FARRAR, Frederic William, English divine, son of a clergyman, born in Bombay, 7th Aug., 1831, died 22nd March, 1903. He graduated at Cambridge, 1854, was assistant master at Harrow in 1855, headmaster of Marlborough College in 1871, Archdeacon of Westminster, 1883, and Dean of Canterbury, 1895. He wrote various popular theological works and works of fiction, and was Bampton Lecturer in 1885. Among his principal works are: _The Life of Christ_ (1874), _Life of St. Paul_ (1879), _The Early Days of Christianity_ (1882), _Lives of the Fathers_ (1889), _Darkness and Dawn_.
FARS, or FARSISTAN, a maritime province in the south-west of Persia, abutting on the Persian Gulf. It is mountainous, but has many rich and well-cultivated districts. The most important products are grain, fruit, wine, oil, cotton, tobacco, silk, cochineal, and attar of roses. The manufactures include woollen, silk, and cotton goods; and in these and other articles an active trade is carried on, chiefly with Hindustan. Pop. estimated at 1,700,000.
FARSAN, two islands on the east side of the Red Sea on the coast of Yemen, called respectively Farsan Kebîr and Farsan Segîr.
FARTHINGALE, or FARDINGALE, an article of ladies' attire worn in the days of Queen Elizabeth, and closely resembling the more recent crinoline. It was formed of circles of whalebone hoops, and protruded more at the waist than the Victorian crinoline.
FARUKHABAD, or FARRAKHABAD (f_a_r-_a_k-ä-bäd´), a city in Agra division, United Provinces of British India, 2 or 3 miles from the Ganges, a handsome, well-built town, with avenues of trees in many of its streets. Pop. 59,647.
FASCES (fas´s[=e]z), in Roman antiquities, a bundle of polished rods, in the middle of which was an axe, carried by lictors before the superior magistrates. The number of fasces and lictors varied with the dignity of the magistrate. In the city the axe was laid aside.
FAS´CIA (Lat., a bandage), in anatomy, signifies any thin sheet of fibrous tissue, such, for example, as the covering which surrounds the muscles of the limbs and binds them in their places.
FASCINATION (Lat. _fascinare_, to charm), the exercise of an overpowering and paralysing influence upon some animals attributed to certain snakes. Squirrels, mice, and the smaller birds are said to be the most subject to this power; but the fact is far from clearly explained, and is not perhaps even sufficiently demonstrated. Most of the accounts agree in describing the animal fascinated as having a painful consciousness of its danger, and the power exercised over it, but to be unable to resist the desire to approach the fascinator. It is probable, however, that the real explanation of the phenomenon is to be found in the influence of the intense emotion of fear upon the muscles.