exhibits some peculiar features. The soil is chiefly a clay loam, and in this the drains are dug mostly from 4 to 5 feet deep, at distances apart of 40 feet, and directed down the line of steepest descent. The depths of the excavations are regulated by grade stakes set at the intersections of the drains, and at various points on their lines, the levels of which are taken, as in railroad excavations, and from these points the whole plan is prepared. In this no fall is admitted less than 1 in 200, and no diminishing slope toward the outlet if this can be avoided. The small drains discharge into the tops of the main drains. Where a diminishing slope toward the discharge cannot be avoided, a "silt basin" or catch-pool, formed of brick or of a large tile set on end, is placed on the line of the drain to retain the sediment. A silt basin of about 3 cubic feet capacity receives the drain of every 20 acres. It is built up to the surface, and furnished with an iron cover, secured by lock. This affords an opportunity of examining at any time the condition of the drainage, and of removing the sediment which is deposited. By reference to the plans of the work kept in the office, changes and additions may at any time be introduced in accordance with the general system. The expense of underground drainage seriously checks the extension of the practice. The 2-inch sole tile, or 24-inch horse-shoe tile, costs $12 per 1,000 feet length, and the prices rapidly increase up to $80 for 1,000 feet of 6inch sole tile, and $60 for the same length of 6-inch horse-shoe tile. The least expense per acre in nearly all arable soils for proper drains properly constructed may be estimated at from $35 to $50.-In Europe the largest draining operations have been those designed for reclaiming immense tracts of submerged or boggy lands, some of which were altogether below the level of natural drainage. As early as 1436 attention was directed to the possibility of reclaiming the fens bordering the river Ouse and its tributary brooks. These covered an area of some 400,000 acres of land, which in ancient times appears to have been in a condition for cultivation. The tract is partly in Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, extending into the adjoining counties, by the high ridges of which it is bounded. It receives the waters of 9 counties, and presents but very limited natural channels for conveying these into the sea on the N. E. The attempts to embank and deepen these in the 15th century were unsuccessful, and the undertaking was abandoned till 1634, when it was renewed by the earl of Bedford. In 3 years he expended £100,000 in embankments for keeping out the waters of the rivers, and removing those within by pumping machinery and discharging them over the dikes. This attempt also failed; but in 1649 his son recommenced operations, and finally succeeded after the expenditure of £300,000 more. From that time the lands reclaimed-now known as the Bedford Level-have been kept free from water by means of efficient machinery, worked by wind

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mills. The great difficulty appears to have been in securing main channels of sufficient capacity to discharge the waters in time of freshets; and through want of these the banks were often overflowed, and the former works washed away. Among the numerous drainage channels cut through these lands are 2 nearly parallel, of more than 20 m. in length, and both navigable, serving to cut off a long circuitous route of the river Ouse. By other direct channels made during the present century above the outlet of the same river, and also of the neighboring river Nene, many thousand acres more of land have been reclaimed. The steam engine has been advantageously substituted in many instances for the windmills; and it has been found practicable to estimate closely the power and expense required to keep an area of given extent thoroughly drained, the drainage from neighboring high lands being cut off by catch drains, and the height to which the water must be raised being known. The annual fall of rain averaging 26 inches, there would be, with a very moderate allowance for evaporation, 2 inches per month of water to be raised, or 14 cubic feet of water as a maximum on every square yard of surface. The amount upon an acre, or 7,260 cubic feet, may be raised to the height of 10 feet and discharged in about 2 hours and 10 minutes by the power of one horse. A steam engine of 10 horse power could then each month raise to the same height and discharge the water from 1,000 acres in 232 hours. Similar calculations may be made for the drainage of submerged lands in the United States, proper allowance being made for the difference in the annual fall of rain in the district from that which occurs in England. The drainage of the Haarlem lake in Holland, undertaken in 1839, was a gigantic operation of this class. From an area of 70 sq. m. of average depth of water of 124 feet, situated below the level of any sluices that could be constructed, it was required to raise the water an average height of 16 feet, and to an estimated possible amount of 35,000,000 tons in a single month. An enormous steam engine was constructed in London for working 11 pumps of 63 inches diameter each, and 10 feet stroke, the maximum capacity of all which was to raise 112 tons of water 10 feet at each stroke. These were set around the circular tower which contained the engine, and from the upper portion of which the balance beams radiated one for each pump. They raised in actual work 66 tons per stroke, discharging the water in a large canal 38 miles in length, and from 115 to 130 feet in width, which had previously been constructed around the area. Two other similar engines were applied to the same work, and the pumping was continued from May, 1848, to July 1, 1852. Then the area was thoroughly drained, and the lands were ready to be divided out for sale. The entire expenses from the commencement of operations in 1839 to the close of 1855 were estimated at £748,445, which would be more than

