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consists of an old and a new town; the former is the seat of most of the trade, and has narrow and irregular streets. The new portion is built with more taste, and contains a number of good houses, chiefly occupied by summer visitors. The importance of the town is principally owing to its position as a channel of communication between England and the continent. It was formerly the chief port of embarkation, but has been partially superseded in that respect by Folkestone. The Southeastern and Dover railway, which enters the town through a tunnel cut in the cliffs, connects it with the cities of Great Britain, and it has continual steamboat intercourse with Calais and Boulogne. Large sums of money have been spent at various times upon its harbor, which consists of 3 basins, the outer one enclosed between 2 piers 150 feet apart, but the entrance is unfortunately obstructed by a movable shingle bar. It has been determined to construct here a harbor of refuge, and the sum of £2,500,000 has been appropriated for the erection of immense jetties to reach far out into the sea. The submarine telegraph between England and the continent extends across the channel from Dover to Calais; it was completed in Oct. 1851. In the vicinity of the town, abutting on the sea, stands the remarkable chalk cliff called Shakespeare's or Hay cliff, described in "King Lear;" it is 350 feet high and almost perpendicular. In May, 1847, a huge mass of this cliff, 254 feet in height, 15 feet thick, and estimated to contain 48,000 tons of chalk, scaled off and fell to the base. Another mass of 10,000 cubic yards fell soon after. There are a number of ship yards on the coast, and many of the inhabitants are employed in sail and rope making. The registered shipping of the port in 1856 was 55 vessels of 3,553 tons; the entrances were 473 sailing vessels, tonnage 43,487, and 21 steam vessels, tonnage 2,679; clearances, 121 sailing vessels, tonnage 5,112, and 5 steam vessels, tonnage 663. The coasting trade of Dover is flourishing, and its fisheries are extensive and profitable. It imports from France large quantities of eggs, fruit, and other rural produce. There are several large paper mills in the neighborhood. The principal buildings in the town are 2 hospitals, 2 parish churches, a number of chapels, a synagogue, the custom house, town hall and gaol, workhouse, assembly rooms, theatre, museum, baths, news rooms, bonding warehouses, and many good hotels. Dover is the seat of government and principal station of the cinque ports, and returns 2 members to the house of commons.

DOVER, STRAIT OF (Fr. Pas de Calais; anc. Fretum Gallicum), a strait connecting the English channel with the German ocean, and separating England from France. It extends from Dungeness and Cape Gris Nez N. E. to the S. Foreland and Calais; length, 22 m.; breadth at Dover, where it is narrowest, 21 m.

DOVER'S POWDERS, a preparation of ipecacuanha and opium, each a drachm, and of sulphate of potassa an ounce, rubbed together

into a very fine powder. Though called by the name of Dr. Dover, it differs from that originally recommended by him, which contained nitrate of potash and licorice in addition to the ingredients named. It is a medicine admirably adapted for promoting perspiration, and possesses at the same time the properties of an anodyne. It is given, after depletion, in cases requiring profuse diaphoresis, and is particularly used in dysentery, diarrhoea, and affections of the liver and of the bowels, sometimes combined with small quantities of calomel.

DOVREFIELD, DOVREFJELD, or DOFRINES (Norw. Daavrefjeld), a name sometimes given to the whole system of the Scandinavian Alps, which extend from Cape Lindesnaes on the Cattegat, along the dividing line between Sweden and Norway, to Cape Sviatoi, at the W. entrance to the White sea. The Dovrefield mountains, however, properly consist only of the central part of this range, extending in an E. N. E. direction from the valley of Lessöe, where the Langfield range or S. portion terminates, to the Syltfjället, where the chain of Kiölen or Kiōel begins. They are composed mostly of gneiss and micaceous schist. The principal peak is the Skagstols-tind, a snow-capped mountain having an altitude of 8,390 feet. It is the highest summit in the Scandinavian peninsula. There are 4 passes across this range, along which at intervals of 10 m. there are houses for the reception of travellers. The most frequented of these roads leads from Christiania to Trondhjem, and passes along the E. declivity of the peak of Sneehaettan. It reaches in some places an altitude of 4,200 feet. The Dovrefield mountains derive their name from Daarre, a small village of Norway, and field or fjeld, a mountain ridge.

