supposed to connect the two oceans. It was by special request of Pizarro in 1532 that De Soto joined him in his enterprise for conquering Peru, with the promise of being appointed second in command. Being sent in 1533, with 50 horsemen and a few targeteers, to explore the highlands of Peru, he encountered and defeated 2,000 Indians, penetrated through a pass in the mountains, and discovered the great national road which led to the Peruvian capital, and was soon after selected by Pizarro to visit the inca Atahuallpa as ambassador. After the plot for the capture of the inca had proved successful, and the latter had paid an immense sum for ransom, De Soto in vain expostulated with Pizarro for treacherously refusing to release the Peruvian monarch. He was prominent in the engagements which completed the conquest of Peru, and was the hero of the battle which resulted in the capture of the metropolis, Cuzco. He soon after returned to Spain with a fortune of $500,000; met a flattering reception from the emperor Charles V., made a splendid display at court, and married the daughter of Davila, the object of an early attachment. In 1536 the belief was entertained that in the vast region then called Florida was a new El Dorado, richer than any that had been discovered. Of this faith De Soto became the martyr. He proposed to the emperor to undertake the conquest of Florida at his own expense; and the privilege being conceded to him, many Spanish and Portuguese cavaliers were ambitious to enroll themselves among his followers. With 600 men, the flower of the peninsula, exclusive of 24 ecclesiastics and 20 officers, he set sail from San Lucar early in April, 1538. After stopping at Santiago de Cuba, and then at Havana, where it was decided that the ladies attached to the expedition should remain till after the conquest of Florida, he crossed the gulf of Mexico, and anchored in the bay of Spiritu Santo (Tampa bay), May 25, 1539. His route was through a country already made hostile by the violence of the Spanish invader Narvaez, and he was constantly deluded by the Indians, whose policy it was to send their unwelcome visitors as far away as possible by telling them of gold regions at remote points. In July, 1539, he sent back all his ships to Havana. He discovered a Spaniard, Juan Ortiz, who had been in slavery from the time of Narvaez, and who now served as his interpreter. He passed the first winter in the country of the Appalachians, E. of the Flint river. Directed then to the N. E., he reached in April, 1540, the Ogeechee; thence proceeding to the S., he reached the Coosa, and on Oct. 18 the village of Mavilla or Mobile, on the Alabama. The engagement which ensued here was one of the most sanguinary battles ever fought between Europeans and the North American Indians; the loss of the Spaniards was 80 men and 42 horses; that of the Indians was reported at 2,500 men. Ships had meantime arrived at Ochus (Pensacola), but De Soto proudly refused to send back any message of his fortunes.

He passed the second winter in the country of the Chickasaws, who in the spring burned his camp and their own village, when he attempted to force them to carry his baggage. Forty Spaniards perished in the flames, and in the night attack. Soon after beginning his march to the N. W., a pestilential fever carried off nearly a score of his men. He reached the Mississippi after journeying for 7 days through a wilderness of forests and marshes, was nearly a month in constructing 8 large barges to transport his army, and having crossed the river went N. to Pacaha, where he remained from June 19 till July 29. Thence he marched successively S. W. and N. W. till he reached the highlands of the White river, in the eastern portion of what is now the Indian territory. This was the western limit of his rambles. He then proceeded S. by the hot springs of Arkansas, which his companions at first supposed to be the fabled fountain of youth, and made his third winter station at Autiamque on the Washita river. In March and April, 1542, he continued S. along the Washita to the Mississippi, and while in vain attempting to descend the banks of the latter, through the bayous and marshes, he was attacked with a malignant fever, and died, after appointing Luis de Moscoso his successor. "His soldiers," says Bancroft, "pronounced his eulogy by grieving for their loss; the priests chanted over his body the first requiems that were ever heard on the waters of the Mississippi. To conceal his death, his body was wrapped in a mantle, and, in the stillness of midnight, was silently sunk in the middle of the stream. The wanderer had crossed a large part of the continent in search of gold, and found nothing so remarkable as his burial place." His followers, reduced more than onehalf in number, venturing E., were driven backward to the river, where they passed the next winter. In the spring of 1543 they embarked in 7 boats, and after nearly 3 months the survivors reached the Mexican town of Panuco, now in the department of Vera Cruz, where they dispersed. The wife of De Soto expired at Havana on the third day after learning his fate.-A history of his life and travels, by L. A. Wilmer, was published at Philadelphia in 1858.

