The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 156

DAVIS, JEFFERSON, President of the Confederate States, born in Kentucky; entered the army; fought against the Indians; turned cotton-planter; entered Congress as a Democrat; distinguished himself in the Mexican war; defended slave-holding and the interests of slave-holding States; was chosen President of the Confederate States; headed the conflict with the North; fled on defeat, which he was the last to admit; was arrested and imprisoned; released after two years; retired into private life, and wrote a "History of the Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government" (1808-1889).

DAVIS, JOHN, an English navigator, born near Dartmouth; took early to the sea; conducted (1585-1587) three expeditions to the Arctic Seas in quest of a NW. pa.s.sage to India and China, as far N. as 73; discovered the strait which bears his name; sailed as pilot in two South Sea expeditions, and was killed by j.a.panese pirates near Malacca; wrote the "Seaman's Secret" (1550-1605).

DAVIS, THOMAS, an Irish patriot, born at Mallow; educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and called to the Irish bar; took to journalism in the interest of Irish nationality; founded the _Nation_ newspaper, and by his contributions to it did much to wake up the intelligence of the country to national interests; died young; was the author of "Songs of Ireland"

and "Essays on Irish Songs" (1814-1845).

DAVIS STRAIT, strait connecting Baffin's Bay with the Atlantic, discovered by JOHN DAVIS (q. v.).

DAVITT, MICHAEL, a noted Irish patriot, born in co. Mayo, son of a peasant, who, being evicted, settled in Lancas.h.i.+re; joined the Fenian movement, and was sentenced to 15 years' penal servitude; released on ticket-of-leave after seven years; founded the Land League; was for over a year imprisoned again for breaking his ticket-of-leave; published in 1885 "Leaves from a Prison Diary"; entered Parliament in 1895 for co.

Mayo; _b_. 1846.

DAVOS-PLATZ, a village 5105 ft. above the sea-level, in a valley of the East Grisons; a place frequented in winter by invalids suffering from chest disease, the dry air and suns.h.i.+ne that prevail being favourable for patients of that cla.s.s.

DAVOUT, Duke of Auerstadt, Prince of Eckmuhl, marshal of France, born at Annoux, in Burgundy; was fellow-student with Napoleon at the military school in Brienne; entered the army in 1788, served in the Revolutionary wars under Dumouriez and Desaix, and became general; served under Bonaparte in Egypt; distinguished himself at Austerlitz, Auerstadt, Eckmuhl, and Wagram; was made governor of Hamburg; accompanied Napoleon to Moscow; returned to Hamburg, and defended it during a siege; was made Minister of War in 1815, and a.s.sisted Napoleon in his preparations for the final struggle at Waterloo; commanded the remains of the French army which capitulated under the walls of Paris; adhered to the Bourbon dynasty on its return, and was made a peer; was famous before all the generals of Napoleon for his rigour in discipline (1770-1823).

DAVY, SIR HUMPHRY, a great English chemist, born at Penzance; conceived early in life a pa.s.sion for the science in which he made so many discoveries; made experiments on gases and the respiration of them, particularly nitrous oxide and carbonic acid; discovered the function of plants in decomposing the latter in the atmosphere, and the metallic bases of alkalies and earths; proved chlorine to be a simple substance and its affinity with iodine, which he discovered; invented the safety-lamp, his best-known achievement; he held appointments and lectured in connection with all these discoveries and their applications, and received knighthood and numerous other honours for his services; died at Geneva (1778-1829).

DAVY JONES'S LOCKER, the sailors' familiar name for the sea as a place of safe-keeping, though why called of Davy Jones is uncertain.

DAVY-LAMP, a lamp encased in gauze wire which, while it admits oxygen to feed the flame, prevents communication between the flame and any combustible or explosive gas outside.

DAWKINS, WILLIAM BOYD, geologist and palaeontologist, born in Montgomerys.h.i.+re; has written "Cave Hunting," "Early Man in Britain," &c.; _b_. 1838.

DAWSON, GEORGE, a popular lecturer, born in London; educated in Aberdeen and Glasgow; bred for the ministry by the Baptist body, and pastor of a Baptist church in Birmingham, but resigned the post for ministry in a freer atmosphere; took to lecturing on a purely secular platform, and was for thirty years the most popular lecturer of the day; no course of lectures in any inst.i.tute was deemed complete if his name was not in the programme; did much to popularise the views of Carlyle and Emerson (1821-1876).