DOW, LORENZO, an American preacher, born in Coventry, Conn., Oct. 16, 1777, died in Georgetown, D. C., Feb. 2, 1834. When about 14 years of age he began to be agitated by religious speculations, had frequent dreams and visions, and was so troubled by his meditations upon the "doctrine of unconditional reprobation and particular election," that on one occasion he was on the point of putting an end to his life. Finaily he adopted the doctrines of the Methodists, and in the spring of 1796, after many mental struggles and against the wishes of his family, became an itinerant preacher of that persuasion. His youth and eccentricity of character for a long time prevented his recognition by the conferences of the Methodist church, and he was at one period even prompted to renounce the name of Methodist. He finally received a regular license to preach, and, in spite of contumely and rebuffs, frequently from members of his own sect, and ceaseless hardships and dangers of all kinds, persevered for nearly 40 years, with an enthusiasm which never relaxed, and often with astonishing effect. In the course of his ministry he travelled over many parts of the United States and Canada, and in 1799 and again in 1805 visited England and Ireland,

where nis peculiar eloquence attracted much attention and on several occasions subjected him to persecution. His wife, Peggy Dow, to whom he was married in 1804, was a woman of character and qualities very similar to his own, and accompanied him fearlessly in all his peregrinations. Dow's eccentricity of manner and dress for a long time excited a prejudice against him, and in many parts of the country he was familiarly known as "crazy Dow." In person he was awkward and ungainly, his voice was harsh, and his delivery not such as would impress a cultivated mind. But to the class whom he most frequently addressed, his simple fervor, though coupled with illiterate phraseology, supplied the place of eloquence, and he seldom failed of having attentive and even enthusiastic hearers. Many anecdotes are related of his courageous bearing, when threatened with violence by lawless men. His journal, containing the history of his life to his 40th year, together with some of his miscellaneous writings, and a short autobiography of Peggy Dow, was published in New York in 1856.

DOWER (law Lat. doarium, or douarium; Fr. douaire), the estate which the wife has by operation of law in the property of her deceased husband. Strictly it applies only to what the law gives her independent of any act of the husband, and which, in fact, it is not in his power to bar. A marriage portion, therefore, whether given with the wife or secured to her use, and whether so given or secured by the father or other relative, or by the husband himself, is not dower; and yet the term by which such marriage portion was designated in the Roman law (dos) was used by Bracton and other English writers for the right of the widow in the lands of her deceased husband given to her by the common law, as well as the endowment in contemplation of marriage, which last was also called donatio ante nuptias. The English word dower expressed the former, and also the donation before marriage, which was in two modes, viz. ad ostium ecclesiæ, and ex assensu patris. Both of these were made at the porch of the church, after affiance and before marriage; in the one, the husband endowed the wife of lands of which he was himself seized; in the other, with consent of his father, he endowed her of lands belonging to his father; and it was usual to specify the particular lands intended. Endowment at the church door was the common mode of providing for the wife in the time of Bracton, and no other mode could be substituted, as by will or any other conveyance; the object of which was to prevent fraud: Non enim valent facta in lecto mortali, nec in camera, aut alibi ubi clandestina fuerunt conjugia. The feudal restriction against alienation of lands was, however, extended to dower, and the husband was not allowed to endow the wife ad ostium ecclesia of more than a third part of his lands. This gave rise to the common law rule which has ever since prevailed. In the absence of such dotation, or in case of the omission to