DESPARD, EDWARD MARCUS, an Irish soldier, beheaded in London, March 21, 1803. He was a native of Queen's co., Ireland, a soldier in the West Indies, and superintendent of the English colony in Honduras. In consequence of complaints made against him he was recalled in 1790, but he could never procure an examination into his administration. This made him disaffected, and he was arrested for seditious conduct, but after his liberation he was only the more inflamed. He seduced some of the soldiers, and matured a plan to assassinate the king on his way to open parliament. The conspirators were arrested and tried by special commission at Southwark, Feb. 5, 1803. There being no doubt of their guilt, Despard and 9 of his associates suffered death.

DES PLAINES, or AUX PLAINES (Indian

appellation, She-shik-mah-o), a river of Illinois, rising in the S. E. part of Wisconsin, flowing S. and S. W., and uniting with the Kankakee at Dresden, to form the Illinois. It is about 150 m. long, and derives its name from a species of maple called by the French plaine.

DESSAIX, JOSEPH MARIE, & French general, born in Thonon, Savoy, Sept. 24, 1764, died Oct. 26, 1834. He was a physician at Paris, and in 1791 returned to his native country to diffuse democratic principles and organize a corps of volunteers. He served at the siege of Toulon, and in Italy under Bonaparte; was elected in 1798 to the council of 500, where he opposed the coup d'état of the 18th Brumaire; made a brigadier-general by Bonaparte in 1803, and, in the campaign of 1809 against Austria, a general of division, receiving from the emperor the surname of L'intrépide, and the title of count of the empire. Being wounded during the expedition to Russia, he was put in command of the city of Berlin, and in 1813 was intrusted with the defence of France on the line of the Alps. In 1814 he was kindly treated by the Bourbons, notwithstanding which he joined the standard of Napoleon after his landing at Cannes, and was imprisoned for 6 months in 1816. After the revolution of 1830, he was elected commander of the national guards at Lyons.

DESSALINES, JEAN JACQUES, emperor of Hayti under the name of Jean Jacques I., born about 1760, killed Oct. 17, 1806. He was a native of Guinea, and when a boy he was sold to a French planter whose name he adopted. On the revolt of 1791, Dessalines joined the insurgent army, and by energy and shrewdness, though entirely uneducated, soon obtained a prominent position. He became adjutant-general of the negro commander Jean François, who united his forces with those of the Spaniards against the French; and when Toussaint L'Ouverture suddenly left his Spanish allies and went over to the French side, Dessalines adhered to his fortunes. Having been raised to the rank of lieutenantgeneral, he led a successful campaign against the mulatto chief Rigaud. The promptness and energy evinced in this movement recommended him to Toussaint, who thenceforward always sent him where the utmost severity was considered necessary. His name spread terror wherever he went. Thousands of mulattoes were slaughtered, drowned, or shot by his orders. At the same time he led a most dissolute life, and enriched himself by extensive robberies perpetrated in the guise of legal confiscations. When Napoleon sent his brother-in-law, Leclerc, to reconquer Hayti, Dessalines conducted a bloody guerrilla war against the French, to which his tory scarcely furnishes a parallel. One of his most remarkable feats was the obstinate defence of the town of St. Marc against Gen. Boudet. When unable to hold the town any longer, he burned it down, himself setting fire to his own palace, butchered all the white inhabitants of the place, and likewise all whom he fell in with on his retreat. Peace having been made

