[1] The commission completed its labours on the 1st of July 1905,
after having allotted 20,000,000 acres of land among 90,000 Indians
and absorbed the five Indian governments into the national system.
The "five tribes" were the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and
Seminole Indians.
DAWES, RICHARD (1708-1766), English classical scholar, was born in or
near Market Bosworth. He was educated at the town grammar school under
Anthony Blackwall, and at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, of which society
he was elected fellow in 1731. His peculiar habits and outspoken
language made him unpopular. His health broke down in consequence of his
sedentary life, and it is said that he took to bell-ringing at Great St
Mary's as a restorative. He was a bitter enemy of Bentley, who he
declared knew nothing of Greek except from indexes. In 1738 Dawes was
appointed to the mastership of the grammar school, Newcastle-on-Tyne,
combined with that of St Mary's hospital. From all accounts his mind
appears to have become unhinged; his eccentricities of conduct and
continual disputes with his governing body ruined the school, and
finally, in 1749, he resigned his post and retired to Heworth, where he
chiefly amused himself with boating. He died on the 21st of March 1766.
Dawes was not a prolific writer. The book on which his fame rests is his
_Miscellanea critica_ (1745), which gained the commendation of such
distinguished continental scholars as L. C. Valckenaer and J. J. Reiske.
The _Miscellanea_, which was re-edited by T. Burgess (1781), G. C.
Harles (1800) and T. Kidd (1817), for many years enjoyed a high
reputation, and although some of the "canons" have been proved untenable
and few can be accepted universally, it will always remain an honourable
and enduring monument of English scholarship.
See J. Hodgson, _An Account of the Life and Writings of Richard Dawes_
(1828); H. R. Luard in _Dict. of Nat. Biog._; J. E. Sandys, _Hist. of
Classical Scholarship_, ii. 415.
DAWISON, BOGUMIL (1818-1872), German actor, was born at Warsaw, of
Jewish parents, and at the age of nineteen went on the stage. In 1839 he
received an appointment to the theatre at Lemberg in Galicia. In 1847 he
played at Hamburg with marked success, was from 1849 to 1854 a member of
the Burg theatre in Vienna, and then became connected with the Dresden
court theatre. In 1864 he was given a life engagement, but resigned his
appointment, and after starring through Germany visited the United
States in 1866. He died in Dresden on the 1st of February 1872. Dawison
was considered in Germany an actor of a new type; a leading critic wrote
that he and Marie Seebach "swept like fresh gales over dusty tradition,
and brushing aside the monotony of declamation gave to their roles more
character and vivacity than had hitherto been known on the German
stage." His chief parts were Mephistopheles, Franz Moor, Mark Antony,
Hamlet, Charles V., Richard III. and King Lear.
DAWKINS, WILLIAM BOYD (1838- ), English geologist and archaeologist,
was born at Buttington vicarage near Welshpool, Montgomeryshire, on the
26th of December 1838. Educated at Rossall School and Oxford, he joined
the Geological Survey in 1862, and in 1869 became curator of the
Manchester museum, a post which he retained till 1890. He was appointed
professor of geology and palaeontology in Owens College, Manchester, in
1874. He paid special attention to the question of the existence of coal
in Kent, and in 1882 was selected by the Channel tunnel committee to
make a special survey of the French and English coasts. He was also
employed in the scheme of a tunnel beneath the Humber. His chief
distinctions, however, were won in the realms of anthropology by his
researches into the lives of the cave-dwellers of prehistoric times,
labours which have borne fruit in his books _Cave-hunting_ (1874);
_Early Man in Britain_ (1880); _British Pleistocene Mammalia_
(1866-1887). He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1867, and acted
as president of the anthropological section of the British Association
in 1882 and of the geological section in 1888.
DAWLISH, a watering-place in the Ashburton parliamentary division of
Devonshire, England, on the English Channel, near the outflow of the
Exe, 12 m. S. of Exeter by the Great Western railway. Pop. of urban
district (1901) 4003. It lies on a cove sheltered by two projecting
headlands. A small stream which flows through the town is lined on both
sides by pleasure-grounds. Dawlish owes its prosperity to the visitors
attracted, in spring and early summer, by the warm climate and excellent
bathing. An annual pleasure fair is held on Easter Monday, and a regatta
in August or September. Until its sale in the 19th century, the site of
Dawlish belonged to Exeter cathedral, having been given to the chapter
by Leofric, bishop of Exeter, in 1050.
DAWN (the 16th-century form of the earlier "dawing" or "dawning," from
an old verb "daw," O. Eng. _dagian_, to become day; cf. Dutch _dagen_,
and Ger. _tagen_), the time when light appears (daws) in the sky in the
morning. The dawn colours appear in the reverse order of the sunset
colours and are due to the same cause. When the sun is lowest in both
cases the colour is deep red; this gradually changes through orange to
gold and brilliant yellow as the sun approaches the horizon. These
colours follow each other in order of refrangibility, reproducing all
the colours of the spectrum in order except the blue rays which are
scattered in the sky. The colours of the dawn are purer and colder than
the sunset colours since there is less dust and moisture in the
atmosphere and less consequent sifting of light rays.
DAWSON, GEORGE (1821-1876), English nonconformist divine, was born in
London on the 24th of February 1821, and was educated at Marischal
College, Aberdeen, and at the university of Glasgow. In 1843 he accepted
the pastorate of the Baptist church at Rickmansworth, and in 1844 a
similar charge at Mount Zion, Birmingham, where he attracted large
congregations by his eloquence and his unconventional views. Desiring
freedom from any definite creed, he left the Baptist church and became
minister of the "Church of the Saviour," a building erected for him by
his supporters. Here he exercised a stimulating and varied ministry for
nearly thirty years, gathering round him a congregation of all types and
especially of such as found the dogmas of the age distasteful. He had
much sympathy with the Unitarian position, but was not himself a
Unitarian. Indeed he had no fixed standpoint, and discussed truths and
principles from various aspects. His sermons, though not particularly
speculative, were unconventional and quickening. He was the friend of
Carlyle and Emerson, and did much to popularize their teachings, his
influence being conspicuous, especially in his demand for a high ethical
standard in everyday life and his insistence on the Christianization of
citizenship. He was warmly supported by Dr R. W. Dale, and by J. T.
Bunce, editor of _The Birmingham Daily Post_. Both Dawson and Dale were
disqualified as ministers from seats on the town council, but both
served on the Birmingham school board. Dawson also lectured on English
literature at the Midland Institute and helped to found the Shakespeare
Memorial library in Birmingham. He died suddenly at King's Norton on the
30th of November 1876. Four volumes of _Sermons_, two of _Prayers_ and
two of _Biographical Lectures_ were published after his death.
See _Life_ by H. W. Crosskey (1876) and an article by R. W. Dale in
_The Nineteenth Century_ (August 1877).
DAWSON, SIR JOHN WILLIAM (1820-1899), Canadian geologist, was bom at
Pictou, Nova Scotia, on the 30th of October 1820. Of Scottish descent,
he went to Edinburgh to complete his education, and graduated at the
university in 1842, having gained a knowledge of geology and natural
history from Robert Jameson. On his return to Nova Scotia in 1842 he
accompanied Sir Charles Lyell on his first visit to that territory.