specify the particular ands, it was prescribed that the wife should be entitled to one-third of the lands of the husband for life if she survived him, which was called dos rationabilis. It was at first limited to the lands which the husband had at the time of the dotation, unless he specially charged his future acquisitions; and in case he had no lands, or not sufficient, he was permitted to endow his wife of personal property, which was held to be a bar against any claim to dower of lands thereafter acquired. But in Magna Charta it was provided that the wife should have for dower the third part of all the lands which the husband had held during his lifetime, unless she had been endowed with less ad ostium ecclesia. In the reign of Henry IV. it was denied that the wife could be endowed of her husband's goods and chattels; and Littleton, who wrote in the reign of Edward IV., asserted that she could be endowed ad ostium ecclesia of more than a third part of the lands, and that she had the election after the husband's death to accept it or to take her dower at common law. In consequence of this uncertainty, that mode of endowment fell into disuse, but was never abolished by law until recently by act 3 and 4 William IV., c. 105 (1833). Dower at common law 's different from the dotation of other countries, in being limited wholly to lands, and to such only as the husband holds in fee. By the civil law the donatio ante nuptias (or, as Justinian called it, propter nuptias) was all the provision made for the wife. It might consist of either lands or personal property; but though it went into the possession of the husband, it could not, if it consisted of lands, be alienated by him even with the consent of the wife, for which the reason given is the fragility of the female sex (ne sexus muliebris fragilitas in perniciem substantia earum concertatur). Upon the death of the husband, or dissolution of the marriage otherwise, the wife only took what had been given with her on the marriage, or of which a donation had been made during the marriage. Of the other property of the husband she could take nothing either as widow or heir.-In France, the two modes of providing for the wife are designated by the discriminative terms dot and douaire; the former of which is defined to be that which the wife brings in marriage (ce que la femme apporte en mariage); the latter is the right which the wife has, by custom or matrimonial contract, to a certain portion of the estate of the husband upon his death (la jouissance que la coutume où les conventions matrimoniales accordent d'une certaine portion des immeubles du mari à la femme qui lui survit). The origin of douaire was that in some provinces of France, called France coutumière, women were not endowed on marriage (n'avoient pas de dot de leur parens); and hence grew up the custom that the husband at his death should leave something for the support of the wife. What was so left was called either dot or douaire, the wife being said to be douée or dotée. But as it was intended for her support merely, it was provided that after

her death it should go to the children of the husband if he left any. Philip Augustus fixed the dower of the wife at one-half of the goods which the husband had at the marriage. Henry II. of England established in his French provinces a rule that dower should be one-third, and this difference continued to exist on the opposite sides of the Loire, until the customary law was swept away by the legislation which succeeded the revolution of 1789. By the present law of France married persons may, by stipulation made before marriage, become subject to the law of community, or to the law of dowry. If the former, it brings into common stock all the movables of which the parties are possessed at the time of marriage, and of immovables which shall be acquired during marriage. Dower (la dot) is what the wife brings to the husband in marriage, and it may be either by donation from another or by a settle ment of the wife upon herself (tout ce que la femme se constitue ou qui lui est donné en contrat de mariage est dotal), and it may extend to all the present or future property of the wife, but cannot be constituted or augmented during marriage. The parties may stipulate for a community of future acquisitions only. The husband has the management of dotal property, but is accountable as a usufructuary, and in case it be put in peril, the wife may obtain a separation of goods.-The English law of dower has recently undergone very great changes. By stat. 3 and 4 William IV., c. 105, the widow is not entitled to dower of lands which the husband has disposed of in his lifetime, or by will. All charges by will, and all debts and encumbrances to which the estate of the husband is subject, take priority of dower; and dower is made subject to any restrictions which the husband may impose by will. But on the other hand, the wife is entitled to equitable dower of any beneficial interest of the husband which shall amount to an estate of inheritance in possession, except joint tenancy; and no gift of personal property by the husband can invalidate the right to dower, unless expressly so declared by will. This modification of the law of dower has probably grown out of the general custom prevailing in England among land proprietors of making marriage settlements. In cases where this is omitted, the wife still has some provision under the statute of distribution (29 Charles II.), which gives her one-third of the personal estate of the husband when he dies intestate, not for life merely, but absolutely. In the United States, the general rule prevails of allowing to the widow an estate for life in one-third of all the lands of which the husband was seized in fee. The rule, however, varies in different states in two particulars. In the state of New York, and most other states, dower is a charge upon all the lands of which the husband was seized at any time during the marriage, except such as she has released by joining in the conveyance thereof by the husband. In some of the states, as Vermont, Connecticut,

Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia, it is limited to the lands of which the husband was seized at the time of his death; but the husband is not allowed to bar dower by will, nor by a voluntary conveyance, in which any benefit is reserved to himself. Again, in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Missouri, dower does not attach to lands sold under judicial process, nor to lands sold under a mortgage executed by the husband alone. The rule is general, perhaps universal, that the wife takes one-third of the personal estate upon the death of the husband, in accordance with the English statute of distribution.