in 1802, by Christophe, Dessalines became a French general and governor of the southern portion of the island. Here he plunged once more into debauchery, but at the same time he intrigued against Toussaint, and, it is believed, secretly betrayed him. When Toussaint's nephew Belair rose against the tyranny of the French, Dessalines treacherously enticed him by promises of assistance, and had him murdered in cold blood with 300 of his followers. But his loyalty to the French was of short duration. Rochambeau, having succeeded Leclerc in the chief command of the French army of occupation, vied in bloodthirstiness with the savage negroes. Among others, he tortured to death the negro general Maurepas and his whole family. Dessalines resolved upon a terrible retribution. He erected 500 gibbets, and hung half a regiment of French whom he had captured by a bold countermarch. A brief war of extermination followed, and in Dec. 1803, aided by an English squadron, he definitively expelled the French from Hayti. In Jan. 1804, the army elected him governor-general of the new republic. For a few months he ruled in a spirit of moderation, and took some wise and just measures toward a healthy reorganization of the commonwealth. But soon his brutal nature prevailed over his judgment, and he returned to his favorite occupation of exterminating the whites. In April, 1804, he made an unsuccessful attempt to conquer the Spanish portion of the island, and after his return he became more frantic than ever. In imitation of Napoleon, he assumed the imperial crown (Dec. 8, 1804), and proclaimed a new constitution, which concentrated all real power in his own hands. A number of organic laws followed, most of them judicious, but inefficient, since his recklessness and eccentricities, bordering on absolute lunacy, frustrated their execution. His extravagance deranged the finances, his dissoluteness corrupted the morals of all classes. Beside his legitimate wife, he kept 20 concubines, who drew their salary from the public treasury. His thirst for blood became more and more insatiable. Suspicious of traitors and assassins, he put to death every one whom he supposed to have any independence of character. At last some of his generals entered into a conspiracy against him, and, entrapping him into an ambuscade, cut him to pieces. Of all fiends in human form who have obtained a place in history, Dessalines was undoubtedly one of the most remarkable. In a slender and hideous frame he united the wildest passions of the ferocious savage with extraordinary shrewdness, an undeniable keenness of judgment, and a clear statesmanlike knowledge of the men and things he had to deal with. However abominable his character may appear, it is nevertheless true that he understood the means of accomplishing the independence of Hayti better than even Toussaint himself. But he left Hayti a ruined and desolate, though an independent state. His widow, to whose influence are ascribed the few acts of forbearance

he exercised toward the whites, died in Gonaives, Aug. 8, 1858, at a very advanced age. DESSAU, or DESSAW, the capital of the German duchy of Anhalt-Dessau, on the river Mulde, 2 m. from its junction with the Elbe, and on the Berlin and Leipsic railway, 67 m. S. W. from Berlin; pop. 12,000. The ducal residence is large, and has a fine park and a picture gallery. The theatre, the residence of the hereditary prince, the council house, the castle church, the government building, the gymnasium, St. Mary's church with some pictures by Lucas Cranach the younger, and the fine cemetery, are the most attractive features of the town. There are many scientific, artistic, religious, and industrial institutions and societies, a commercial school, a large ducal library, an orthopaedic institution, and a bank with a capital of about $2,000,000. The manufactures embrace woollen, linen, and cotton fabrics, musical instruments, hats, leather, and to bacco. An important wool market is held here, and a flourishing trade in grain and other produce is carried on. Moses Mendelssohn, the philosopher, was born here in 1729. Dessau was noted as early as 1213, and in 1313 had a school independent of the church. In the German revolution of 1848 it was one of the most democratic cities of Germany. Its environs are adorned with beautiful gardens, which have been reclaimed from sandy wastes.