Subsequently he was appointed to the post of superintendent of education
(1850-1853); at the same time he entered zealously into the geology of
the country, making a special study of the fossil forests of the
coal-measures. From these strata, in company with Lyell (during his
second visit) in 1852, he obtained the first remains of an
"air-breathing reptile" named _Dendrerpeton_. He also described the
fossil plants of the Silurian, Devonian and Carboniferous rocks of
Canada for the Geological Survey of that country (1871-1873). From 1855
to 1893 he was professor of geology and principal of M'Gill University,
Montreal, an institution which under his influence attained a high
reputation. He was elected F.R.S. in 1862. When the Royal Society of
Canada was constituted he was the first to occupy the presidential
chair, and he also acted as president of the British Association at its
meeting at Birmingham in 1886, and of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science. Sir William Dawson's name is especially
associated with the _Eozoon canadense_, which in 1864 he described as an
organism having the structure of a foraminifer. It was found in the
Laurentian rocks, regarded as the oldest known geological system. His
views on the subject were contested at the time, and have since been
disproved, the so-called organism being now regarded as a mineral
structure. He was created C.M.G. in 1881, and was knighted in 1884. In
his books on geological subjects he maintained a distinctly theological
attitude, declining to admit the descent or evolution of man from brute
ancestors, and holding that the human species only made its appearance
on this earth within quite recent times. Besides many memoirs in the
Transactions of learned societies, he published _Acadian Geology: The
geological structure, organic remains and mineral resources of Nova
Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island_ (1855; ed. 3, 1878);
_Air-breathers of the Coal Period_ (1863); _The Story of the Earth and
Man_ (1873; ed. 6, 1880); _The Dawn of Life_ (1875); _Fossil Men and
their Modern Representatives_ (1880); _Geological History of Plants_
(1888); _The Canadian Ice Age_ (1894). He died on the 20th of November
1899.
His son, GEORGE MERCER DAWSON (1849-1901), was born at Pictou on the 1st
of August 1849, and received his education at M'Gill University and the
Royal School of Mines, London, where he had a brilliant career. In 1873
he was appointed geologist and naturalist to the North American boundary
commission, and two years later he joined the staff of the geological
survey of Canada, of which he became assistant director in 1883, and
director in 1895. He was in charge of the Canadian government's Yukon
expedition in 1887, and his name is permanently written in Dawson City,
of gold-bearing fame. As one of the Bering Sea Commissioners he spent
the summer of 1891 investigating the facts of the seal fisheries on the
northern coasts of Asia and America. For his services there, and at the
subsequent arbitration in Paris, he was made a C.M.G. He was elected
F.R.S. in 1891, and in the same year was awarded the Bigsby medal by the
Geological Society of London. He was president of the Royal Society of
Canada in 1893. He died on the 2nd of March 1901. He was the author of
many scientific papers and reports, especially on the surface geology
and glacial phenomena of the northern and western parts of Canada.
DAWSON CITY, or DAWSON, the capital of the Yukon territory, Canada, on
the right bank of the Yukon river, and in the middle of the Klondyke
gold region, of which it is the distributing centre. It is situated in
beautiful mountainous country, 1400 ft. above the sea, and 1500 m. from
the mouth of the Yukon river. It is reached by a fleet of river
steamers, and has telegraphic communication. Founded in 1896, its
population soon reached over 20,000 at the height of the gold rush; in
1901 it was officially returned as 9142, and is now not more than 5000.
The temperature varies from 90 deg. F. in summer to 50 deg. below zero
in winter. It possesses three opera-houses and numerous hotels, and is a
typical mining town, though even at first there was much less
lawlessness than is usually the case in such cities.
DAX, a town of south-western France, capital of an arrondissement in the
department of Landes, 92 m. S.S.W, of Bordeaux, on the Southern railway
between that city and Bayonne. Pop. (1906) 8585. The town lies on the
left bank of the Adour, a stone bridge uniting it to its suburb of Le
Sablar on the right bank. It has remains of ancient Gallo-Roman
fortifications, now converted into a promenade. The most remarkable
building in the town is the church of Notre-Dame, once a cathedral; it
was rebuilt from 1656 to 1719, but still preserves a sacristy, a porch
and a fine sculptured doorway of the 13th century. The church of St
Vincent, to the south-west of the town, derives its name from the first
bishop, whose tomb it contains. The church of St Paul-les-Dax, a suburb
on the right bank of the Adour, belongs mainly to the 15th century, and
has a Romanesque apse adorned with curious bas-reliefs. On a hill to the
west of Dax stands a tower built in memory of the sailor and scientist
Jean Charles Borda, born there in 1733; a statue was erected to him in
the town in 1891. Dax, which is well known as a winter resort, owes much
of its importance to its thermal waters and mud-baths (the deposit of
the Adour), which are efficacious in cases of rheumatism, neuralgia and
other disorders. The best-known spring is the Fontaine Chaude, which
issues into a basin 160 ft. wide in the centre of the town. The
principal of numerous bathing establishments are the Grands Thermes, the
Bains Sales, adjoining a casino, and the Baignots, which fringe the
Adour and are surrounded by gardens. Dax has a sub-prefecture, tribunals
of first instance and of commerce, a communal college, a training
college and a library. It has salt workings, tanneries, saw-mills,
manufactures of soap and corks; commerce is chiefly in the pine wood,
resin and cork of the Landes, in mules, cattle, horses and poultry.
Dax (_Aquae Tarbellicae_, _Aquae Augustae_, later _D'Acqs_) was the
capital of the Tarbelli under the Roman domination, when its waters were
already famous. Later it was the seat of a viscounty, which in the 11th
century passed to the viscounts of Bearn, and in 1177 was annexed by
Richard Coeur de Lion to Gascony. The bishopric, founded in the 3rd
century, was in 1801 attached to that of Aire.
DAY, JOHN (1574-1640?), English dramatist, was born at Cawston, Norfolk,
in 1574, and educated at Ely. He became a sizar of Caius College,
Cambridge, in 1592, but was expelled in the next year for stealing a
book. He became one of Henslowe's playwrights, collaborating with Henry
Chettle, William Haughton, Thomas Dekker, Richard Hathway and Wentworth
Smith, but his almost incessant activity seems to have left him poor
enough, to judge by the small loans, of five shillings and even two
shillings, that he obtained from Henslowe. The first play in which Day
appears as part-author is _The Conquest of Brute, with the finding of
the Bath_ (1598), which, with most of his journeyman's work, is lost. A
drama dealing with the early years of the reign of Henry VI., _The Blind
Beggar of Bednal Green_ (acted 1600, printed 1659), written in
collaboration with Chettle, is his earliest extant work. It bore the
sub-title of _The Merry Humor of Tom Strowd, the Norfolk Yeoman_, and
was so popular that second and third parts, by Day and Haughton, were
produced in the next year. _The Ile of Guls_ (printed 1606), a prose
comedy founded upon Sir Philip Sidney's _Arcadia_, contains in its light
dialogue much satire to which the key is now lost, but Mr Swinburne
notes in Manasses's burlesque of a Puritan sermon a curious anticipation
of the eloquence of Mr Chadband in _Bleak House_. In 1607 Day produced,
in conjunction with William Rowley and George Wilkins, _The Travailes of
the Three English Brothers_, which detailed the adventures of Sir
Thomas, Sir Anthony and Robert Shirley.
_The Parliament of Bees_ is the work on which Day's reputation chiefly
rests. This exquisite and unique drama, or rather masque, is entirely
occupied with "the doings, the births, the wars, the wooings" of bees,
expressed in a style at once most singular and most charming. The bees
hold a parliament under Prorex, the Master Bee, and various complaints
are preferred against the humble-bee, the wasp, the drone and other
offenders. This satirical allegory of affairs ends with a royal progress
of Oberon, who distributes justice to all. The piece contains much for
which parallel passages are found in Dekker's _Wonder of a Kingdom_
(1636) and Samuel Rowley's (or Dekker's) _Noble Soldier_ (printed 1634).
There is no earlier known edition of _The Parliament of Bees_ than that
in 1641, but a persistent tradition has assigned the piece to 1607. In
1608 Day published two comedies, _Law Trickes, or Who Would have Thought
it?_ and _Humour out of Breath_. The date of his death is unknown, but
an elegy on him by John Tatham, the city poet, was published in 1640.