DOWLER, BENNET, an American_physician and physiologist, born in Ohio co., Va., April 16, 1797. He was educated at the university of Maryland, where in 1827 he received the degree of doctor of medicine. During the last 23 years he has practised his profession in New Orleans, and since March, 1854, has been the editor of the "New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal." From an early period in his career experiments upon the human body, immediately or very soon after death, occupied a large share of his attention, and the results of his investigations, comprising some important discoveries with regard to contractility, calorification, capillary circulation, &c., were given to the world in a series of essays in 1843-4. Since that time these and other original experiments have been extended, generalized, and analyzed by him. With one exception he has found in the course of his experiments no fact invalidating the fundamental laws which he announced in his first publications relative to post mortem contractility of the muscular system. He had prematurely assumed, early in his researches, in accordance with the prevailing theory, that the death rigidity, or rigor mortis, is antagonistic to, or incompatible with, the coexistence of muscular contraction; but he soon found instances which led him to maintain that the contractile function exists in all bodies immediately after death, although in some it is scarcely appreciable, while in others it is absent or feeble at first, but gradually increases. In all it is intermittent, and may be economized by proper management, or overtasked and exhausted, or even destroyed by a severe blow. He was consequently led to the conclusion that this force is inherent in the muscular tissue, and in every portion of it, being wholly independent of the brain, spinal cord, and nerves. During the last 18 years Dr. Dowler has shown by experiments on hundreds of human bodies that the capillary circulation is often active for some minutes, and even for hours, after the res piration and the action of the heart have ceased, and occasionally after the removal of this organ; and that in the same cadaver a high degree of calorification, together with active capillary and chylous circulations, may continue simultane ously for several hours. His researches on animal heat, in health, in disease, and after death, which have from time to time been published

in medical journals, have led to important discoveries, particularly with reference to post mortem calorification, which his experiments have shown will, after death from fever, cholera, or sun-stroke, &c., rise in some cases much higher than its antecedent maximum during the progress of the disease. From these experimental researches, as well as from a rational interpretation of the respiratory action of the lungs, either in their natural, diseased, obstructed, or disorganized conditions, Dr. Dowler has been led to reject the long received theory which ascribes animal heat to the lungs, as the sole heating apparatus of the animal economy. He maintains that the chemical history of respiration may be interpreted either as a refrigeratory or heat equalizing process, and that while the absorption of oxygen during respiration may generate heat, on the other hand the parting of carbonic acid gas and aqueous vaporization from the lungs, together with the incessant respiration of the air, almost always much cooler than the body, must refrigerate the animal economy; that for all that has been proved to the contrary, oxidation and deoxidation, repair and waste, composition and decomposition, inhalation and exhalation, are mutually compensating or equiponderant in the regulation of animal heat; and that, while it may be plausibly assumed that nearly the whole series of organs and organic functions, especially those of nutrition, contribute directly or indirectly to the origin and distribution of animal heat during life, post mortem calorification might to some extent be accounted for by assuming that respiration is not a heating, but a refrigeratory process, which, ceasing with apparent death, ceases to liberate the free caloric of the economy; whence the calorifacient function, not being in many instances extinguished with the respiration, persists, and for a long time accumulates faster than it can be radiated into the surrounding media. He has not, however, been able to trace a necessary connection, antecedence, or parallelism between post mortem calorification and muscular contractility, the development, degree, and duration of which may or may not coincide. In March, 1845, Dr. Dowler commenced a series of experiments in comparative physiology on the great saurian or alligator of Louisiana, which he regarded as much better for the purpose than any of the cold-blooded animals usually selected for vivisection. From these experiments, which embrace a period of 10 years, he has ascertained that after decapitation the head, and more especially the trunk, afford unequivocal evidences of possessing the faculties of sensation and volition for hours after a complete division of the animal. The headless trunk, deprived of all the senses but that of touch, perceived, felt, willed, and acted with unerring intelligence in re moving or avoiding an irritant, such as an ignited match or bit of paper; when even a simple touch or a positive irritant was applied laterally, the body curved or receded in a contrary direcVOL. VI.-38

