Franz Josef Land Russian Zemlya Frantsa-losifa
Nzim-'lya-'frants-so-'yo-so-foX Archipelago, northeastern Barents Sea. Con¬ sisting of about 190 islands, it is the northernmost territory of Russia and the most northerly land of the Eastern Hemisphere. With a land area of about 6,229 sq mi (16,134 sq km), the islands comprise a series of low¬ land plateaus, 85% of which is ice-covered. The Arctic climate supports polar bears and the Arctic fox, with numerous bird species. The Soviet Union annexed the islands in 1926 and maintained permanent weather stations there.
Fraser, Dawn (b. Sept. 4, 1937, Balmain, near Sydney, Austl.) Austra¬ lian swimmer. She broke the women’s world record for the 100-m freestyle race nine successive times between 1956 and 1964 and became the first woman swimmer to win gold medals in three consecutive Olympic Games. Her 1964 100-m freestyle record of 58.9 seconds stood for eight years. She set world marks in freestyle swimming at six different distances.
Fraser, George MacDonald (b. 1925) British novelist. He trained as a journalist and served as deputy editor of the Glasgow Herald (1968— 69). The success of his first novel, Flashman (1969), led him to become a full-time writer. In it and subsequent novels filled with historical colour and detail, the bully of Thomas Hughes’s Tom Brown’s Schooldays is his hero. Recent novels include Black Ajax (1998) and Flashman and the Tiger (2000). He has also written screenplays.
Fraser, Simon (b. May, 20, 1776, Mapletown, N.Y.—d. Aug. 18?, 1862, St. Andrews West, Canada West) Canadian explorer and fur trader.
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706 I Fraser ► Frederick II
In 1784 he moved to Canada, where he became a clerk (1791) and later a partner (1801) in the North West Co. In 1805 he set out to find more suitable trade routes for the fur company. He discovered a river (later Fraser River) that he mistook for the Columbia River, realizing his error only after having followed its course for more than a year. In 1817, as head of the company’s Red River Valley department, he was arrested for his alleged participation in the Seven Oaks Massacre. After his acquittal, he retired to Ontario. Simon Fraser University is named for him.
Fraser Vfra-zor, 'fra-zhorV River River, south-central British Columbia, Can. Rising in the Rocky Mountains near Yellowhead Pass, it flows north¬ west and south nearly to the U.S. border. It then turns west through the Coast Mountains in a spectacular canyon to empty into the Strait of Geor¬ gia south of Vancouver; it is 850 mi (1,368 km) long. The Cariboo gold rush, which began in 1858, took place in the Fraser River basin; lumber¬ ing is now the main industry.
Fratellini \,fra-t9- , le-ne\ family European circus family best known for the Fratellini Brothers clown trio—Paul (1877-1940), Francois (1879— 1951), and Albert (1886-1961). They grew up in the circus, where their father was a trapeze artist and acrobat. They worked as clowns in pairs until their eldest brother died in 1909, whereupon they formed their unique triple act. The makeup Albert designed for himself—high black brows, exaggerated mouth, and bulbous red nose—influenced that of many later clowns. The brothers toured in Europe and Russia before join¬ ing the Cirque Medrano in Paris, where they were widely admired for their wit and charm. Many of their children became successful clowns, notably Paul’s son Victor (1901-79) and granddaughter Annie (1932-97).
fraternity and sorority Social, professional, or honorary societies for males and females, respectively. Most such organizations use combi¬ nations of letters of the Greek alphabet as names. Many social organiza¬ tions at U.S. colleges and universities are residential and require new members (“pledges”) to partake in initiation rites. Certain honorary soci¬ eties, such as Phi Beta Kappa, are also called fraternities; membership is based on general undergraduate scholarship. See also secret society.
fraud In law, the deliberate misrepresentation of fact for the purpose of depriving someone of a valuable possession or legal right. Any omission or concealment that is injurious to another or that allows a person to take unconscionable advantage of another may constitute criminal fraud. The most common type of fraud is the obtaining of property by giving a check for which there are insufficient funds in the signer’s account. Another is the assumption of someone else’s or a fictitious identity with the intent to deceive. Also important are mail and wire fraud (fraud committed by use of the postal service or electronic devices, such as telephones or com¬ puters). A tort action based on fraud is sometimes referred to as an action of deceit.
Fraunhofer lines In astronomical spectroscopy, dark lines in a star’s spectrum caused by selective absorption of its radiation at specific wave¬ lengths by the various chemical elements in its atmosphere. First observed in 1802, they are named for the German physicist Joseph von Fraunhofer (1787-1826), who from c. 1814 plotted over 500 of them and designated the brightest with the first few letters of the alphabet. About 25,000 Fraun¬ hofer lines are known to exist in the Sun’s spectrum, between the wave¬ lengths of 2,950 and 10,000 angstroms.
Fray Jorge V.fri-'hor-haV National Park National park, north-central Chile. Established in 1941 and covering 38 sq mi (100 sq km), it pre¬ serves a pocket of subtropical forest in a semiarid region. Botanists con¬ jecture that this unusual situation exists because the relatively warm discharge of a nearby river into the cold Pacific Ocean creates an almost continuous fog, providing moisture for the forest.
Frazer, Sir James George (b. Jan. 1, 1854, Glasgow, Scot.—d. May 7, 1941, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, Eng.) British anthropologist, folk¬ lorist, and classical scholar. Frazer attended Glasgow University and Trin¬ ity College, Cambridge, where he became a professor and remained the rest of his life. In The Golden Bough (1890; enlarged to 12 vols., 1911— 15), Frazer examined the evolution of modes of thought from the magi¬ cal to the religious and, finally, to the scientific. Although his evolutionary sequence is no longer accepted, Frazer’s synthesis of the new science of cultural anthropology with traditional humanistic concerns and his lively descriptions of exotic cultural beliefs and practices had a wide influence. His other works include Totemism and Exogamy (1910) and Folk-Lore in the Old Testament (1918).
Frazier Vfra-zhorV, E(dward) Franklin (b. Sept. 24, 1894, Balti¬ more, Md., U.S.—d. May 17, 1962, Washington, D.C.) U.S. sociologist. Frazier studied at Howard and Clark universities. At Morehouse College he organized the Atlanta University School of Social Work (for African Americans). His controversial article “The Pathology of Race Prejudice” (1927) forced him to leave Morehouse; he obtained a Ph.D. at the Uni¬ versity of Chicago in 1931, then taught at Fisk University (1929-34) and Howard University (1934-59). His The Negro Family in the United States (1939) is among the first sociological works on blacks researched and written by an African American.