paid by the proceeds of the sale of the lands, the greater part of which had then been disposed of. The swamp lands and salt water marshes of the United States present vast and almost untouched fields for this system of operations. The accumulations of vegetable matters they contain give fertility to the soil, when the stagnating waters are removed; and the success that has attended small operations undertaken to bring them into cultivation, gives encouragement to expect great results from operations undertaken upon a larger scale. The subject of drainage may be further studied in the number of Weale's "Rudimentary Series," by G. D. Dempsy, "On the Drainage of Districts and Lands." It is also treated in an article in the U. S. patent office "Agricultural Report" for 1856; and by H. Colman in his reports of European agriculture. The very complete treatise of James Donald has been recently republished in New York; and William McCammon, civil engineer of the "Albany tile works," has presented in an advertising pamphlet a summary of the principles and advantages of drainage, with exact descriptions of the tools and methods employed and estimates of cost.

DRAKE, DANIEL, an American physician, born in Plainfield, N. J., Oct. 20, 1785, died in Cincinnati, O., Nov. 5, 1852. His father, a farmer in indigent circumstances, emigrated from New Jersey to Mason co., Ky., in 1788, where Daniel's childhood and youth, up to his 16th year, were passed on a small farm, amid the labors and privations of a frontier life. In Dec. 1800, with only such education as he had received in the course of some 6 months' desultory attendance at different times upon country schools, taught by wandering and ignorant schoolmasters, he was placed under the care of Dr. William Goforth, of Cincinnati, as a student of medicine, and in 1804 he commenced the practice of that profession. In 1816 he was graduated at the university of Pennsylvania, and in 1817 he was invited to a professorship in the Transylvania medical school at Lexington, Ky., in which he lectured one session. In Dec. 1818, on his personal application, the legislature of Ohio granted a charter for the medical college of Ohio, at Cincinnati, and also established there the commercial hospital. In the autumn of 1820 the former institution was opened for students, and for 2 sessions Dr. Drake was connected with it. In 1823 he again accepted a chair in the Transylvania school; and thenceforth, till the close of his career, was with brief intermissions connected with medical schools, holding professorships in that institution, and in the Jefferson medical college, Philadelphia, in the Cincinnati medical college, in the university of Louisville, and finally, again, in the medical college of Ohio, with which he was connected at the time of his death. As a professor of the theory and practice of medicine he held an eminent position, and as a practitioner his reputation was coextensive with the Mississippi valley. His writings were voluminous, but principally of a character

not calculated or intended for permanent use. His first book, the "Picture of Cincinnati" (1815), attained in its day a wide reputation, and drew from Thomas Jefferson a highly complimentary letter. His last work, upon which his fame as an author must principally rest, was "A Systematic Treatise, historical, etiological, and practical, on the Principal Diseases of the Interior Valley of North America, as they appear in the Caucasian, African, Indian, and Esquimaux Varieties of its Population," vol. i. of which was published in 1850, and vol. ii., posthumously edited, in 1854. A memoir of his life and services, by Edward D. Mansfield, LL.D., was published in Cincinnati in 1855.