tion, while the most convenient limb was also directed to the exact place where the foreign body impinged, in order to remove it, if possible. After as well as before decapitation, after complete evisceration, and after the subdivision of the spine and its cord in 2 or 3 places, each section mutually and simultaneously perceived or felt in common the presence or contact of a pain-producing agent. In some instances Dr. Dowler observed that the separated head could see a body, like the finger, purposely directed close to the eye, as was shown by the violent opening of the mouth, as if to bite, and by the head jumping several feet from the operating table to the floor. The vivisection of the spinal cord satisfied him also that neither root of the spinal marrow is the exclusive seat of sensation or of motion, and that motion as well as sensory phenomena may be excited by irritation of either root; a result directly opposed to the celebrated theory of Sir Charles Bell on the functions of these roots. The vivisection of the inferior animals (hitherto the basis of experimental physiology), as well as the pathological, anatomical, and experimental phenomena observed in man, has therefore led Dr. Dowler to the following conclusions: that the functions and structures of the nervous system constitute a unity altogether inconsistent with the anatomical assumption of 4 distinct and separate sets of nerves, and a corresponding fourfold set of functions; that there is no anatomical or other proof that one set of nerves transmits impressions to, and a separate set from, a sensorial spot somewhere in the brain, nor that the nerves themselves are simple conductors and wholly insensible; that the 2 separate sets of nerves usually assigned to what is called the excito-motory action of the spinal cord are wholly hypothetical; that instead of 4 travelling impressions there is but one, the primary or sensiferous impression, which is simultaneously cognized upon the periphery as well as in the centre, and not solely by an unknown spot in the brain through the intermedium of a secondarily transmitted impression, being intuitively felt where it really is; and that sensuous cognition or sensation is immediate, intuitive, and not representative, nor the result of transmitted secondary impressions, but a directly felt relation, ab initio, between an object and a sentient subject, and not one between a mere secondary representation, idea, or transmitted impression of an object.-The assiduous devotion of Dr. Dowler to researches connected with medical and physiological science has won for him a wide reputation as an experimenter, an anatomist, and a pathologist.

DOWLETABAD, DOWLATABAD, DOWLUTABAD, DOULETABAD, or DEOGHIR (the fortunate city), a town and fortress of Hyderabad, in the Nizam's territory, Hindostan, about 10 m. N. W. from Aurungabad. The fortress is situ ated on a hill about 500 feet in height, about 150 feet of which rises nearly perpendicularly, like a wall. The entrance is by a passage cut

through the rock. Notwithstanding its natural strength, the fortress has been several times taken, and has fallen under the dominion of various masters. Near the town are the remarkable cave temples of Ellora.

DOWN, a maritime co. in the N. E. part of Ireland, province of Ulster; greatest length, N. E. to S. W., 51 m.; greatest breadth, 38 m.; area, 956 sq. m.; pop. in 1851, 328,883. Near the middle of the county is a group of hills, and in its S. W. part are the Mourne mountains, some of whose summits are among the highest peaks in Ireland; but with these exceptions the surface of the county is for the most part tolerably even. There are several rivers and numerous lakes, both abounding in fish, but insignificant in size. Lough Strangford in the E. part of the county, though almost surrounded by land, is yet only a large inlet of the sea, with which it communicates by a channel navigable for large vessels. The county contains many mineral springs, and is one of the best cultivated of all the counties of Ireland, producing large crops of grain, peas, beans, potatoes, turnips, &c. The total extent of land under crops in 1855 was 310,424 acres. The raising of cattle is carried on mostly for dairy purposes, large quantities of butter being annually made and exported; and hogs are reared in great numbers. There are extensive quarries of limestone, sandstone, and slate; and granite, coal, and chalk also occur. The most important manufacture is that of linen, though there are also cotton and woollen mills. The climate is healthy and somewhat cold, and the people generally are in a better condition than those of most Irish counties. The fishery occupies many of the inhabitants, though not to an extent commensurate with the facilities for it. Some interesting remains of antiquity are found, and there are also ruins of abbeys and castles of the middle ages. Four members are returned to the house of commons, two for the county, and one each for the towns of Downpatrick and Newry.