The six dramas by John Day which we possess show a delicate fancy and
dainty inventiveness all his own. He preserved, in a great measure, the
dramatic tradition of John Lyly, and affected a kind of subdued
euphuism. _The Maydes Metamorphosis_ (1600), once supposed to be a
posthumous work of Lyly's, may be an early work of Day's. It possesses,
at all events, many of his marked characteristics. His prose
_Peregrinatic Scholastica or Learninges Pilgrimage_, dating from his
later years, was printed by Mr A. H. Bullen from a MS. of Day's.
Considerations partly based on this work have suggested that he had a
share in the anonymous _Pilgrimage to Parnassus_ and the _Return from
Parnassus_. The beauty and ingenuity of _The Parliament of Bees_ were
noted and warmly extolled by Charles Lamb; and Day's work has since
found many admirers.
His works, edited by A. H. Bullen, were printed at the Chiswick Press
in 1881. The same editor included _The Maydes Metamorphosis_ in vol.
i. of his _Collection of Old Plays_. _The Parliament of Bees_ and
_Humour out of Breath_ were printed in _Nero and other Plays_ (Mermaid
Series, 1888), with an introduction by Arthur Symons. An appreciation
by Mr A. C. Swinburne appeared in _The Nineteenth Century_ (October
1897).
DAY, THOMAS (1748-1789), British author, was born in London on the 22nd
of June 1748. He is famous as the writer of _Sandford and Merton_
(1783-1789), a book for the young, which, though quaintly didactic and
often ridiculous, has had considerable educational value as inculcating
manliness and independence. Day was educated at the Charterhouse and at
Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and became a great admirer of J. J.
Rousseau and his doctrine of the ideal state of nature. Having
independent means he devoted himself to a life of study and
philanthropy. His views on marriage were typical of the man. He brought
up two foundlings, one of whom he hoped eventually to marry. They were
educated on the severest principles, but neither acquired the high
quality of stoicism which he had looked for. After several proposals of
marriage to other ladies had been rejected, he married an heiress who
agreed with his ascetic programme of life. He finally settled at
Ottershaw in Surrey and took to farming on philanthropic principles. He
had many curious and impracticable theories, among them one that all
animals could be managed by kindness, and while riding an unbroken colt
he was thrown near Wargrave and killed on the 28th of September 1789.
His poem _The Dying Negro_, published in 1773, struck the keynote of the
anti-slavery movement. It is also obvious from his other works, such as
_The Devoted Legions_ (1776) and _The Desolation of America_ (1777),
that he strongly sympathized with the Americans during their War of
Independence.
DAY (O. Eng. _daeg_, Ger. _Tag_; according to the _New English
Dictionary_, "in no way related to the Lat. _dies_"), in astronomy, the
interval of time in which a revolution of the earth on its axis is
performed. Days are distinguished as solar, sidereal or lunar, according
as the revolution is taken relatively to the sun, the stars or the moon.
The solar day is the fundamental unit of time, not only in daily life
but in astronomical practice. In the latter case, being determined by
observations of the sun, it is taken to begin with the passage of the
mean sun over the meridian of the place, or at mean noon, while the
civil day begins at midnight. A vigorous effort was made during the last
fifteen years of the 19th century to bring the two uses into harmony by
beginning the astronomical day at midnight. In some isolated cases this
has been done; but the general consensus of astronomers has been against
it, the day as used in astronomy being only a measure of time, and
having no relation to the period of daily repose. The time when the day
shall begin is purely a matter of convenience. The present practice
being the dominant one from the time of Ptolemy until the present, it
was felt that the confusion in the combination of past and present
astronomical observations, and the doubts and difficulties in using the
astronomical ephemerides, formed a decisive argument against any change.
The question of a possible variability in the length of the day is one
of fundamental importance. One necessary effect of the tidal retardation
of the earth's rotation is gradually to increase this length. It is
remarkable that the discussion of ancient eclipses of the moon, and
their comparison with modern observations, show only a small and rather
doubtful change, amounting perhaps to less than one-hundredth of a
second per century. As this amount seems to be markedly less than that
which would be expected from the cause in question, it is probable that
some other cause tends to accelerate the earth's rotation and so to
shorten the day. The moon's apparent mean motion in longitude seems also
to indicate slow periodic changes in the earth's rotation; but these are
not confirmed by transits of Mercury, which ought also to indicate them.
(See MOON and TIDES.) (S. N.)
_Legal Aspects._--In law, a day may be either a _dies naturalis_ or
natural day, or a _dies artificialis_ or artificial day. A natural day
includes all the twenty-four hours from midnight to midnight. Fractions
of the day are disregarded to avoid dispute, though sometimes the law
will consider fractions, as where it is necessary to show the first of
two acts. In cases where action must be taken for preserving or
asserting a right, a day would mean the natural day of twenty-four
hours, but on the other hand, as in cases of survivorship, for
testamentary or other purposes, it would suffice if a person survived
for even the smallest portion of the last day necessary.
When a statute directs any act to be done within so many days, these
words mean _clear days_, i.e. a number of perfect intervening days, not
counting the terminal days: if the statute says nothing about Sunday,
the days mentioned mean consecutive days and include Sundays. Under some
statutes (e.g. the Parliamentary Elections Act 1868, the Corrupt and
Illegal Practices Prevention Act 1883) Sundays and holidays are excluded
in reckoning days, and consequently all the Sundays, &c., of a
prescribed sequence of days would be eliminated. So also, by custom, the
word "day" may be understood in some special sense. In bills of lading
and charter parties, when "days" or "running days" are spoken of without
qualification, they usually mean consecutive days, and Sundays and
holidays are counted, but when there is some qualification, as where a
charter party required a cargo "to be discharged in fourteen days,"
"days" will mean _working days_. Working days, again, vary in different
ports, and the custom of the port will decide in each case what are
working days. In English charter parties, unless the contrary is
expressed, Christmas day and other recognized holidays are included as
working days. A _weather working day_, a term sometimes used in charter
parties, means a day when work is not prevented by the weather, and
unless so provided for, a day on which work was rendered impossible by
bad weather would still be counted as a working day. _Lay days_, which
are days given to the charterer in a charter party either to load or
unload without paying for the use of the ship, are days of the week, not
periods of twenty-four hours.
_Days of Grace._--When a bill of exchange is not payable at sight or on
demand, certain days (called days of grace, from being originally a
gratuitous favour) are added to the time of payment as fixed by the
bill, and the bill is then due and payable on the last day of grace. In
the United Kingdom, by the Bills of Exchange Act 1882, three days are
allowed as days of grace, but when the last day of grace falls on
Sunday, Christmas day, Good Friday or a day appointed by royal
proclamation as a public fast or thanksgiving day, the bill is due and
payable on the preceding business day. If the last day of grace is a
bank holiday (other than Christmas day or Good Friday), or when the last
day of grace is a Sunday, and the second day of grace is a bank holiday,
the bill is due and payable on the succeeding business day. Days of
grace (_dies non_) are in existence practically among English-speaking
peoples only. They were abolished by the French Code (Code de Commerce,
Liv. i. tit. 8, art. 135), and by most, if not all, of the European
codes since framed.
_Civil Days._--An artificial or civil day is, to a certain extent,
difficult to define; it "may be regarded as a convenient term to signify
all the various kinds of 'day' known in legal proceedings other than the
natural day." (_Ency. English Law_, tit. "Day"). The Jews, Chaldeans and
Babylonians began the day at the rising of the sun; the Athenians at the
fall; the Umbri in Italy began at midday; the Egyptians and Romans at
midnight; and in England, the United States and most of the countries of
Europe the Roman civil day still prevails, the day usually commencing as
soon as the clock begins to strike 12 P.M. of the preceding day.