DRAKE, SIR FRANCIS, an English navigator, born near Tavistock, in Devonshire, according to some authorities in 1539, and to others in 1545 or 1546, died Dec. 27, 1595. His father, a poor yeoman, and a recent convert to the Protestant faith, obtained from Queen Elizabeth an appointment as naval chaplain. He had 12 sons, of whom Francis, the eldest, received a scanty education through the liberality of his kinsman John, afterward Admiral Sir John Hawkins, and as soon as he was old enough to serve as a cabin boy, was apprenticed to the master of a bark. By his industry and frank and decided character he so gained the affections of his master, that the latter at his death bequeathed his vessel to his young apprentice. Being thus at the age of 18 years a good sailor and the proprietor of a ship, he quickly completed his education by learning how to command, and made a commercial voyage to the bay of Biscay and afterward to the coast of Guinea. Inspired by the adventures and successes which the new world then offered, he sold his vessel and invested the proceeds with all his savings in the expedition of Capt. Hawkins to Mexico in 1567, receiving the command of the Judith. The fleet was attacked by the Spaniards, and only 2 of the 6 ships escaped. Drake, barely succeeding in saving his own vessel, returned to England, with a loss of his entire property, and fruitlessly petitioned the court of Spain to restore what its subjects had taken from him. Then with an oath he declared that he would obtain by force the rights which he could not get otherwise, and began to sail with the avowed object of pillaging the Spaniards. In 1570 he obtained a commission from Queen Elizabeth. In 1572 he armed 2 ships at Plymouth, with which, joined by a third at Port Pheasant, on the coast of South America, he made a descent upon New Granada, captured and plundered various Spanish settlements, and made at the expense of his enemies a fortune vastly larger than they had taken from him. He returned to England in 1573, and was welcomed as a hero. While at Darien he had seen from a mountain top the waves of the Pacific, and had there conceived the purpose of an expedition into those waters, yet unexplored by English vessels, which he now prepared to execute. His eloquence was sufficent to gain the patronage

of Elizabeth, to whom he exposed the feeble ness of Spain in her colonies and promised treasures and conquests. He set sail from Plymouth, Dec. 13, 1577, with 5 vessels and 164 gentlemen and sailors, to follow the route which had been traced by Magellan. While in Port San Julian on the coast of Patagonia, he put to death Captain Doughtie, a good sailor and brave officer, and a gentleman of birth and education, who was charged with having conspired against the life of the admiral. Directing his course to the N., Drake pillaged the Spanish settlements of Peru and Chili, captured a royal galleon richly laden with plate, and took possession of California in the name of the queen of England, and then, burdened with gold, sated with vengeance, and fearing to meet the Spaniards in superior force if he returned upon his steps, he sought to find by the N. E. a passage back to the Atlantic. Being repelled by the severe cold, he changed his purpose, and determined to make the circuit of the globe. He traversed the Pacific ocean, the archipelago of the Spice islands, the Indian ocean, doubled the cape of Good Hope, and arrived at Plymouth, Sept 26, 1579. Elizabeth received him with favor, and 4 months afterward knighted him, and partook of a banquet on board of his ship. The rupture which followed between Elizabeth and Philip II. gave Drake a new opportunity to gratify his animosity against Spain, and within one year he captured and plundered Carthagena and several other towns, burned the forts of San Antonio and Saint Augustine, and visited and brought away with him the remains of the colony which Raleigh had planted in Virginia. In 1587 he was placed in command of a fleet of about 30 sail designed to attack the Spanish ports. He destroyed 100 ships in the harbor of Cadiz, an exploit which he spoke of as singeing the king of Spain's beard, and soon after captured an immense carrack, from papers in which the English first learned the value of the East India traffic, and the mode of carrying it on. In 1588, as vice-admiral, he commanded one squadron of the fleet by which, with the assistance of the elements, the " invincible armada " was annihilated. In 1589 he ravaged the coasts of the Spanish peninsula, leaving fearful traces of his passage, and in 1592 and 1593 was a member of parliament for Plymouth. In 1594, a report having reached England that Spain was preparing against that country a fleet more numerous and powerful than the armada, he again entered the service against his old enemy. Convinced that the West Indies was the point where Spain could be best attacked, he sailed for America in 1595 with 26 vessels, in company with Admiral Hawkins. A divided command produced its usual bad results, and their first attempts were unharmonious and fruitless. At Porto Rico Admiral Hawkins died, either of a wound or of chagrin, and Drake then in the region where his first anger against Spain had been kindled gained new triumphs. He burned Santa Marta, Rancheria, Nombre de Dios, and Rio Hacha; but a

