculiar to Massilia and Calent, two cities in Spain, must have been made of fossil meal. Bricks made of that substance resist water exceedingly well, and unite perfectly with lime; they are subject to no alteration either by heat or cold; and about a twentieth part of argil may be added with advantage to their composition, without depriving them of the property of floating. M. Fabbroni tried their resistance, and found it very little inferior to that of common bricks; but it is much greater in proportion to their lightness. One of these bricks, seven inches in length, four and a half in breadth, and one inch eight lines in thickness, weighed only 14½ ounces; whereas a common brick weighed 5 pounds 6½ ounces.

Bricks of fossil-meal may be of important benefit in the construction of reverberating furnaces; as they are such bad conductors of heat, that a person may bring one half of them to a red heat, while the other is held in the hand. They may be employed also for buildings that require to be light; for constructing cooking places on board ships; and also floating batteries, the parapets of which, if made of these bricks, would be proof against red hot bullets; and, lastly, for constructing powder magazines.

FOULAHs or FOOLAHs, a people in Africa, inhabiting a country on the confines of the great desert (see SAHARA in this Suppl.) along the parallel of nine degrees north. They partake much of the negro form and complexion; but have neither the jetty colour, thick lips, nor crimped hair of the negroes. They have also a language distinct from the Mandingas, which is the prevailing one in this quarter. The Foolahs occupy, at least as sovereigns, several provinces or kingdoms, interspersed throughout the tract comprehended between the mountainous border of the country of Sierra Leon on the west, and that of Tombuctoo on the east; as also a large tract on the lower part of the Senegal river; and these provinces are insulated from each other in a very remarkable manner. Their religion is Mahomedanism; but with a great mixture of Paganism, and with less intolerance than is practised by the Moors.

The principal of the Foolah states is that within Sierra Leon on the west, and of which Teemboo is the capital. The next in order appears to be that bordering on the south of the Senegal river, and on the Jaloffs; this is properly named Siratik. Others of less note are Bondou, with Foota-Torra adjacent to it, lying between the rivers Gambia and Falémé; Foola-doo and Brooko along the upper part of the Senegal river; Waffela beyond the upper part of the Niger; and Massina lower down on the same river, and joining to Tombuctoo on the west.

The kingdom of the Foolahs, situated between the upper part of the Gambia river and the coast of Sierra Leon, and along the Rio Grande, is governed by a Mahometan sovereign; but the bulk of the people appear to be Pagans. From the circumstances of their long hair, their lips, and comparatively light colour, Major Rennel is decidedly of opinion, that the Foolahs are the Lecuethiops of Ptolemy and Pliny. The former, as he observes, places the Leucethiops in the situation occupied by the Foolahs; and by the name which he gave them, he evidently meant to describe a people less black than the generality of the Ethiopians. Hence it may be gathered, that this nation had been traded with, and that some notices respecting it had been communicated to Ptolemy. It may also be remarked, that the navigation of Hanno terminated on this coast; and as this was also the term of Ptolemy's knowledge, it may justly be suspected, that this part of the coast was described from Carthaginian materials.

Those who have perused the Journal of Mr. Watt and Winterbottom through the Foolah country in 1794, and recollect how flattering a picture they give of the urbanity and hospitality of the Foolahs, will be gratified on finding that this nation was known and distinguished from the rest of the Ethiopians at a remote period of antiquity.

The contrast between the Moorish and Negro characters is as great as that between the nature of their respective countries, or between their form and complexion. The Moors appear to possess the vices of the Arabs without their virtues; and to avail themselves of an intolerant religion, to oppress strangers: whilst the Negroes, and especially the Mandingas, unable to comprehend a doctrine that substitutes opinion or belief for the social duties, are content to remain in their humble state of ignorance. The hospitality shewn by these good people to Mr. Park, a destitute and forlorn stranger, raises them very high in the scale of humanity; and I know of no fitter title, says Mr. Rennel, to confer on them than that of the Hindos of Africa; at the same time, by no means intending to degrade the Mahomedans of India by a comparison with the African Moors.—See Major Rennel's Geographical Illustrations of Mr. Park's Journey, and of North Africa at large, printed for the African Association.