sea fan, colonial marine animal forming erect, flattened, branching colonies in tropical and subtropical waters. Colonies may be several feet high and are often colorful, with purples, reds, and yellows predominating. The individuals, or polyps (see polyp and medusa), have eight feathery tentacles and feed on plankton organisms. Sea fans are classified in the phylum Cnidaria, class Anthozoa, order Gorgonacea.

fan tan, card game for three to eight players using a regular deck. All cards are dealt after each player antes (pays) one chip into a pool. Play rotates to the left and if a player cannot play a card he must ante into the pool. Sevens must be played first. These are set (or foundation) cards, and sequences up to the king or down to the ace are formed. Play ends when any player gets rid of the last card in his hand.

fan, device for agitating air or gases or moving them from one location to another. Mechanical fans with revolving blades are used for ventilation, in manufacturing, in winnowing grain, to remove dust, cuttings, or other waste, or to provide draft for a fire. They are also used to move air for cooling purposes, as in automotive engines and air-conditioning systems, and are driven by belts or by direct motor. The axial-flow fan (e.g., an electric table fan) has blades that force air to move parallel to the shaft about which the blades rotate. The centrifugal fan has a moving component, called an impeller, that consists of a central shaft about which a set of blades form a spiral pattern. When the impeller rotates, air that enters the fan near the shaft is moved away perpendicularly from the shaft and out of an opening in the scroll-shaped fan casing. As a light, flat instrument manipulated by hand to cool the body or ward off insects, the fan is of tropical origin and probably stems from the primitive use of palm or other leaves. The long-handled, disk-shaped fan carried by attendants was from ancient times associated with regal and religious ceremonies. In China an early form of the hand fan was a row of feathers mounted in the end of a handle; in Greece linen was often stretched over a leaf-shaped frame; and in Rome wooden fans, gilded and painted, were used. In Europe during the Middle Ages the fan virtually disappeared until the 13th and 14th cent., when fans from the Middle East were brought back by Crusaders and became fashionable for the wealthy. After 1500 the fan became generally popular; flag fans, disk-shaped fans, and tuft fans of ostrich plumes or peacock feathers, with handles of carved ivory or gold set with jewels, were common in women's wardrobes. In c.1600 the folding fan, developed in medieval Japan and introduced into Europe by way of China, became popular. The slats, of ivory, bone, mica, mother-of-pearl, or tortoiseshell, were delicately carved and covered with paper or fabric. The fan reached a high degree of artistry, especially in France, in the 17th and 18th cent. Delicately folded fans of lace, silk, or parchment were decorated with original designs and paintings by contemporary artists. The management of the fan became a highly regarded feminine art. The function and employment of the fan reached its high point of social significance in Japan.

Tseng Kuo-fan, 1811-72, Chinese general and statesman of the Ch'ing dynasty. He organized (1853) the Hunan army, the first of the great regional armies that were raised to suppress the Taiping Rebellion. Appointed governor-general of Jiangsu, Anhui, and Jiangxi provs. (1860), Tseng coordinated the military campaign that crushed the Taiping main forces and took the rebel capital at Nanjing in 1864. He advocated a policy of conciliation with the Western powers and military self-strengthening. Under his sponsorship the Jiangnan Arsenal was established at Shanghai in 1865. In addition to producing the first modern weapons and ships, the arsenal's translation bureau played a major role in introducing Western technology and thought to China. Tseng was appointed a grand secretary (1867) and was made (1868) governor-general of Zhili (Hebei) prov. With the death of Tseng and the involvement of Tso Tsung-t'ang in suppressing the Muslim rebellion in NW China, Li Hung-chang became the leader of the self-strengthening movement.

Hsiang-fan, China: see Xiangfan.

Fan Si Pan, peak, 10,312 ft (3,143 m) high, on the divide between the Red and Black rivers, NW Vietnam, near the Chinese border. It is the highest point in Vietnam.

Accumulation of land-derived sediment on the seafloor; a fan is shaped like the section of a cone, with its apex at the mouth of a subbmarine canyon. The sediments consist largely of sandy material that drops from the canyon current in successively finer layers. Submarine fan valleys, with low relief and natural levees, often occur on submarine fans. Several fans may coalesce laterally.

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Any of about 500 coral species (genus Gorgonia) especially abundant in shallow waters along the Atlantic coasts of Florida, Bermuda, and the West Indies. Polyps grow colonially in a flat, fanlike pattern. Each polyp has some multiple of six tentacles, which it spreads out to form a plankton-catching net. An internal skeleton supports all branches of the colony. The living tissues (often red, yellow, or orange) entirely cover the skeleton. The fan-shaped colonies usually grow across the current, increasing their ability to ensnare prey. All species grow to about 2 ft (60 cm) high.

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Rigid or folding handheld device used for cooling, air circulation, or ceremony or as a sartorial accessory throughout the world from ancient times. As evidenced by Egyptian reliefs, early fans were of the rigid type, with a handle or stick attached to a rigid leaf or to feathers. In China, the folding fan came into fashion during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644); much significance came to be attached to the fan in East Asia, and many great Chinese painters devoted their talents to fan decoration. Portuguese traders in the 15th century brought fans to Europe from China and Japan. Through the 19th century in the West, fan decoration and size varied with European fashion.

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or Tseng Kuo-fan

(born Nov. 26, 1811, Xiangxiang, Hunan province, China—died March 12, 1872, Nanjing) Chinese military leader most responsible for suppressing the Taiping Rebellion, thus staving off the collapse of the Qing dynasty. Having passed the highest examinations in the Chinese examination system, Zeng entered the Hanlin Academy and worked successfully as a bureaucrat. In 1852 he was asked to help combat the Taiping rebels, who had reached the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) valley and were threatening the dynasty's survival. The imperial troops being weak, Zeng and other members of the scholar-gentry organized local militias. His army seized the rebels' supply areas along the upper Yangtze and besieged and captured their capital, Nanjing, in 1864. In 1865 he was called on to help suppress the Nian Rebellion; a year later he asked that Li Hongzhang take over the campaign. Seealso Zhang Zhidong.

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