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fatal malady broke out among his sailors, and as he heard of the defeat of a division of his forces which he had sent to operate by land, he himself fell sick, and died from the combined effects of fever and of mental agitation on account of the reverses of the expedition. His body received a sailor's funeral in sight of Puerto Bello, and was buried in the sea. Admiral Drake was one of the founders of the naval greatness of England; and though in his spirit and conduct there was something of the buccaneer, he was yet one of the most daring and efficient of naval commanders.

DRAKE, JOSEPH RODMAN, an American poet, born in New York, Aug. 7, 1795, died Sept. 21, 1820. He lost his father in early life, and with 3 sisters struggled against adversity. He studied medicine, and his marriage in 1816, shortly after taking his degree, placed him in affluence. He travelled in Europe, and after his return in 1819 contributed under the signature of "Croaker" many pleasant and effective verses to the columns of the "New York Evening Post." His friend Fitz-Greene Halleck joined him in this series, signing his own pieces at first "Croaker jr.," but soon they both adopted the signature of "Croaker and co." The novelist Cooper was also one of the intimate associates of Drake, and a conversation between them as to the poetical uses of American rivers, in the absence of historical associatious such as belong to the streams of the old world, was the occasion of Drake's longest and most imaginative poem, the "Culprit Fay." It was his aim to conjure up in this fanciful production all the associations of natural life and beauty which gather around a sylvan scene, and to show how the earth, the air, the sea, the field, the wave, the moonlight, are in themselves vital with poetical images and meaning. Though Drake had written verses from his boyhood, yet the poems which gave him his wide reputation as a writer of genius and taste were all the productions of a single season. His health failing, he passed the winter of 1819 in New Orleans, hoping to be benefited by the milder climate. But the progress of the consumption which had smitten him could not be arrested, and he lived but a short time after his return to New York in the spring. His death called forth a beautiful poetical tribute from his friend Halleck.

DRAKE, NATHAN, an English physician and miscellaneous writer, born in York in 1766, died in Hadleigh, June 7, 1836. He was educated at the university of Edinburgh, and practised his profession in Hadleigh from 1792 till his death, during which time he was a frequent contributor to literary and medical periodicals. His works are numerous; they include "Shakespeare and his Times" (2 vols. 4to., London, 1817), and various criticisms and illustrations of the writings of the age of Queen Anne.

DRAKE, SAMUEL GARDNER, an American author, born at Pittsfield, N. H., Oct. 11, 1798. He was educated at the common schools of the neighborhood, and between the ages of 20 and

27 was a district school teacher. Subsequently he removed to Boston, and in 1828 established an antiquarian book store, one of the first of its class in the United States. In 1825 his literary and antiquarian labors commenced with the republication with notes of Church's "Entertaining History of King Philip's War," of which several editions have since appeared. In 1833 he reprinted 5 old tracts, which, with the preceding work, comprise, in his opinion, all that can be recovered in relation to King Philip's war. In 1832 appeared his "Indian Biography," and in 1833 the "Book of the Indians, or History and Biography of the Indians of North America," a work of high authority for facts, and of which the 11th edition, much enlarged, appeared in 1851. His remaining publications on Indian history are "Old Indian Chronicles" (Boston, 1836)," Indian Captivities" (Boston 1839), and "Tragedies of the Wilderness" (Boston, 1841). Since 1847 he has edited the "New England Historical and Genealogical Register," which, under the direction of a historical and genealogical society in Boston of which he is president, has contained many valuable contributions to local and family history. His latest work is an elaborate history of Boston in 1 vol. royal 8vo. DRAKENBERG, CHRISTIAN JACOBSEN, a Norwegian, remarkable for his long life, born in Blomsholm, Nov. 18, 1626, died in Aarhuus, Oct. 9, 1772, at the age of 145 years and more than 10 months. The son of a sea captain, he himself led a seafaring life till 1717, when he abandoned it on account of the dimness of his eyesight, though his strength and vigor were undiminished. In 1732 he was residing in Copenhagen, and his advanced age having been disputed by persons who judged from his looks that he was younger, he indignantly set off to procure his baptismal certificate, and having for that purpose performed a long journey through Sweden chiefly on foot, reappeared with his documentary proof at Copenhagen. He was married in 1737, and in 1759 still continued to exercise much in walking, and retained extraordinary strength. He died after a gentle sickness of 13 days. He was of medium stature, passionate, but rather temperate, with a good appearance and address.

