Damper.

of two distinct resins, one of which is soluble in alcohol, the other not. It is light, brittle, and easily friable, readily soluble in oil of turpentine; quickly becomes viscid when heated; when sprinkled on burning coal, diffuses an odor like that of rosin or mastich; readily takes fire, and burns with much smoke and a somewhat acid smell. It is used in Asia for domestic purposes, and in the arts like other resins; it is an article of commerce, and in Europe is employed in various ways to form varnishes, which dry quickly, have a very bright luster, and being colorless, allow the beauty of the colors over which they are spread to be perfectly seen; but readily becomes viscid again, and are not permanent, so that this resin cannot be made a substitute for copal and amber. It is almost completely soluble in benzole, and in this solvent, makes an excellent colorless varnish for positive photographs on glass-it is, how. ever, scarcely hard enough for negatives.-To this genus belongs also the Kauri Pine (q.v.) of New Zealand (D. Australis), which produces the resin known as kauri resin, or kauri gum.-The word dammar, dammer, or damar, signifies resin in some of the languages of India. The resin known as BLACK DAMMAR is obtained in the Molucca islands from the trunk of marignia acutifolia, a tree of the natural order amyridacea. It is a semi-fluid soft resin, with a strong smell, becoming black when it dries; it is used as pitch, also to yield a kind of turpentine, which is obtained by distillation.Canarium microcarpum, a tree of the same order, also a native of the furthest east, yields, by incision of the trunk, a viscid, odorous, yellowish substance, very similar to balsam of copaiva, which is called damar or dammar, and is used in naval yards as oakum, being mixed with a little chalk and the bark of reeds, and becomes as hard as a stone. Quite distinct from all these is the resin also called dammar or piney dammar in India, often also called copal (q.v.) in India, and anime (q. v.) in Britain, the produce of vateria Indica, a large tree of the natural order dipteracea. It is obtained by wounding the tree, and when fresh, is clear, fragrant, and acridly bitter; when dried, it becomes yellow, brittle, and glass-like. It is used in India as a varnish (piney varnish), which is hard, tenacious, and much esteemed. It is also made into candles in Malabar, which, in burning, diffuse an agreeable fragrance, and give a clear light with little smoke. Some of these candles were sent to Britain, and were highly prized, but the excessive duty stopped the importation. Shorea robusta, the sal (q.v.), so much valued in India as a timber-tree, also of the natural order dipteraceae, and some other species of shorea, yield a resin, also known as dammar, and as ral and dhoona, which is much used in dock-yards in India as pitch.

DAMMU'DAH, or DUMMO'DAH, a river of India, rises in Ramgurh, a district in the presidency of Bengal, about lat. 23° 55′ n. and long. 84° 53′ e. ; and after a generally s.e. course of 350 m., it enters the Hoogly from the right, in lat. 22° 13′ n., and long. 88° 7' east. The valley of the D.-traversed by the main railway between Calcutta and the n.w. (the East Indian railway)—abounds in coal and iron; and competent judges have calculated that bar-iron may here be manufactured 20 per cent cheaper than it can be imported from Great Britain.

DAM'OCLES, one of the courtiers and sycophants of the elder Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse. It is recorded by Cicero that D., having lauded in the highest terms the grandeur and happiness of royalty, was reproved by Dionysius in a singular manner. The sycophant was seated at a table, richly spread and surrounded by all the furniture of royalty, but in the midst of his luxurious banquet, on looking upwards, he saw a keen-edged sword suspended over his head by a single horse-hair. A spectacle so alarming instantly altered his views of the felicity of kings.

DA'MON AND PYTH'IAS, or PHIN'TIAS, two noble Pythagoreans of Syracuse, who have been remembered as models of faithful friendship. Pythias having been condemned to death by Dionysius the tyrant of Syracuse, begged to be allowed to go home, for the purpose of arranging his affairs, Damon pledging his own life for the reappearance of his friend. Dionysius consented, and Pythias returned just in time to save Damon from death. Struck by so noble an example of mutual affection, the tyrant pardoned Pythias, and desired to be admitted into their sacred fellowship.