In England the period of the civil day may also vary under different
statutes. In criminal law the day formerly commenced at sunrise and
extended to sunset, but by the Larceny Act 1861 the day is that period
between six in the morning and nine in the evening. The same period of
time comprises a day under the Housing of the Working Classes Act 1885
and the Public Health (London) Act 1891, but under the Public Health
(Scotland) Act 1897 "day" is the period between 9 A.M. and 6 P.M. By an
act of 1845, regulating the labour of children in print-works, "day" is
defined as from 6 A.M. to 10 P.M. Daytime, within which distress for
rent must be made, is from sunrise to sunset (_Tulton_ v. _Darke_, 1860,
2 L.T. 361). An obligation to pay money on a certain day is
theoretically discharged if the money is paid before midnight of the day
on which it falls due, but custom has so far modified this that the law
requires reasonable hours to be observed. If, for instance, payment has
to be made at a bank or place of business, it must be within business
hours.
When an act of parliament is expressed to come into operation on a
certain day, it is to be construed as coming into operation on the
expiration of the previous day (Interpretation Act 1889, S 36; Statutes
[Definition of Time] Act 1880).
Under the orders of the supreme court the word "day" has two meanings.
For purposes of personal service of writs, it means any time of the day
or night on week-days, but excludes the time from twelve midnight on
Saturday till twelve midnight on Sunday. For purposes of service not
required to be personal, it means before six o'clock on any week-day
except Saturday, and before 2 P.M. on Saturday.
_Closed Days_, i.e. Sunday, Christmas day and Good Friday, are excluded
from all fixtures of time less than six days: otherwise they are
included, unless the last day of the time fixed falls on one of those
days (R.S.C., O. lxiv.).
_American Practice._--In the United States a day is the space of time
between midnight and midnight. The law pays no regard to fractions of a
day except to prevent injustice. A "day's work" is by statute in New
York fixed at eight hours for all employees except farm and domestic
servants, and for employees on railroads at ten hours (Laws 1897, ch.
415). In the recording acts relating to real property, fractions of a
day are of the utmost importance, and all deeds, mortgages and other
instruments affecting the property, take precedence in the order in
which they were filed for record. Days of grace are abolished in many of
the seventeen states in which the Negotiable Instruments law has been
enacted. Sundays and public holidays are usually excluded in computing
time if they are the last day within which the act was to be done.
General public holidays throughout the United States are Christmas,
Thanksgiving (last Thursday in November) and Independence (July 4th)
days and Washington's birthday (February 22nd). The several states have
also certain local public holidays. (See also MONTH; TIME.)
(T. A. I.)
DAYLESFORD, a town of Talbot county, Victoria, Australia, 74 m. by rail
N.W. of Melbourne. Pop. (1901) 3384. It lies on the flank of the Great
Dividing Range, at an elevation of 2030 ft. On Wombat Hill are beautiful
public gardens commanding extensive views, and a fine convent of the
Presentation Order. Much wheat is grown in the district, and
gold-mining, both quartz and alluvial, is carried on. Daylesford has an
important mining school. Near the town are the Hepburn mineral springs
and a number of beautiful waterfalls, and 6 m. from it is Mount
Franklin, an extinct volcano.
DAYTON, a city of Campbell county, Kentucky, U.S.A., on the S. bank of
the Ohio river, opposite Cincinnati, and adjoining Bellevue and Newport,
Ky. Pop. (1890) 4264; (1900) 6104 including 655 foreign-born and 63
negroes; (1910) 6979. It is served by the Chesapeake & Ohio railway at
Newport, of which it is a suburb, largely residential. It has
manufactories of watch-cases and pianos, and whisky distilleries. In
the city is the Speers Memorial hospital. Dayton was settled and
incorporated in 1849.
DAYTON, a city and the county-seat of Montgomery county, Ohio, U.S.A.,
at the confluence of Wolf Creek, Stillwater river and Mad river with the
Great Miami, 57 m. N.N.E. of Cincinnati and about 70 m. W.S.W. of
Columbus. Pop. (1890) 61,220; (1900) 85,333; (1910) 116,577. In 1900
there were 10,053 foreign-born and 3387 negroes; of the foreign-born
6820 were Germans and 1253 Irish. Dayton is served by the Erie, the
Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis, the Pittsburg, Cincinnati,
Chicago & St Louis, the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton, and the Dayton &
Union railways, by ten interurban electric railways, centring here, and
by the Miami & Erie Canal. The city extends more than 5 m. from E. to
W., and 3(1/2) m. from N. to S., lies for the most part on level ground
at an elevation of about 740 ft. above sea-level, and numerous good,
hard gravel roads radiate from it in all directions through the
surrounding country, a fertile farming region which abounds in
limestone, used in the construction of public and private buildings.
Among the more prominent buildings are the court-house--the portion
first erected being designed after the Parthenon--the Steele high
school, St Mary's college, Notre Dame academy, the Memorial Building,
the Arcade Building, Reibold Building, the Algonquin Hotel, the post
office, the public library (containing about 75,000 volumes), the Young
Men's Christian Association building and several churches. At Dayton are
the Union Biblical seminary, a theological school of the United Brethren
in Christ, and the publishing house of the same denomination. By an
agreement made in 1907 the school of theology of Ursinus College
(Collegeville, Pennsylvania; the theological school since 1898 had been
in Philadelphia) and the Heidelberg Theological seminary (Tiffin, Ohio)
united to form the Central Theological seminary of the German Reformed
Church, which was established in Dayton in 1908. The boulevard and park
along the river add attractiveness to the city. Among the charitable
institutions are the Dayton state hospital (for the insane), the Miami
Valley and the St Elizabeth hospitals, the Christian Deaconess, the
Widows' and the Children's homes, and the Door of Hope (for homeless
girls); and 1 m. W. of the city is the central branch of the National
Home for disabled volunteer soldiers, with its beautifully ornamented
grounds, about 1 sq. m. in extent. The Mad river is made to furnish good
water-power by means of a hydraulic canal which takes its water through
the city, and Dayton's manufactures are extensive and varied, the
establishments of the National Cash Register Company employing in 1907
about 4000 wage-earners. This company is widely known for its "welfare
work" on behalf of its operatives. Baths, lunch-rooms, rest-rooms,
clubs, lectures, schools and kindergartens have been supplied, and the
company has also cultivated domestic pride by offering prizes for the
best-kept gardens, &c. From April to July 1901 there was a strike in the
already thoroughly unionized factories; complaint was made of the
hectoring of union men by a certain foreman, the use in toilet-rooms of
towels laundered in non-union shops (the company replied by allowing the
men to supply towels themselves), the use on doors of springs not
union-made (these were removed by the company), and especially the
discharge of four men whom the company refused to reinstate. The company
was victorious in the strike, and the factory became an "open shop." In
addition to cash registers, the city's manufactured products include
agricultural implements, clay-working machinery, cotton-seed and linseed
oil machinery, filters, turbines, railway cars (the large Barney-Smith
car works employed 1800 men in 1905), carriages and wagons,
sewing-machines (the Davis Sewing Machine Co.), automobiles, clothing,
flour, malt liquors, paper, furniture, tobacco and soap. The total value
of the manufactured product, under the "factory system," was $31,015,293
in 1900 and $39,596,773 in 1905. Dayton's site was purchased in 1795
from John Cleves Symmes by a party of Revolutionary soldiers, and it was
laid out as a town in 1796 by Israel Ludlow (one of the owners), by whom
it was named in honour of Jonathan Dayton (1760-1824), a soldier in the
War of Independence, a member of Congress from New Jersey in 1791-1799,
and a United States senator in 1799-1805. It was made the county-seat in
1803, was incorporated as a town in 1805, grew rapidly after the opening
of the canal in 1828, and in 1841 was chartered as a city.