DRAMA (Gr. Spaua, from Spaw, to make), a story represented by action. The principle of imitation is inherent in human nature; painting, sculpture, and the drama must be coeval with society, and have been practised in some form by almost every nation. Among the South sea islanders a rude kind of drama was discovered. In China the drama dates its origin to remote ages. The war dance of the Indian and the African, intermingled with pantomimic descriptions of the preparations for battle, the stealthy advance upon the foe, the combat, and the death of the enemy, greeted with applause from the excited spectators, is essentially a dramatic exhibition, although wordless. But that form of the drama accepted and followed in Europe, divided chiefly into tragedy and comedy, was the crea

tion of the Greeks about 700 B. C. The religious festivals of Bacchus were believed to have been introduced into Greece by Melampus. In the Bacchic ritual an ode in honor of the god was recited; and to produce the best ode, the one which should be selected by the priests to be inserted into their ceremony, became a favorite contest among the poets of the time. A goat was either the principal sacrifice at the altar, or the prize awarded to the successful competitor; thus from the two words rpayos and won, the ode for the goat, came the Greek word rpaywdia, tragedy. In like manner, at the rustic festivals or harvest homes of the Greeks, semi-religious ceremonies, composed of odes and dances in honor of Bacchus, were enacted. These odes, being of a more genial and comic character, consistent with the occasion of an agricultural triumph, were called kopodia, comedy, from Kwμn, village, and won, song, the song of the village. Some writers are of opinion that the word comedy originally signified drama, and had not the distinctive sense in which we apply it, but included tragedies and theatrical representations of every kind.-The earliest known form of drama is the dithyrambus, a hymn in honor of Bacchus, sung by a chorus of voices, accompanied by music, expressive gesture, and dances. In 562 B. C., Susarion, a native of Megara, appeared at Athens, where he, as a single speaker, recited an ode. In 536 B. C., Thespis, a native of Icaria, recited an ode with responses made to him by a dithyrambic chorus; in this we faintly perceive the first germ of dialogue. Such were the rude elements found by Eschylus in 499 B. C., and out of them he alone and unaided created and perfected the drama as we now behold it. Nothing essential has since been added to its structure; he seems to have forestalled future ages of invention, and to have left nothing undone. He removed the chorus into the background, and used them only as an auxiliary. He brought a second actor upon the scene, and introduced dialogue; thus the drama became an action instead of a narrative. He invented scenery, costume, and machinery, of a grandeur unknown to our stage. Banishing the lewd and Bacchanalian character from the dithyrambic hymn, he supplied its place with pure tragedy, simple and grand in its form, noble and dignified in its object. From his works were gathered those rules called the unities, referred to by Aristotle; indeed, he may be truly said to have found the drama chaos, and left it a world. These changes were wrought within the space of 30 years, and so rapidly were they accomplished, that they were at the time regarded as the work of inspiration. The expansion he gave to the drama caused the Athenians to build the great theatre of Bacchus, the Lenaion, the former theatre having broken down under the pressure of the people gathered into it to witness a representation in which Eschylus and Pratinas were rivals. Thirty years later, Sophocles introduced a third actor, and thus diffused the dialogue and