DAMPER, a door or valve which, by sliding, rising and falling, turning on a hinge, or otherwise, diminishes the aperture of a chimney or air-flue; this lessens the quantity of air that can pass through a furnace or other fire, and thus "damps" or checks the combustion.-The D. of a pianoforte is that part of the mechanism which, after a key is struck, and the finger is lifted up from the key, immediately checks or stops the vibration of the string. It consists of a second hammer, which, on the rising of the key, strikes the string and remains upon it, instead of bounding off as the soundinghammer does. Perfect damping is always desirable, but seldom obtained, especially in upright pianofortes. In respect of damping, the pianofortes of the German makers are superior to the English. The more perfect the damping is, the more distinctly and clearly the passages and harmony are heard, while the instrument gains in purity of tone, when there is none of that confusion of sounds which arises from imperfect damping.

Damper is also the name given in Australia to a simple kind of unleavened bread formed of wheat flour. It is made while traveling in the bush, and baked among the ashes of a fire often kindled for the purpose.

DAM PIER, WILLIAM, a celebrated English navigator, was b. of a Somersetshire family in 1652. He early went to sea, where he was soon distinguished alike by his intelligence and enterprise. Along with a party of buccaneers, D. crossed the isthmus of Darien in 1679, and embarking on the Pacific in canoes and similar small craft, cap tured several Spanish vessels, in which they cruised along the coast of Spanish America, waging war with the Spanish subjects. In 1684, D. engaged in another buccaneering expedition, in which he coasted along the shores of Chili, Peru, and Mexico, sailing thence to the East Indies, touching at Australia, and after some time returning to England, where in 1691 he published an interesting account of the expedition, entitled A Voyage Round the World. He was afterwards deputed by government to conduct a Voyage of discovery to the South seas, in which he explored the w. and n.w. coasts of Australia, also the coasts of New Guinea, New Britain, and New Ireland, giving his name to the Dampier archipelago and strait (q.v.). The events of the latter part of D.'s life are not well known. Besides the one already mentioned, the following are his principal works: Voyages to the Bay of Campeachy (Lond. 1729); A Treatise on Winds and Tides; and a Vindication of his Voyage to the South Sea in the Ship St. George (1707).

DAMPIER ARCHIPELAGO AND STRAIT take their names from the famous navigator and buccaneer. The strait, which is 35 m. wide, separates the island of Waygiou from the n.w. extremity of Papua or New Guinea, lying almost immediately under the equator, and about long. 131° e., so as to be, as nearly as possible, the antipodes of the mouth of the Amazon. The archipelago, again, is off the n.w. coast of Australia, about lat. 21° s., and long. 117° east. The principal islands of the cluster are Enderby, Lewis, Rosemary, Legendre, and Depuch.

DAMPING OFF, in horticulture, the death of plants from excess of moisture in the soil and atmosphere. Young seedlings in stoves and hot-beds are particularly liable to it. Although the cause is sufficiently obvious, prevention is not always easy; not only because some plants are very sensitive as to moisture, but also because the neces sity of keeping sashes closed on account of temperature often stands in the way of the ventilation which would otherwise be desirable, and it is when a moist atmosphere stag nates around them, and the temperature is not very low, that plants are most liable to damp off.

DAMROSCH, LEOPOLD, M. D. See page 900.

DAM SON, a rather small oval-fruited variety of the common plum, much esteemed for preserving, and not wholly unfit for dessert. The tree grows to a considerable height, but has a bushy, sloe-like appearance. It is extremely fruitful. There are many sub-varieties, with fruit of different colors, dark purple, bluish, black, yellow, etc. Damsons are produced in great quantities in some parts of England. D. pies, and D. cheese-made somewhat in the manner of fig-cake-are well-known English luxuries. The name is a corruption of Damascene, from Damascus.—The MOUNTAIN D. or BITTER D. of the West Indies is the simaruba (q. v.)

DAMUGGO', a large and populous t. of Upper Guinea, Africa, situated on the left bank of the Niger, in lat. 7° n., long. 7° 50' east. The houses, built of mud, and supported by wooden props, are circular in shape. The town is dirty, and has a miserable appearance. The population, the number of which has not been ascertained with any degree of accuracy, support themselves by trade and the cultivation of the soil.