DESSOLLES, JEAN JOSEPH PAUL AUGUSTIN, marquis, a French general and statesman, born at Auch, Oct. 3, 1767, died Nov. 4, 1828. Having distinguished himself in Italy under the command of Bonaparte, he was appointed brigadier-general, May 31, 1797. A successful expedition in Valtelina was rewarded, April 13, 1799, with the rank of general of division. After the defeat of the French at Novi, where the commander-in-chief, Joubert, was killed, Dessolles joined the army on the Rhine, then under the command of Moreau, and participated in the two campaigns of 1800. He became attached to his new commander, and from this period a coolness seems to have existed between him and Bonaparte. He was, however, appointed a member of the council of state, and placed for a while in command of the French army in Hanover, but was soon superseded by Bernadotte. In 1808 he commanded a division in Spain. On the fall of Napoleon in 1814, the provisional government appointed him commanderin-chief of the Parisian national guards and the regular troops in the 1st military district. He was present at the meetings of the allied sovereigns at Talleyrand's, to decide upon the government to be given to France. He strenuously opposed the establishment of a regency under Marie Louise, and on the arrival of Count d'Artois he received the title of minister of state, and was appointed major-general of all the national guards of France. When the news of Napoleon's landing at Cannes reached Paris, Dessolles issued energetic orders to interrupt the progress of the usurper, and he retained his command until after the departure of the king

on the morning of March 20, 1815. He then retired to his estate near Paris, where he lived unmolested during the Hundred Days. On the second restoration, he resumed the command of the national guard, but soon gave it up, being unwilling to support the reactionary policy then prevailing. In the chamber of peers he advocated the freedom of the press. On Dec. 28, 1818, he was appointed to the premiership and ministry of foreign affairs, receiving about the same time the title of marquis; but the king having determined that the electoral law of 1817 should be altered, Dessolles resigned his office, but continued to serve as a peer till his death.

DESTERRO, NOSSA SENHORA DO DESTERRO, or SANTA CATHARINA, a city of Brazil, capital of the province of Santa Catharina, on the W. coast of the island of that name; pop. with the adjoining district, 6,000. It has a small but excellent and well fortified harbor, and is the centre of an active commerce, the coffee exported hence bearing a high reputation. Artificial flowers made of fish scales, feathers, beetles' wings, &c., are also important articles of trade. The city has little or no architectural beauty, but is a favorite resort for invalids on account of its salubrious climate.

DESTOUCHES, PHILIPPE HÉRICAULT, & French dramatist, born in Tours in 1680, died July 4, 1754. After leading a somewhat adventurous life, he was hospitably entertained at Lausanne by M. de Puysieux, the French envoy to Switzerland. His first comedy, Le curieux impertinent, was performed there with great applause, and was scarcely less successful when it appeared at Paris. Some other plays of his, among them L'irrésolu, attracted the attention of the regent duke of Orleans, who appointed him to several missions, the most important being that to London, where in 1717 he accompanied the abbé, afterward cardinal Dubois. After his return in 1723, on the sudden death of the regent, he retired to his country seat near Melun, where he wrote a number of comedies, the best of which are Le philosophe marié and Le glorieux, performed with great success in 1727 and 1732. His collected works were published in 1750, in 4 vols. 4to.

DESTUTT DE TRACY, ANTOINE LOUIS CLAUDE, a French philosopher, born at Paray-leFresil, near Moulins, in the province of Bourbonnais, July 20, 1754, died near Paris, March 9, 1836. The descendant of a noble Scottish family, he entered the army, and was a colonel when the revolution broke out. As a deputy to the constituent assembly, he advocated liberal reforms, while adhering to the moderate party. In 1791 he retired to his country seat at Auteuil, and devoted his time to philosophical studies. During the reign of terror he was imprisoned, but liberated after the 9th Thermidor. The consular government appointed him a senator, and he was subsequently created a count of the empire. He published his Éléments d'idéologie in 1801, his Grammaire in 1803, and his Logique in 1805,

and was elected to the French academy in 1808. He took an active part in the fall of the empire; presented, April 2, 1814, in the senate, the motion of forfeiture against Napoleon; and entered the royalist chamber of peers, where he always voted with the majority. His Traité de la volonté et de ses effets appeared in 1815. He also wrote an Essai sur le génie et les ouvrages de Montesquieu, followed by a Commentaire sur Esprit des lois. A disciple of Locke, Condillac, and Hobbes, he belongs to the sensational or materialist school of philosophy. His theory of language is considered a masterpiece of analysis. DETMOLD, the capital of the little sovereign principality of Lippe-Detmold, in Germany, on the river Werra and on the E. slope of the Teutoburg mountains; pop. 4,716. In the vicinity was fought the celebrated battle in which Arminius destroyed the army of Varus, A. D. 9, and also a battle between Charlemagne and the Saxons, in 783.