DEACON (Gr. [Greek: diakonos], minister, servant), the name given to a
particular minister or officer of the Christian Church. The status and
functions of the office have varied in different ages and in different
branches of Christendom.
(a) _The Ancient Church._--The office of deacon is almost as old as
Christianity itself, though it is impossible to fix the moment at which
it came into existence. Tradition connects its origin with the
appointment of "the Seven" recorded in Acts vi. This connexion, however,
is questioned by a large and increasing number of modern scholars, on
the ground that "the Seven" are not called deacons in the New Testament
and do not seem to have been identified with them till the time of
Irenaeus (A.D. 180). The first definite reference to the diaconate
occurs in St Paul's Epistle to the Philippians (i. 1), where the
officers of the Church are described as "bishops and deacons"--though it
is not unlikely that earlier allusions are to be found in 1 Cor. xii. 28
and Romans xii. 7. In the pastoral epistles the office seems to have
become a permanent institution of the Church, and special qualifications
are laid down for those who hold it (1 Tim. iii. 8). By the time of
Ignatius (A.D. 110) the "three orders" of the ministry were definitely
established, the deacon being the lowest of the three and subordinate to
the bishop and the presbyters. The inclusion of deacons in the "three
orders" which were regarded as essential to the existence of a true
Church sharply distinguished them from the lower ranks of the ministry,
and gave them a status and position of importance in the ancient Church.
The functions attaching to the office varied at different times. In the
apostolic age the duties of deacons were naturally vague and undefined.
They were "helpers" or "servants" of the Church in a general way and
served in any capacity that was required of them. With the growth of the
episcopate, however, the deacons became the immediate ministers of the
bishop. Their duties included the supervision of Church property, the
management of Church finances, the visitation of the sick, the
distribution of alms and the care of widows and orphans. They were also
required to watch over the souls of the flock and report to the bishop
the cases of those who had sinned or were in need of spiritual help.
"You deacons," says the Apostolical Constitutions (4th century), "ought
to keep watch over all who need watching or are in distress, and let the
bishop know." With the growth of hospitals and other charitable
institutions, however, the functions of deacons became considerably
curtailed. The social work of the Church was transferred to others, and
little by little the deacons sank in importance until at last they came
to be regarded merely as subordinate officers of public worship, a
position which they hold in the Roman Church to-day, where their duties
are confined to such acts as the following:--censing the officiating
priest and the choir, laying the corporal on the altar, handing the
paten or cup to the priest, receiving from him the pyx and giving it to
the subdeacon, putting the mitre on the archbishop's head (when he is
present) and laying his pall upon the altar.
(b) _The Church of England._--The traditionary position of the diaconate
as one of the "three orders" is here maintained. Deacons may conduct any
of the ordinary services in the church, but are not permitted to
pronounce the absolution or consecrate the elements for the Eucharist.
In practice the office has become a stepping-stone to the priesthood,
the deacon corresponding to the licentiate in the Presbyterian Church.
Candidates for the office must have attained the age of twenty-three and
must satisfy the bishop with regard to their intellectual, moral and
spiritual fitness. The functions of the office are defined in the
Ordinal--"to assist the priest in divine service and specially when he
ministereth the Holy Communion, to read Holy Scriptures and Homilies in
the church, to instruct the youth in the catechism, to baptize in the
absence of the priest, to preach if he be admitted thereto by the
bishop, and furthermore to search for the sick, poor and impotent
people and intimate their estates and names to the curate."
(c) _Churches of the Congregational Order._--In these (which of course
include Baptists) the diaconate is a body of laymen appointed by the
members of the church to act as a management committee and to assist the
minister in the work of the church. There is no general rule as to the
number of deacons, though the traditionary number of seven is often
kept, nor as to the frequency of election, each church making its own
arrangements in this respect. The deacons superintend the financial
affairs of the church, co-operate with the minister in the various
branches of his work, assist in the visitation of the sick, attend to
the church property and generally supervise the activities of the
church.
See Thomassinus, _Vetus ac nova disciplina_, pars i. lib. i. c. 51 f.
and lib. ii. c. 29 f. (Lugdunum, 1706); J. N. Seidl, _Der Diakonat in
der katholischen Kirche_ (Regensburg, 1884); R. Sohm, _Kirchenrecht_,
i. 121-137 (Leipzig, 1892); F. J. A. Hort, _The Christian Ecclesia_
(London, 1897).
DEACONESS ([Greek: he diakonos] or [Greek: diakonissa], servant,
minister), the name given to a woman set apart for special service in
the Christian Church. The origin and early history of the office are
veiled in obscurity. It is quite certain that from the 3rd century
onward there existed in the Eastern Church an order of women, known as
deaconesses, who filled a position analogous to that of deacons. They
are quite distinct from the somewhat similar orders of "virgins" and
"widows," who belonged to a lower plane in the ecclesiastical system.
The order is recognized in the canons of the councils of Nicaea (325)
and Chalcedon (451), and is frequently mentioned in the writings of
Chrysostom (some of whose letters are addressed to deaconesses at
Constantinople), Epiphanius, Basil, and indeed most of the more
important Fathers of the 4th and 5th centuries. Deaconesses, upon
entering their office, were ordained much in the same way as deacons,
but the ordination conveyed no sacerdotal powers or authority.
Epiphanius says quite distinctly that they were woman-elders and not
priestesses in any sense of the term, and that their mission was not to
interfere with the functions allotted to priests but simply to perform
certain offices in connexion with the care of women. Several specimens
of the ordination service for deaconesses have been preserved (see
Cecilia Robinson, _The Ministry of Deaconesses_, London, 1878, appendix
B, p. 197). The functions of the deaconess were as follows: (1) To
assist at the baptism of women, especially in connexion with the
anointing of the body which in the ancient Church always preceded
immersion; (2) to visit the women of the Church in their homes and to
minister to the needs of the sick and afflicted; (3) according to the
Apostolical Constitutions they acted as door-keepers in the church,
received women as they entered and conducted them to their allotted
seats. In the Western Church, on the other hand, we hear nothing of the
order till the 4th century, when an attempt seems to have been made to
introduce it into Gaul. Much opposition, however, was encountered, and
the movement was condemned by the council of Orange in 441 and the
council of Epaone in 517. In spite of the prohibition the institution
made some headway, and traces of it are found later in Italy, but it
never became as popular in the West as it was in the East. In the middle
ages the order fell into abeyance in both divisions of the Church, the
abbess taking the place of the deaconess. Whether deaconesses, in the
later sense of the term, existed before 250 is a disputed point. The
evidence is scanty and by no means decisive. There are only three
passages which bear upon the question at all. (i) Romans xvi. 1: Phoebe
is called [Greek: he diakonos], but it is quite uncertain whether the
word is used in its technical sense. (ii) 1 Tim. iii. 11: after stating
the qualifications necessary for deacons the writer adds, "Women in like
manner must be grave--not slanderers," &c.; the Authorized Version took
the passage as referring to deacons' wives, but many scholars think that
by "women" deaconesses are meant. (iii) In Pliny's famous letter to
Trajan respecting the Christians of Bithynia mention is made of two
Christian maidservants "_quae ministrae dicebantur_"; whether
_ministrae_ is equivalent to [Greek: diakonoi], as is often supposed, is
dubious. On the whole the evidence does not seem sufficient to prove
the contention that an order of deaconesses--in the ecclesiastical sense
of the term--existed from the apostolic age.