DAN, a city, the position of which, at the northern extremity of Palestine, is determined: 1. By its being the northern point on the road to Damascus, at which Abraham overtook the allied forces that had plundered Sodom. 2. By its frequent designation as the northern limit of the land, as in the familiar expression-"from Dan to Beersheba." 3. By the statement of Josephus, that it stood at the lesser fountain of the Jordan; and that of Jerome, that at it the Jordan took its rise, and, as he thought from his view of the etymology, obtained its name Jor-Dan, as "the river of Dan.' 4. By Dr. Robinson's discovery, in the same locality, of "a mound from the foot of which gushes out one of the largest fountains of the world-the main source of the Jordan,” the signification of whose Arabic name, Tell el Kadi, "the judge's mound," agrees with that of the Hebrew Dan, "a judge." The manner in which the tribe of Dan acquired possession of this region is narrated in the book of Judges. Their inheritance by lot was well situated near the powerful tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim; but the most fertile part of it was too small for them, and was often overrun by the Amorites and Philistines. In order to enlarge their territory they sent out spies to search for a fertile region which they might obtain by force or craft. These having gone to the north, reported that they had found there a large and good land abounding in supplies for every want, and inhabited by a people careless and secure. So the tribe, having arrayed itself for war, fell suddenly on the coveted region, putting the inhabitants to death and burning the city. When they rebuilt it they changed its name from Laish to Dan after their father. The subsequent history of the city is peculiar. The Danites stole not only the good land and the city, but also the religion which they established there. On their way north they found in Mt. Ephraim a house in which was a priest of the tribe of Levi, with an ephod and teraphim, a molten and a graven image. All these they carried away with them and set up the idolatrous worship under a permanent priesthood in their conquered home. Four hundred years afterwards Jeroboam remod

eled the worship, making Dan the religious center for the northern part of the kingdom which he had usurped. This it continued to be until, about 250 years later, the people were carried captive into Assyria. At the present day the top of the mound is strewed with ruins, including traces of old foundations and heaps of large stones. There are ruins also on the plain below. The fertility of the plain or valley, remarkable in the times of the Sidonians, continues to the present day.

DAN, the fifth son of Jacob and the first by his wife's maid Bilhah. He was own brother to Naphtali, and there is a close affinity between his name and that of Dinah, Jacob's only daughter. The tribe of Dan was, next to Judah, the most numerous of the twelve tribes at the numbering in the wilderness; yet he was the last of all to receive his portion of the land, and that portion was the smallest of all. The Bible gives but little of the history of the tribe, which seems to have been easily and often led to copy the idolatry of the surrounding heathen.

DANA, CHARLES ANDERSON, b. N. H., 1819. He studied at Harvard for two years, but an affection of the eyes compelled his retirement. He was one of the members of the Brook Farm socialistic community, near Boston, and was one of the editors of The Harbinger, a journal advocating the ideas of Fourier. In 1847, he became a writer on the New York Tribune, and was correspondent of that journal in France during the revolution of 1848. Returning to New York, he became first assistant (or managing) editor of the Tribune, which position he filled until about the close of 1861, when the "On to Richmond" editorial, immediately followed by the disastrous defeat of the union forces at Bull Run, led to such disagreement with Horace Greeley, the editor of the paper, that Dana was compelled to resign. He was not long afterwards appointed assistant secretary of war. After the war he became the editor of a new republican paper in Chicago, but the enterprise was not successful. Returning to New York, he became one of a company to purchase The Sun, the oldest of the cheap papers of the country. He was chosen chief editor, which position he retains. Besides his work as a journalist, he has edited a Household Book of Poetry, and in connection with George Ripley has been the editor of Appleton's New American Cyclopædia.

DANA, FRANCIS, LL. D., 1743-1811; b Mass; graduate of Harvard; admitted to the bar in 1767. He was one of the Sons of Liberty" in and about Boston at the com mencement of the revolution. He was a delegate to the first provincial congress of Massachusetts, and in 1776 was chosen one of the council who at that time acted not only as a senate, but as the executive of the state. In 1781, he was appointed minister to Russia. He returned in 1783, and was at once sent to congress. In 1785, he was appointed justice of the supreme court of Massachusetts. He was a delegate to the Annapolis convention, to the convention which framed the federal constitution, and to the convention in his own state for its ratification. In 1791, he was made chief jus. tice of Massachusetts. In 1797, he was appointed special envoy to the French republic, but declined on account of 1 health. He was one of the founders of the American academy of arts and sciences.

