Fortification

(för-te-fe-kā'shun.) [From L. fortificatio, a making strong.] (Mil.) The art or science of fortifying ap lace, or of putting it in such a state, that 8 Fig. 332.-BATTERING-RAM AND MOVING TOWER. (FromNineveh Marbles in British Museum.) every one of its parts defends, and is defended by, some other parts, by means of ramparts, parapets, moats, and other bulwarks; so that a small number of men within may be able, for a considerable time, to withstand the a aults of a numerous army without.- ANCIENT F. In early times, when the sling and bow were the principal weapons of offence, a single wall, or a bank of earth, behind which mi iles could be discharged at a ailants, 2 X was a sufficient protection. Projecting towers, afterwards added, increased the front of the besieged, and enabled them to attack the besiegers in flank when they attempted to scale the wall. The invention of the battering-ram (Fig. 332) rendered it nece ary to increase the thickne of the wall; and projecting galleries, called machicolations, were constructed along its summit, and around the towers, through the pierced floors of which stones and other mi iles were showered down. Apertures or loop-holes for discharging arrows were pierced in the walls and battlements; and the whole was surrounded with a moat or deep ditch filled with water, if po ible. But the invention of gunpowder rendered a different system of F. nece ary; walls of masonry, which, however thick, could not long withstand the a ault of artillery, were exchanged for mounds of earth.-MODERN F. The principal works belonging to a modern F. are the ditch or trench made around each work; the rampart, or elevation of earth, raised along the faces of any work, to defend the inner portion; the parapet, or that part of a rampart which serves to protect the troops planted there; the bastion, that part of the inner enclosure of a F. making an angle towards the field; the counterscarp, the slope of the ditch facing the body of the place; the covered way, the space extending around the counterscarp; and the glacis, the part beyond the covered way, to which it serves as a parapet. In recent times, however, F. has undergone important changes, and engineers have adopted different systems; those which have acquired the greatest reputation in Europe being the systems of Count Pagan, the Baron de Coehorn, von Scheiter, and Marshal Vauban. But after the experience gained during the war between France and Germany, 1870-1, it has become evident that all the systems of modern F. are inadequate against the new kinds of artillery brought into use. Forti imo,(för-tis'se-mo.) (It.,very strongly.] (Mus.) See FORTE. [s. 377]