In modern times several attempts have been made to revive the order of
deaconesses. In 1833 Pastor Fleidner founded "an order of deaconesses
for the Rhenish provinces of Westphalia" at Kaiserswerth. The original
aim of the institution was to train nurses for hospital work, but its
scope was afterwards extended and it trained its members for teaching
and parish work as well. Kaiserswerth became the parent of many similar
institutions in different parts of the continent. A few years later, in
1847, Miss Sellon formed for the first time a sisterhood at Devonport in
connexion with the Church of England. Her example was gradually followed
in other parts of the country, and in 1898 there were over two thousand
women living together in different sisterhoods. The members of these
institutions do not represent the ecclesiastical deaconesses, however,
since they are not ministers set apart by the Church; and the
sisterhoods are merely voluntary associations of women banded together
for spiritual fellowship and common service. In 1861 Bishop Tait set
apart Miss Elizabeth Ferard as a deaconess by the laying on of hands,
and she became the first president of the London Deaconess Institution.
Other dioceses gradually adopted the innovation. It has received the
sanction of Convocation, and the Lambeth Conference in 1897 declared
that it "recognized with thankfulness the revival of the office of
deaconess," though at the same time it protested against the
indiscriminate use of the title and laid it down emphatically that the
name must be restricted to those who had been definitely set apart by
the bishop for the position and were working under the direct
supervision and control of the ecclesiastical authority in the parish.
In addition to Miss Robinson's book cited above, see _Church Quarterly
Review_, xlvii. 302 ff., art. "On the Early History and Modern Revival
of Deaconesses" (London, 1899), and the works there referred to; D.
Latas, [Greek: Christianike Archaiologia], i. 163-171 (Athens, 1883);
_Testamentum Domini_, ed. Rahmani (Mainz, 1899); L. Zscharnack, _Der
Dienst der Frau in den ersten Jahrhunderten der chr. Kirche_ (1902).
DEAD SEA, a lake in Palestine occupying the deepest part of the valley
running along the line of a great "fault" that has been traced from the
Gulf of Akaba (at the head of the Red Sea) to Hermon. This fracture was
caused after the end of the Eocene period by the earth-movement which
resulted in the raising of the whole region out of the sea. Level for
level, the more ancient rocks are on the eastward side of the lake: the
cretaceous limestones that surmount the older volcanic substrata come
down on the western side to the water's edge, while on the eastern side
they are raised between 3000 and 4000 feet above it. In the Pleistocene
period the whole of this depression was filled with water forming a lake
about 200 m. long north to south, whose waters were about the same level
as that of the Mediterranean Sea. With the diminishing rainfall and
increased temperature that followed that period the effects of
evaporation gradually surpassed the precipitation, and the waters of the
lake slowly diminished to about the extent which they still display.
The length of the sea is 47 m., and its maximum breadth is about 9(1/2)
m.; its area is about 340 sq. m. It lies nearly north and south. Its
surface being 1289-1300 ft. below the level of the Mediterranean Sea, it
has of course no outlet. It is bounded on the north by the broad valley
of the Jordan; on the east by the rapidly rising terraces which
culminate in the Moabite plateau, 3100 ft. above the level of the lake;
on the south by the desert of the Arabah, which rises to the watershed
between the Dead and the Red Sea--65(1/2) m. from the former, 46(1/2)
from the latter; height 660 ft.--and on the west by the Judean mountains
which attain a height of 3300 ft. On the east side a peninsula, El-Lisan
("the tongue"), of white calcareous marl with beds of salt and gypsum,
divides the sea into two unequal parts: this peninsula is about 50 ft.
high, and is connected by a narrow strip of marshland with the shore.
Its northern and southern extremities have been named Cape Costigan and
Cape Molyneux, in memory of two explorers who were among the first in
modern times to navigate the sea and succumbed to the consequent fever
and exhaustion. North of the peninsula the lake has a maximum depth of
1278 ft.; south of it the water is nowhere more than 12 ft., and in some
places only 3 ft. The surface level of the lake varies with the season,
and recent observations taken on behalf of the Palestine Exploration
Fund seem to show that there are probably cyclical variations also
(ultimately dependent on the rainfall), the nature and periodicity of
which there are as yet no sufficient data to determine. In 1858 there
was a small island near the north end rising 10 or 12 ft. above the
surface and connected with the shore by a causeway; this has been
submerged since 1892; and owing to the gradual rise of level within
these years the fords south of the Lisan, and the pathway which formerly
rounded the Ras Feshkhah, are now no longer passable.
The slopes on each side of the sea are furrowed with watercourses, some
of them perennial, others winter torrents only. The chief affluents of
the sea are as follows:--on the north, Jordan and 'Ain es-Suweimeh; on
the east Wadis Ghuweir, Zerka Ma'in (Callirrhoe), Mojib (Arnon),
Ed-Dera'a, and el-Hesi; on the west, Wadis Muhawat and Seyal, 'Ain Jidi
(En-Gedi), Wadi el Merabbah, 'Ain Ghuweir, Wadi el-Nar, 'Ain Feshkhah.
The quantity of water poured daily into the sea is not less than
6,000,000 tons, all of which has to be carried off by evaporation. The
consequence of the ancient evaporation, by which the great Pleistocene
lake was reduced to its present modest dimensions, and of the ceaseless
modern daily evaporation, is the impregnation of the waters of the lake
with salts and other mineral substances to a remarkable degree. Ocean
water contains on an average 4-6% of salts: Dead Sea water contains 25%.
The following analysis, by Dr Bernays, gives the contents of the water
more accurately:--
Specific gravity 1.1528 at 15.5 deg. C.
Calcium carbonate 70.00 grains
Calcium sulphate 163.39
Magnesium nitrate 175.01
Potassium chloride 1089.06
Sodium chloride 5106.00
Calcium chloride 594.46
Magnesium chloride 7388.21
Magnesium bromide 345.80
Iron and aluminium oxides 10.50
Organic matter, water of crystallization, loss 317.57
--------
Total residue per gallon 15260.00
The density of the water averages 1.166. It increases from north to
south, and with the depth. The increase is at first rapid, then, after
reaching a certain point, becomes more uniform. At 300 metres its
density is 1.253. The boiling point is 221 deg. F. To the quantity of
solid matter suspended in its water the Dead Sea owes, beside its
saltness, its buoyancy and its poisonous properties. The human body
floats on the surface without exertion. Owing principally to the large
proportion of chloride and bromide of magnesia no animal life can exist
in its water. Fish, which abound in the Jordan and in the brackish
spring-fed lagoons that exist in one or two places around its shores
(such as 'Ain Feshkhah), die in a very short time if introduced into the
main waters of the lake. The only animal life reported from the lake has
been some tetanus and other bacilli said to have been found in its mud;
but this discovery has not been confirmed. To the chloride of calcium is
due the smooth and oily feeling of the water, and to the chloride of
magnesia its disagreeable taste. In Roman times curative properties were
ascribed to the waters: Mukaddasi (A.D. 985) asserts that people
assembled to drink it on a feast day in August. The salt of the Dead Sea
is collected and sold in Jerusalem; smuggling of salt (which in Turkey
is a government monopoly) is a regular occupation of the Bedouin. The
bitumen which floats to shore is also collected. The origin of this
bitumen is disputed: it was supposed to be derived from subaqueous
strata of bituminous marl and rose to the surface when loosened by
earthquakes. It is, however, now more generally believed that it exists
in the breccia of some of the valleys on the west side of the lake,
which is washed into the sea and submerged, till the small stones by
which it is sunk are loosened and fall out, when the bitumen rises to
the surface.