DANA, JAMES Dwight, ll.d., b. N. Y., 1813; graduate of Yale, eminent as a naturalist and geologist. He was with the Wilkes exploring expedition to the southern oceans sent out by the federal government in 1838. In 1846, he became one of the editors of the American Journal of Science; in 1855, he was chosen professor of natural history and geology in Yale college. His works on geology and natural history are well known. DANA, NAPOLEON JACKSON TECUMSEH, b. Me., 1822; graduated at West Point in 1842. He served in the war with Mexico, and through the war of the rebellion, and was seriously wounded at Antietam. Soon after the war he resigned with the rank of col. DANA, RICHARD, 1699-1772; b. Mass., grandson of Richard, who was the first of the family in America. He was a graduate of Harvard, bred to the law, and prominent in resistance to the acts of the British government which preceded the revolution. He was also a member of "The Sons of Liberty."

DA'NA, RICHARD HENRY, an American poet and novelist, was born in 1787, at Cam bridge, Mass. After leaving Harvard college, at which he had remained three years, he adopted law as a profession, but eventually renounced it, and applied himself to literature. In 1817, he became a contributor to the North American Review, his connection with this periodical continuing for three years, during a portion of which time he assisted in its editorship The Idle Man, which contains many of his best prose efforts, was commenced in 1821, but proving a failure in a commercial point of view, was soon discontinued. Having at an earlier date published the Dying Raven, a poem of great merit, he came forward, in 1827, with the Buccaneer, and other poems. In 1839, D. delivered in Boston and New York a series of lectures on Shakespeare.-RICHARD H. DANA, the son of D., is well known as the author of Two Years Before the Mast (enlarged ed. 1869). To Cuba and Back appeared in 1859. D. is also a distinguished authority on maritime law. He was nominated in 1876 to be ambassador in England, but the appointment was not sanctioned by the senate. R. H. D. senior d. 1879.

DANA, RICHARD HENRY, Jr., b. Mass., 1815, a son of Richard Henry, the poet; graduated at Harvard, and bred to the law. In consequence of ill health he made a voyage at sea, of which he published a description in Two Years Before the Mast. He IV.-19a.

was admitted to the bar in 1840, and made a specialty of admiralty cases. In 1841, he published The Seaman's Friend, containing a Treatise on Practical Seamanship, and also an edition of Wheaton's International Law. He was one of the leaders of the free-soil party, and wrote and spoke much on political subjects. He d. 1882.

DANA, SAMUEL LUTHER, LL.D., 1795-1868; b. Mass.; a writer on chemistry and agriculture. While chemist of the Merrimack print-works he invented a method of bleaching cotton goods which was widely adopted.

DAN AE, the daughter of Acrisius, king of Argos, and Ocaleia. According to the mythological narrative, an oracle had announced that she would one day give birth to a son, who should kill his grandfather. Acrisius, of course, felt extremely uncomfortable after this declaration, and took every precaution to keep D. a virgin. He shut her up in a dungeon, where, nevertheless, she was visited by Zeus in a shower of gold, and became, in consequence, the mother of Perseus. Acrisius put both the mother and child into a chest, and exposed them on the sea. The chest, however, drifted ashore on the island of Seriphos, and D. and her child were saved. D. remained in the island until Perseus had grown up and become a hero famous for his exploits. She afterwards accompanied him to Argos. On his arrival, Acrisius fled, but was subsequently slain accidentally by Perseus at Larissa.

DA'NAIDE, a bydraulic machine made of two cylinders one within the other, turning easily on a vertical axis, and having a small space between them. The smallest one is closed at the bottom, and the other has a hole in the middle of its base. The bottoms of the two are separated by partitions reaching from the circumference to the center, but the ring-like space between the cylinders is open. If water be turned into this space horizontally to the surface of the cylinders, they begin to revolve by friction, which motion is increased by the water in revolution acting on the radial partitions in the base. It is found that nearly three quarters of the hydraulic power can thus be utilized.