DAWSON, SIR JOHN WILLIAM, geologist and naturalist, born in Pictou, Nova Scotia; studied in Edinburgh; distinguished himself as a palaeontologist; published in 1872, "Story of the Earth and Man"; in 1877, "Origin of the World"; and recently, "Geology and History"; called in question the Darwinian theory as to the origin of species; _b_. 1820.

DAY, JOHN, an English dramatist, contemporary of Ben Jonson; author of the "Parliament of Bees," a comedy in which all the characters are bees.

DAY, THOMAS, an eccentric philanthropist, born in London; author of "Sandford and Merton"; he was a disciple of Rousseau; had many a ludicrous adventure in quest of a model wife, and happily fell in with one to his mind at last; was a slave-abolitionist and a parliamentary reformer (1748-1789).

DAYAKS. See DYAKS.

DAYTON (85), a prosperous town in Ohio, U.S.; a great railway centre, with a court-house of marble, after the Parthenon in Athens.

D'AZARA, a Spanish naturalist, born in Aragon; spent 20 years in South America; wrote a "Natural History of the Quadrupeds in Paraguay"

(1781-1811).

DEAD SEA, called also the Salt Sea and 'the Asphalt Lake, a sea in Palestine, formed by the waters of the Jordan, 46 m. long, 10 m. broad, and in some parts 1300 ft. deep, while its surface is 1312 ft. below the level of the Mediterranean, just as much as Jerusalem is above it; has no outlet; its waters, owing to the great heat, evaporate rapidly, and are intensely salt; it is enclosed E. and W. by steep mountains, which often rise to a height of 6000 ft.

DEaK, FRANCIS, an eminent Hungarian statesman, born at Kehida, of an ancient n.o.ble Magyar family; his aim for Hungary was the same as that of CAVOUR (q. v.) for Italy, the establishment of const.i.tutional government, and he succeeded; standing all along as he did from Hungarian republicanism on the one hand, and Austrian tyranny on the other, he urged on the Emperor of Austria the demand of the Diet, of which he had become leader, at first without effect, but after the humiliation of Austria in 1866, all that he asked for was conceded, and the Austrian Emperor received the Hungarian crown (1803-1876).

DEAL (9), a town, one of the old Cinque ports, oil the E. of Kent, opposite the Goodwin Sands, 89 m. from London, with a fine sea-beach; much resorted to for sea-bathing quarters.

DEAN, FOREST OF, a forest of 22,000 acres in the W. of Gloucesters.h.i.+re, between the Severn and the Wye; the property of the Crown for the most part; the inhabitants are chiefly miners, who at one time enjoyed special privileges.

DEAN OF GUILD, a burgh magistrate in Scotland who has the care of buildings, originally the head of the Guild brethren of the town.

DEAN OF ST. PATRICK'S, Jonathan Swift, who held that post from 1713 till his death.

DEANS, DAVIE, EFFIE, AND JEANIE, characters in the "Heart of Midlothian."

DeBATS, JOURNAL DES, a daily paper, established in 1789; it defends at present the Conservative Republican policy, and publishes often remarkable literary articles.

DEBENTURE, a deed acknowledging a debt on a specified security.

DEBO'RAH, a Hebrew prophetess; reckoned one of the judges of Israel by her enthusiasm to free her people from the yoke of the Canaanites; celebrated for her song of exultation over their defeat, instinct at once with pious devotion and with revengeful feeling; Coleridge calls her "this Hebrew Boadicea."

DEBRECZEN (56), a Hungarian town, 130 m. E. of Buda-Pesth; is the head-quarters of Protestantism in the country, and has an amply equipped and a largely attended Protestant College; is a seat of manufactures and a large trade.

DECAMERON, a collection of a hundred tales, conceived of as rehea.r.s.ed in ten days at a country-house during the plague at Florence; are of a licentious character, but exquisitely told; were written by Boccaccio; published in 1352; the name comes from _deka_, ten, and _hemera_, a day.

DECAMPS, ALEXANDRA GABRIEL, a distinguished French painter, born in Paris; brought up as a boy among the peasants of Picardy; represented nature as he in his own way saw it himself, and visited Switzerland and the East, where he found materials for original and powerful pictures; his pictures since his death have brought great prices (1803-1860).

DE CANDOLLE, AUGUSTIN PYRAME, an eminent botanist, born at Geneva, of Huguenot descent; studied in Paris; attracted the attention of Cuvier and Lamarck, whom he a.s.sisted in their researches; published his "Flore Francaise," in six vols.; became professor at Montpellier, and then at Geneva; is the historical successor of Jussieu; his great contribution to botanical science is connected with the cla.s.sification of plants (1778-1841).