DOWNES, JOHN, a commodore in the U. S. navy, born in Canton, Norfolk co., Mass., in 1786, died in Charlestown, Mass., Aug. 11, 1855. He entered the navy as a midshipman in June, 1802, and his first service was in the frigate New York during the war with Tripoli. In May, 1803, he distinguished himself in a boat attack upon some Tripotan feluccas, which had been chased into the port of Old Tripoli. In March, 1807, Downes was promoted to a lieutenancy, and during the war of 1812 served as executive officer of the frigate Essex, Capt. Porter, during her celebrated cruise in the Pacific ocean. Among the numerous prizes of the Essex was the whale ship Georgiana, which Capt. Porter fitted as a cruiser, with 16 guns, named the Essex Junior, and placed under the command of Lieut. Downes with a crew of 41 men. Finally, after the capture of the Essex at Valparaiso by the British frigate Phoebe and sloop Cherub, the Essex Junior was converted into a cartel for the purpose of carrying Capt. Porter and his surviving

officers and men to the United States. In June, 1813, Lieut. Downes was promoted to the rank of master commandant, and in March, 1815, he commanded the brig Epervier of 18 guns in the squadron employed against Algiers in that year, under Commodore Stephen Decatur. On June 17, 1815, the Epervier assisted in the capture of the Algerine frigate Mashouda off Cape de Gatt. Two days afterward the Epervier and 3 of the smaller vessels of the squadron captured the Algerine brig of war Estido, 22 guns and 180 men, which had been chased into shoal water off Cape Palos. After the conclusion of the treaty of peace with Algiers, Commodore Decatur transferred Downes to his own ship, the Guerriere, while the Epervier, which was sent to the United States with the treaty, was never afterward heard from; it was supposed that she foundered in a heavy gale near the Western islands. In March, 1817, he was promoted to a captaincy, and from 1819 to 1821 commanded the Macedonian frigate of 50 guns in the Pacific. In 1828-'9 he commanded the frigate Java in the Mediterranean, and from 1832 to 1834 the squadron in the Pacific ocean. On his way to his station he anchored, Feb. 5, 1832, off Quallah Batoo, on the coast of Sumatra, where an outrage had been committed on an American vessel. His ship, the Potomac of 50 guns, was disguised as a merchantman. The town was supposed contain not less than 500 fighting men, and was defended by 5 forts, owned and commanded by different rajahs or chiefs. The commodors had obtained tolerably correct information of their positions, as well as of the general topography of the place, but nevertheless deemed it advisable to make an actual reconnoissance if possible, An attempt was made to land a party of officers for this purpose, in citizens' dress, but as the boat (rowed by officers disguised as seamen) approached the landing, such hostile demonstrations were made by the natives that she was recalled. Preparations for an attack were now made, and about 2 o'clock in the morning of Feb. 6, about 150 officers, seamen, and marines were landed under the command of Lieut. Irvine Shubrick, the 1st lieutenant of the ship. This force was organized in divisions, the marines under Lieuts. Edson and Terrett, the seamen in 4 divisions commanded by Lients. Pinkham, Hoff, Ingersoll, and Sailing-master Totten. To each division a particular duty was assigned, and although the surprise was not quite perfect, the result was entirely successful. Af ter 24 hours of severe fighting, the town was nearly reduced to ashes, many of the natives were killed, and 4 of the forts were captured and blown up. This being accomplished, the expedition reembarked in perfect order, and returned to the ship with a loss of 13 killed and wounded. A flag of truce was immediately sent off from the town, and peace sued for, which was granted. Several of the rajahs from the towns in the vicinity sent deputations, declaring their friendly disposition to the Americans, to which the commander gave corresponding as

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