DAN AUS, a mythical personage, the son of Belus and Anchinoë, brother of Ægyp tus, and originally ruler of Libya. Thinking his life in danger from the machinations of his brother, he fled to Argos, accompanied by his fifty daughters, known as the DANAIDES, where he was chosen king, after the banishment of Gelanor, the last of the Inachide. The fifty sons of Egyptus followed him, and under the pretense of friend. ship, sought the hand of his daughters in marriage. D. consented, but on the bridalnight he gave his daughters each a dagger, and urged them to murder their bridegrooms in revenge for the treatment he had received from Ægyptus. All did so, except one, Hypermnestra, who allowed her betrothed, Lynceus, to escape. D., as may naturally be supposed, found great difficulty in obtaining new husbands for his daughters; and in order to get them off his hands, instituted games, where they were given as rewards to the victors, although they could scarcely have been considered very tempting prizes. As a punishment for their crime, they were compelled, in the under-world, to pour water for ever into a vessel full of holes. So runs the myth; but Strabo mentions an old tradition, which declares D. and his fifty daughters to have provided Argos with water, which is probably the origin of the scene in Hades. Greek art, of course, represents the Danaides in conformity with the popular myth. The tomb of D., in the Agora of Argos, was shown as late as the time of Pausanias.

DANBURY, one of the county-seats of Fairfield co., Conn., on the Still river, 68 m. n.n.e. of New York city. The railroads passing through are the New York and New England, the Housatonic, and the Danbury and Norwalk division of the same. D. was permanently settled in 1685, and was burned by the British in Apr., 1777, when gen. Wooster was mortally wounded. It has a court-house, a fine public library, 2 national and 2 savings-banks, a high school, an opera-house, 12 churches, 3 small parks, water-works, a beautiful cemetery, a soldiers' monument, and one to gen. Wooster. The manufacture of hats, begun in 1780, employs a capital of more than $2,000,000. Other articles produced are hatters' supplies, boots and shoes, paper and wooden boxes, shirts, iron, and sewingmachines. Four newspapers are published. Pop. 1756, 1527; 1830, 4331; 1888, 18,000.

DAN'BY, FRANCIS, A.R.A., a painter, b. about 6 m. from Wexford, in Ireland, 16th Nov., 1793. He was educated in the school of the society of arts, Dublin, and soon gave indications of superior artistic talent. His first attempts were sent to the Dublin exhi bition. After 1820, he took up his residence at Bristol, whence he sent to the royal, academy, London, his "Disappointed Love" (1821), Warriors of the Olden Time! Listening to the Song of their Minstrel" (1823), and "Sunset at Sea after a Storm" (1824). In 1825, D. produced "The Delivery of Israel out of Egypt;" in 1826, "Christ Walking on the Sea;" in 1827, "The Embarkation of Cleopatra on the Cydnus;” and in 1828-29, An Attempt to Illustrate the Opening of the Seventh Seal," "The Passage of the Red Sea," and "The Deluge." Circumstances now induced him to visit the continent, where he resided till 1841, during which interval he executed very few paintings. On his return, he took up his abode at Exmouth, where he died in 1861. Among his later works, may be mentioned "A Morning at Rhodes" (1841).

DANCE, GEORGE, JR., 1740-1825; an English architect. Among his designs was that for Blackfriars bridge in London. He was associated with his brother Nathaniel

Dance.

in the foundation of the royal academy, of whose original members he was for several years the last survivor. Newgate prison and the front of Guildhall were built from his designs. His father, also named George, was noted as an architect.

