611).

FERMANAGH (74), an Irish county in the SW. corner of Ulster, of a
hilly surface, especially in the W.; is well wooded, and produces
indifferent crops of oats, flax, and potatoes; some coal and iron, and
quantities of limestone, are found in it; the Upper and Lower Loughs Erne
form a waterway through its centre; chief town, Enniskillen.

FERMAT, PIERRE DE, a French mathematician, born near Montauban; made
important discoveries in the properties of numbers, and with his friend
Pascal invented a calculus of probabilities; was held in high esteem by
Hallam, who ranks him next to Descartes (1601-1665).

FERNANDEZ, JUAN, a Spanish navigator, discovered the island off the
coast of Chile that bears his name; _d_. in 1576.

FERNANDO PO (25), a mountainous island, with an abrupt and rocky
coast, in the Bight of Biafra, W. Africa; the volcano, Mount Clarence
(9300 ft.), rises in the N.; is covered with luxuriant vegetation, and
yields maize and yams, some coffee, and palm-oil and wine; is inhabited
by the Bubis, a Bantu tribe; is the chief of the Spanish Guinea Isles.

FEROZEPORE (50), the chief town of the district of the same name in
the Punjab, India, a few miles S. of the Sutlej; is strongly fortified,
and contains a large arsenal; the present town was laid out by Lord
Lawrence. F. DISTRICT (887), lies along the S. bank of the Sutlej;
came into the possession of the British in 1835; cereals, cotton, sugar,
and tobacco are cultivated.

FERRAR, NICHOLAS, a religious enthusiast in the reign of Charles I.;
was elected a Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge, in 1610; afterwards
devoted himself to medicine and travelled on the Continent; subsequently
joined his father in business in London, and entered Parliament in 1624;
but a year later retired to the country, and at Little Gidding,
Huntingdonshire, founded, with some of his near relations, a religious
community, known as the "Arminian Nunnery," some account of which is
given in Shorthouse's "John Inglesant"; it was broken up by the Puritans
in 1647; he was the intimate friend of George Herbert; this community
consisted of some "fourscore persons, devoted to a kind of Protestant
monasticism; they followed celibacy and merely religious duties, employed
themselves in binding prayer-books, &c., in alms-giving and what
charitable work was possible to them in their desert retreat, kept up,
night and day, a continual repetition of the English liturgy, never
allowing