DETROIT, the chief city of Michigan, and capital of Wayne co., situated on the N. W. side of the Detroit river or strait, extending along the river nearly 4 m., of which over 2 m. presents a city-like appearance. The centre of the city is about 7 m. from Lake St. Clair and 18 m. from Lake Erie, 80 m. E. S. E. of Lansing, 302 m. W. of Buffalo, and 526 m. from Washington; lat. 42° 20′ N., long. 82° 58′ W. The river runs from Lake St. Clair to a point just below the city, in a direction about 30° S. of W., and from thence it runs nearly S. to Lake Erie, a distance of 15 m. The original bed of the river, before it was narrowed by docking out, was from 48 to 52 chains in width; but from the docks of the central portion of the city to the opposite docks of Windsor, in Canada, it is only about half a mile. The depth, in June, 1841, varied from 12 to 48 feet, averaging about 32 feet. The descent from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie is about 6 feet, or 3 inches to the mile. The velocity of the current in the channel_opposite the city is about 2 m. per hour. It rises and falls with the surfaces of the great lakes of which it is a connecting link, the average annual variation being only about 2 feet, and the extreme variation, from Feb. 1819, when it was the lowest, to July, 1838, when it was the highest ever known, was only about 6 feet. The waters of the river and lakes rise during a succession of wet seasons, and fall during a succession of dry ones. The Detroit river is so deep, and its current so strong and uniform, that it keeps itself clear, and its navigation is not affected (as the Ohio, Mississippi, and most other rivers are) by floods, droughts, sand bars, trees, sawyers, rocks, or dams of ice. Where the principal part of the city is situated, the ground rises gradually from the river to the height of from 20 to 30 feet, at a distance of 15 to 30 rods from the river bank; it then falls off a little, and again rises gradually to the height of 40 to 50 feet above the river, which renders the drainage very good. The whole country for more than 20 m. back of the

city is excessively level, rising gently and with great uniformity at the rate of about 5 feet in the mile. The Detroit river was visited by the French as early as 1610, but the first permanent settlement where the city of Detroit now stands was made in 1701 by a party under Antoine de la Motte Cadillac. It fell into the hands of the British in 1760, and was ceded with the country to the United States by the treaty of peace of 1783. Nearly the whole town was burned in 1805, after which its plot was changed under an act of congress in 1806. A portion of the city is regularly laid out, the streets running parallel with the river, and crossing each other at right angles thereto, though there are numerous irregularities. The streets and avenues vary in width from 50 to 200 feet, the most of them being either 60 or 66 feet, but some are 80, some 100, some 120, and a few avenues 200 feet in width. The inhabitants are supplied with water taken from the river opposite the upper part of the city, and raised by means of a hydraulic establishment and steam forcing pumps into a large reservoir about half a mile back from the river, sufficiently elevated to carry it in iron pipes to all parts of the city. Buildings are in course of erection (1859) for a court house, custom house, and post office. The Michigan insurance company bank is a fine building of shell limestone, which presents on its surface many beautiful petrifactions. The firemen's hall, odd fellows' hall, and some of the public school houses are also fine buildings. There are about 30 churches, of which several are large and splendid; many spacious and beautiful stores; some large and elegant dwelling houses, and several extensive hotels. There are various charitable institutions, and in 1857 there were 35 public and 22 private schools. There are 3 daily newspapers, each of which publishes a semi-weekly and weekly edition; there are also 5 other weekly newspapers, a monthly medical journal, a monthly journal devoted to education, and 2 semimonthly "bank-note detectors." The following table shows the increase of the population:

In 1858 there were about 12,000 to 15,000 Irish, an equal number of Germans, and about 4,000 French.-The U. S. government made 5 great leading roads (post roads) in Michigan while it was a territory, all diverging from Detroit. The Michigan central railroad was finished to Ypsilanti, 30 m. from Detroit, in 1837; to Ann Arbor, 38 m., in 1839; to Kalamazoo, 145 m., in 1845; and to Chicago, 282 m., in 1851. The railroad from Detroit to Toledo (60 m.) was completed in 1857, connecting at Monroe with the Michigan southern road. The Detroit and Milwaukee road, from Detroit to Lake Michigan, opposite Milwaukee, was opened for travel in 1858; and a road from Detroit to the foot of

Lake Huron, opposite Port Sarnia, the termination of the Grand Trunk railway in Canada, will be finished in the course of 1859.-Detroit is the great concentrating point of the produce, commerce, banking, and heavy business of the whole state. There are numerous large warehouses on the river, beside the great freight depot of the Central railroad, which is 800 feet long and 100 feet wide. The retail trade of the city is very large, and the wholesale business has become extensive also. Nearly all the merchants in the upper lake region, as well as in the interior of the state, make many of their purchases in Detroit, and a large proportion of them buy all their goods there. The largest branch of industry is the sawing of lumber. There are on the river within the city limits 9 large steam saw mills, which cut from 3,000,000 to 8,000,000 feet each per annum, making in the whole about 40,000,000 feet annually of pine lumber, the logs being floated down to the mills from Lake Huron and the creeks and streams which fall into the St. Clair river. Ship and boat building has also been a very large and important branch of business. The Michigan central railroad company have an extensive workshop for the manufacture of cars, and for repairing their locomotive engines. The Detroit locomotive works are connected with a large foundery, machine shop, and boiler factory, for the manufacture of locomotive and other engines, and the casting of mill irons and machinery of various kinds. There are many other establishments, large and small, for all kinds of machine work, and brass and iron casting, beside shops for working in wood, making sash, blinds, doors, casings, &c.; 2 steam pail factories, one steam flouring mill, 2 large tanneries, and several breweries. Two miles below the city works have been erected and in operation several years for smelting native copper and copper ore from the shores of Lake Superior; 10 m. below, a blast furnace and rolling mill have been in operation several years. The furnace is employed in smelting ironstone from the upper peninsula. From 10 to 15 m. from the south shore of Lake Superior there are several hills of ironstone, very rich in the finest quality of iron, which will furnish an inexhaustible supply. The following table shows the industrial progress of the city from 1855 to 1857:

The assessed valuation for purposes of taxation was, in the latter part of 1858, $16,360,000, with a city debt of about $300,000.

DETROIT RIVER. See Detroit.

DEUCALION, king of Phthia, in Thessaly, and son of Prometheus and Clymene. According to ancient tradition, being forewarned by his father of an approaching deluge, he built a ship in which he and his wife Pyrrha were saved from an inundation which destroyed all the rest of mankind. When the waters subsided, their vessel rested on Mount Parnassus, and their first care was to consult the oracle of Themis as to how the world should be repeopled. Being advised to throw behind their backs the bones of their great mother, and interpreting mother to mean the earth, they cast stones behind them, from which sprang up men and women.

DEUTERONOMY (the second law; Gr. devrepos, second, voμos, law), the 5th book of the Pentateuch, containing the history of what passed in the wilderness during about 5 weeks (from the beginning of the 11th month to the 7th day of the 12th month), in the 40th year after the departure of the Israelites from Egypt. In it Moses recites to the people the events which had taken place in their history, and explains again the law which had been received at Sinai.

DEUX PONTS (Ger. Zweibrücken, two bridges), a canton and town in the circle of the Palatinate, Bavaria; pop. of the canton, about 150,000; of the town, 7,920. The canton was formerly an independent duchy, and in 1795 came by inheritance into the possession of the king of Bavaria. During the wars of the French revolution it passed into the hands of the French, to whom its possession was confirmed by the treaty of Luneville in 1801. In 1814 it was finally restored to Bavaria. Much of the canton is mountainous, but in the valleys and on the lower hills agriculture is carried on to a considerable extent. It has extensive forests, and iron, copper, and freestone are found. Much attention is also paid to the raising of