DANCE OF DEATH (Lat. Chorea Machabæorum, Fr. La Danse Macabre), a name given to a certain class of allegorical representations, illustrative of the universal power of death, and dating from the 14th century. When the introduction of Christianity first banished the ancient Germanic conception of a future state, a new description of deathmythology arose, partly out of biblical sources, partly out of the popular character itself, wherein the last enemy was represented under simple and majestic images, such as that of a husbandman watering the ground, with blood, plowing it with swords, rooting out weeds, plucking up flowers, or felling trees, sowing it with corpses; or of a monarch assembling his armies, making war, taking prisoners, inviting his subjects to a festival, or citing them to judgment. But with a gradual change in national manners came a change in the mode of treating the subject, and it was associated with every-day images, such as the confessional, chess-playing, and above all, with the adjuncts of a festival-viz., music and dancing. This tendency to familiarize the theme increased during the confusion and turmoil of the 14th c., when the national mind alternated between fits of devotion and license, or blent both elements in satire and humor. Such a mood as this naturally occupied itself with personifying death, and adopted by preference the most startling and grotesque images it could find-that of a musician playing to dancing-men, or a dancer leading them on; and as the dance and the drama were then intimately connected, and employed on religious occasions, this particular idea soon assumed a dramatic form.

This drama was most simply constructed, consisting of short dialogues between Death and four-and-twenty or more followers, and was undoubtedly enacted in or near churches by religious orders in Germany during the 14th c, and at a rather later period in France. It would appear that the seven brothers, whose martyrdom is recorded in the 7th chapter of the 2d book of Maccabees, either played an important part in the drama, or the first representation, which took place at Paris, in the Cloister aux Inno cents, fell upon their festival, and hence the origin of the ancient name, Chorea Macha bæorum, or La Danse Macabre. As early as 1400, the dramatic poem was imitated in Spain, and appears there in 79 strophes of 8 lines each (La Dança General de los Muertos), but it did not spread; while the French, having a love for pictorial representation, very early affixed an illustration to each strophe, and in 1425 painted the whole series on the church-yard wall of the Cloister of the Innocents, where the Dance of Death was habitually enacted. We find the subject treated in painting, sculpture, and tapestry, in the churches of Anjou, Amiens, Angers, Rouen, to say nothing of the numerous woodcuts and accompanying letter-press which succeeded the invention of printing. From Paris, both poem and pictures were transplanted to London (1420), Salisbury (about 1460), Wortley hall in Gloucestershire, Hexham, etc.

But nowhere was the subject so variously and strikingly treated as in Germany. A picture in one of the chapels of the Marienkirche, at Lubeck, still, in spite of repeated repaintings, bearing the unmistakable impress of the 14th c., exhibits the very simplest form of the drama, and has some genuine Low German verses attached to it. Here we see 24 figures, partly clerical, partly lay, arranged in a descending scale, from the pope himself down to a little child, and between each of them a dancing-figure of Death, not in the form of a skeleton, but a shriveled corpse, the whole being linked in one chain, and dancing to the music of another Death. This representation is almost the same as a very ancient one at La Chaise-Dieu, in Auvergne, and points to the identity of the original dramatic spectacle in both countries.

The celebrated "Dance of Death" on the cloister walls of the Klingenthal, a convent in Basel, though painted probably not later than 1312, exhibited a departure from the simplest form-the number of persons exceeding the original 24, and the chain being broken up into separate couples. But both alike are only to be regarded as scenes from a drama, and cannot, therefore, be justly compared with a contemporary Italian painting, the " Triumph of Death," by Andrea Orcagna. And the acted drama enduring till the 15th c., we find that while there were varieties in the paintings, the poem, which was the most important feature, remained unchanged.

About the middle of the 15th c., however, the drama being altogether laid aside, the pictures became the main point of interest, the verses merely subsidiary. Accordingly, we find from this time the same pictures repeated in different places, with different verses, or no verses at all, till at length both verses and pictures entirely change their original character. The "Dance of Death" being transferred from the quiet convent walls into public places, gave a new impulse to popular art. Duke George of Saxony had, in 1534, the front of his Dresden castle ornamented with a life-size bas-relief of the subject, and other representations are to be found at Strasburg and Bern. There was a "Dance of Death" painted round the cloister of old St. Paul's in London, in the reign of Henry VI.; and there is a sculptured one at Rouen, in the cemetery of St. Maclou. But Holbein has the credit of availing himself most effectively of the original design, and giving it a new and more artistic character. Departing from the idea of a dance, he illustrated the subject by 53 distinct sketches for engravings, which he called "Imagines