_History._--The earliest references to the sea or its basin are in the
patriarchal narratives of Lot and Abraham, the most striking being the
destruction of the neighbouring cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. (See
SODOM.) The biblical name is the Salt Sea, the Sea of the Arabah (the
south end of the Jordan valley), or the East Sea. The name in Josephus
is _Asphaltites_, referring to the bituminous deposits above alluded to.
The modern name is Bahr Lut or "Sea of Lot"--a name hardly to be
explained as a survival of a vague tradition of the patriarch, but more
probably due to the literary influences of the Hebrew Scriptures and the
Koran filtering through to the modern inhabitants or their ancestors.
The name Dead Sea first appears in late Greek writers, as Pausanias and
Galen. At En-Gedi on its western bank David for a while took refuge.
South of it is the stronghold of Masada, built by Jonathan Maccabaeus
and fortified by Herod in 42 B.C., where the last stand of the Jews was
made against the Romans after the fall of Jerusalem, and where the
garrison, when the defences were breached, slew themselves rather than
fall into Roman hands.
The sea has been but little navigated. Tacitus and Josephus mention
boats on the lake, and boats are shown upon it in the Madeba mosaic. The
navigation dues formed part of the revenue of the lords of Kerak under
the crusaders. In modern times navigation is practically _nil_. The
lake, with the whole Jericho plain, is claimed as the personal property
of the sultan.
The medieval travellers brought home many strange legends of the sea and
its peculiarities--some absurd, others with a basis of fact. The absence
of sea-birds, due to the absence of fish, probably accounts for the
story that no birds could fly over it. The absence of vegetation on its
shores, due to the scanty rainfall and general want of fresh
water--except in the neighbourhood of springs like 'Ain Feshkhah and
'Ain Jidi, where a luxuriant subtropical vegetation is found--accounts
for the story that no plant could live in the poisonous air which broods
over the sea. The mists, due to the great heat and excessive
evaporation, and the noxious miasmata, especially of the southern
region, were exaggerated into the noisome vapours that the "black and
stinking" waters ever exhaled. The judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah (which
of course they believed to be _under_ the waters of the lake, in
accordance with the absurd theory first found in Josephus and still
often repeated) blinded these good pilgrims to the ever-fresh beauty of
this most lovely lake, whose blue and sparkling waters lie deep between
rocks and precipices of unsurpassable grandeur. The play of brilliant
colours and of ever-changing contrasts of light and shade on those
rugged mountain-sides and on the surface of the sea itself might have
been expected to appeal to the most prosaic. The surface of the sea is
generally smooth (seldom, however, absolutely inert as the pilgrims
represented it), but is frequently raised by the north winds into waves,
which, owing to the weight and density of the water, are often of great
force.
The first to navigate the sea in modern times was an Irish traveller,
Costigan by name, in August and September 1835. Owing largely to the
folly of his Greek servant, who, without his master's knowledge, threw
overboard the drinking-water to lighten the boat, the explorer after
circumnavigating the sea reached Jericho in an exhausted condition, and
was there attacked by a severe fever. The greatest difficulty was
experienced in obtaining assistance for him, but he was ultimately
conveyed on camel-back to Jerusalem, where he died; his grave is in the
Franciscan cemetery there. His fate was shared by his successor, a
British naval officer, Lieutenant Molyneux (1847), whose party was
attacked and robbed by Bedouins. W. F. Lynch, an American explorer
(1848), equipped by the United States government, was more successful,
and he may claim to be the first who examined its shores and sounded its
depths. Since his time the duc de Luynes, Lartet, Wilson, Hull,
Blanckenhorn, Gautier, Libbey, Masterman and Schmidt, to name but a few,
have made contributions to our knowledge of this lake; but still many
problems present themselves for solution. Among these may be mentioned
(1) the explanation of a remarkable line of white foam that extends
along the axis of the lake almost every morning--supposed by
Blanckenhorn to mark the line of a fissure, thermal and asphaltic, under
the bed of the lake, but otherwise explained as a consequence of the
current of the Jordan, which is not completely expended till it reaches
the Lisan, or as a result of the mingling of the salt water with the
brackish spring water especially along the western shore; (2) a
northward current that has been observed along the east coast; (3)
various disturbances of level, due possibly to differences of barometric
pressure; (4) some apparently electrical phenomena that have been
observed in the valley. Before we can be said to know all that we might
regarding this most interesting of lakes further extensive scientific
observations are necessary; but these are extremely difficult owing to
the impossibility of maintaining self-registering instruments in a
region practically closed to Europeans for nearly half the year by the
stifling heat, and inhabited only by Bedouins, who are the worst kind of
ignorant, thievish and mischievous savages. (R. A. S. M.)
DEADWOOD, a city and the county-seat of Lawrence county, South Dakota,
U.S.A., about 180 m. W. of Pierre. Pop. (1890) 2366; (1900) 3498, of
whom 707 were foreign-born; (1905) 4364; (1910) 3653. It is served by
the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy and the Chicago & North-Western
railways. It lies on hilly ground in the canyon of Whitewood Creek at an
elevation of about 4530 ft. Deadwood is the commercial centre of the
Black Hills. About it are several gold mines (including the well-known
Home-stake mine), characterized by the low grade of their ores (which
range from $2 to $8 per ton), by their vast quantity, and by the ease of
mining and of extracting the metal. The ore contains free gold, which is
extracted by the simple process of stamping and amalgamation, and
refractory values, extracted by the cyaniding process. Several hundred
tons of ore are treated thus in Deadwood and its environs daily, and its
stamp mills are exceeded in size only by those of the Treadwell mine in
S.E. Alaska, and by those on the Rand in South Africa. The discovery of
gold here was made known in June 1875, and in February 1877 the United
States government, after having purchased the land from the Sioux
Indians, opened the place for legal settlement.
DEAF AND DUMB.[1] The term "deaf" is frequently applied to those who are
deficient in hearing power in any degree, however slight, as well as to
people who are unable to detect the loudest sounds by means of the
auditory organs. It is impossible to draw a hard and fast line between
the deaf and the hearing at any particular point. For the purposes of
this article, however, that denotation which is generally accepted by
educators of the deaf may be given to the term. This makes it refer to
those who are so far handicapped as to be incapable of instruction by
the ordinary means of the ear in a class of those possessing normal
hearing. Paradoxical though it may seem, it is yet true to say that
"dumbness" in our sense of the word does not, strictly speaking, exist,
though the term "dumb" may, for all practical purposes, fairly be
applied to many of the deaf even after they are supposed to have learnt
how to speak. Oral teachers now confess that it is not worth while to
try to teach more than a large percentage of the deaf to speak at all.
We are not concerned with aphasia, stammering or such inability to
articulate as may be due to malformation of the vocal organs. In the
case of the deaf and dumb, as these words are generally understood,
dumbness is merely the result of ignorance in the use of the voice, this
ignorance being due to the deafness. The vocal organs are perfect. The
deaf man can laugh, shout, and in fact utter any and every sound that
the normal person can. But he does not speak English (if that happens to
be his nationality) for the same reason that a French child does not,
which is that he has never heard it. There is in fact no more a priori
reason why an English baby, born in England, should talk English than
that it should talk any other language. English may be correctly
described as its "mother tongue," but not its _natural_ language; the
only reason why one person speaks English and another Russian is that
each imitated that particular language which he heard in infancy. This
imitation depends upon the ability to hear. Hence if one has never
heard, or has lost hearing in early childhood, he has never been able to
imitate that language which his parents and others used, and the
condition of so-called dumbness is added to his deafness. From this it
follows that if the sense of hearing be not lost till the child has
learnt to speak fluently, the ability to speak is unaffected by the
calamity of deafness, except that after many years the voice is likely
to become high-pitched, or too guttural, or peculiar in some other
respect, owing to the absence of the control usually exercised by the
ear. It also follows that, to a certain extent, the art of speech can be
taught the deaf person even though he were born deaf. Theoretically, he
is capable of talking just as well as his hearing brother, for the
organs of speech are as perfect in one as in the other, except that they
suffer from lack of exercise in the case of the deaf man. Practically,
he can never speak perfectly, for even if he were made to attempt
articulation as soon as he is discovered to be deaf, the fact that the
ear, the natural guide of the voice, is useless, lays upon him a
handicap which can never be wiped out. He can never hear the tone of his
teacher's voice nor of his own; he can only see small and, in many
instances, scarcely discernible movements of the lips, tongue, nose,
cheeks and throat in those who are endeavouring to teach him to speak,
and he can never hope to succeed in speech through the instrumentality
of such unsatisfactory appeals to his eye as perfectly as the hearing
child can with the ideal adaptation of the voice to the ear. Sound
appeals to the ear, not the eye, and those who have to rely upon the
latter to imitate speech must suffer by comparison.
Deafness then, in our sense, means the incapacity to be instructed by
means of the ear in the normal way, and dumbness means only that
ignorance of how to speak one's mother tongue which is the effect of the
deafness.
Of such deaf people many can hear sound to some extent. Dr Kerr Love
quotes several authorities (_Deaf Mutism_, pp. 58 ff.) to show that 50
or 60% are absolutely deaf, while 25% can detect loud sounds such as
shouting close to the ear, and the rest can distinguish vowels or even
words. He himself thinks that not more than 15 or 20% are totally
deaf--sometimes only 7 or 8%; that ability to hear speech exists in
about one in four, while ten or fifteen in each hundred are only
semi-deaf. He rightly warns against the use of tuning forks or other
instruments held on the bones of the head as tests of hearing, because
the vibration which is felt, not heard, may very often be mistaken for
sound.
Dr Edward M. Gallaudet, president of the Columbia Institution for the
Deaf in Washington, D.C., suggests the following terms for use in
dividing the whole class of the deaf into its main sections, though it
is obviously impossible to split them up into perfectly defined
subdivisions, where, as a matter of fact, you have each degree of
deafness and dumbness shading into the next:--the _speaking deaf_, _the
semi-speaking deaf_, the _mute deaf_ (or _deaf-mute_), the _speaking
semi-deaf_, the _mute semi-deaf_, the _hearing mute_ and the _hearing
semi-mute_. He points out that the last two classes are usually persons
of feeble mental power. We should exclude these altogether from the
list, since their hearing is, presumably, perfect, and should add the
_semi-speaking semi-deaf_ before the mute semi-deaf. This would give two
main divisions--those who cannot hear at all, and those who have partial
hearing--with three subsections in each main division--those who speak,
those who have partial speech and those who do not speak at all. Where
the hearing is perfect it is paradoxical to class a person with the
deaf, and the dumbness in such a case is due (where there is no
malformation of the vocal organs) to inability of the mind to pay
attention to, and imitate, what the ear really hears. In such cases this
mental weakness is generally shown in other ways besides that of not
hearing sounds. Probably no sign will be given of recognizing persons or
objects around; there will be in fact, a general incapacity of the
whole body and senses. It is incorrect to designate such persons as deaf
and feeble-minded or deaf and idiotic, because in many cases their
organs of hearing are as perfect as are other organs of their body, and
they are no more deaf than blind, though they may pay no attention to
what they hear any more than to what they see. They are simply weak in
intellect, and this is shown by the disuse of any and all of their
senses; hence it is incorrect to classify them according to one, and one
only, of the evidences of this mental weakness.
_Extent of Deafness._--The following table shows the number of deaf
and dumb persons in the United Kingdom at successive censuses:--
+------+-----------------------------------------+
| | NUMBER OF DEAF AND DUMB PERSONS. |
| YEAR.+---------+---------+----------+----------+
| | United | England | Scotland.| Ireland. |
| |Kingdom. |& Wales. | | |
+------+---------+---------+----------+----------+
| 1851 | 17,649 | 10,314 | 2155 | 5180 |
| 1861 | 20,224 | 12,236 | 2335 | 5653 |
| 1871 | 19,159 | 11,518 | 2087 | 5554 |
| 1881 | 20,573 | 13,295 | 2142 | 5136 |
| 1891 | 20,781 | 14,192 | 2125 | 4464 |
| 1901 | 21,855 | 15,246 | 2638 | 3971 |
+------+---------+---------+----------+----------+
From this we find that the proportion of deaf and dumb to the
population has been as follows:--
+------+-----------------------------------------------+
| | PROPORTION OF DEAF AND DUMB TO THE POPULATION.|
| YEAR.+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
| | United | England | Scotland. | Ireland. |
| | Kingdom. | & Wales. | | |
+------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
| 1851 | 1 in 1550 | 1 in 1739 | 1 in 1340 | 1 in 1264 |
| 1861 | 1 in 1430 | 1 in 1639 | 1 in 1310 | 1 in 1025 |
| 1871 | 1 in 1642 | 1 in 1972 | 1 in 1610 | 1 in 974 |
| 1881 | 1 in 1694 | 1 in 1953 | 1 in 1745 | 1 in 1008 |
| 1891 | 1 in 1814 | 1 in 2040 | 1 in 1893 | 1 in 1053 |
| 1901 | 1 in 1897 | 1 in 2132 | 1 in 1694 | 1 in 1122 |
+------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
There has, therefore, been on the whole a steady decrease of those
described as "deaf and dumb" in proportion to the population in Great
Britain and Ireland. But in the census for 1901, in addition to the
15,246 returned as "deaf and dumb" in England and Wales, 18,507 were
entered as being "deaf," 2433 of whom were described as having been
"deaf from childhood."
Mr B. H. Payne, the principal of the Royal Cambrian Institution,
Swansea, makes the following remarks upon these figures:--
"The natural conclusion, of course, is that there has been a large
increase, relative as well as absolute, of the class in which we are
interested, which we call the deaf, and which includes the deaf and
dumb. Indeed, the number, large as it is, cannot be considered as
complete, for the schedules did not require persons who were only deaf
to state their infirmity, and, though many did so, it may be presumed
that more did not.
"On the other hand, circumstances exist which may reasonably be held
to modify the conclusion that there has been a large relative increase
of the deaf. The spread of education, the development of local
government, and an improved system of registration, may have had the
effect of procuring fuller enumeration and more appropriate
classification than heretofore, while 1368 persons described simply as
dumb, and who therefore probably belong, not to the deaf, but to the
feeble-minded and aphasic classes, are included in the 'deaf and dumb'
total. It is also to be noted that some of those who described
themselves as 'deaf' though not born so may have been educated in the
ordinary way before they lost their hearing, and are therefore outside
the sphere of the operation of schools for the deaf.
"In connexion with the census of 1891, it has been remarked in the
report of the institution that no provision was made in the schedules
for distinguishing the congenital from the non-congenital deaf, and
that it was desirable to draw such a distinction. To ascertain the
relative increase or decrease of one or the other section of the class
would contribute to our knowledge of the incidence of known causes of
deafness or to the confirmation or discovery of other causes, and so
far indicate the appropriate measures of prevention, while such an
inquiry as that recommended has, besides, a certain bearing upon
educational views.
"The exact number of 'deaf and dumb' and 'deaf' children who are of
school age cannot be ascertained from the census tables, which give
the numbers in quinquennial age-groups, while the school age is seven
to sixteen. It is a pity that in this respect the functions of the
census department are not co-ordinated with those of the Board of
Education."
John Hitz, the superintendent of the Volta Bureau for the Increase of
Knowledge Relating to the Deaf, Washington, D.C., U.S.A., gives the
number of schools for deaf children, and pupils, in different
countries in 1900 as follows:--