fertilized the action. As a dramatic poet he surpassed Eschylus by a noble grace and a sweet majesty, which were wanting to the Titanic father of the drama. Fifteen years afterward Euripides enabled Greece to behold as contemporaries the three greatest purely tragic poets the world has produced. In reviewing their works we must remember that Eschylus was the creator of that fanciful world which Sophocles and Euripides so wonderfully cultivated. The dramas of Eschylus are dark, gloomy, and terrible; thunder and lightning are their atmosphere, and demigods their dramatis persona; his human beings are gigantic in moral stature, and removed above our sympathies. Sophocles, more human but not less divine, drew human nature as it ought to be. Euripides, descending still further, depicted men and women as they were.-The origin of the drama is popularly but erroneously ascribed to Thespis. This improvisatore did no more than improve upon the dithyrambus; he first organized a regular chorus, and invented dances of peculiar energy and grace; but his performances were a kind of ballet farce. Of tragedy he had no idea.-The tragedy of the Greeks was a fable or a series of events begotten of each other in a natural sequence. It began with a simple position, so selected that the auditor required no explanation to understand the present condition of matters or persons; it was a simple beginning. The development of the characters was required to be simultaneous with the action, the one being involved in the other. The action should not stray from the one place beyond such a limit as the time employed in the performance might naturally permit; nor should a lapse of time take place during the piece beyond the limit of one day. These unities of action, place, and time, however, so strenuously insisted upon by the French dramatists, were not strictly observed by the Greeks, nor were they considered essential, for Eschylus himself did not always observe them. Aristotle refers indistinctly to the unity of action; he says in reference to the unity of time: "Tragedy endeavors as much as possible to restrict itself to a single revolution of the sun." Of the unity of place he says nothing. The Greek tragedy was composed in trilogies, or 3 distinct plays, continuations of each other; such, for example, was the trilogy of Eschylus, formed of the Agamemnon, the Choëphoroi, and the "Furies." In the 1st, Agamemnon, returning from the siege of Troy, is murdered by his wife Clytemnestra; in the 2d, Orestes, Agamemnon's son, avenges his father by the slaughter of his mother; in the 3d, Orestes is pursued by, the Furies for this unnatural deed; the gods cannot agree upon his case until Minerva decides in his favor, and releases him from the torture of the avenging divinities. These 3 subjects conjoined formed a complete action, divided into a thesis, an antithesis, and a synthesis.-The early history of comedy is more obscure than that of tragedy. The earliest comic poet of whom we have remains is Aristophanes, who flourished a

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century after Eschylus. He was the last of what was called the old school. Comedy was divided into 3 forms, the old, the middle, and the new. In the first or old comedy, the characters were real living personages, who, under their real names, were freely satirized. This license was soon so abused that a law was passed forbidding the names of real personages to be used in comedy. This impediment produced the second or middle comedy, where the prohibition was evaded by giving fictitious names to real characters, and distinguishing the individual intended to be satirized by a mask or by some unmistakable inference. The middle comedy lasted about 50 years, when it was superseded by the 3d or new comedy; in this form the characters and the subject were fictitious, and as the old satirized and ridiculed statesmen, orators, and generals under their real names, so the new was aimed at abstract vice, and not at the individual offender. As tragedy descended from the contemplation of divine matters to depict and sympathize with human woes, it gradually lost its grandeur and depreciated. So, also, as comedy divested itself of its direct influence upon men and things, and from a statesman became a philosopher, it lost its pith and power.The list of dithyrambic poets preceding Eschylus from 700 to 525 B. C. includes Archilochus, Simonides, Lasus, Arion, Stesichorus, Solon, Susarion, Hipponax, Theognis, Thespis (birth of Eschylus). Afterward came Chorilus, Phrynichus, Epicharmus, Eschylus (invents the drama, and first exhibits 499 B. C.), Chionides, Sophocles (first victory 468 B. C.), Euripides (first exhibits 455 B. C.), Cratinus, Aristarchus, Ion, Crates, Achæus, Melanippides, Pherecrates, Phrynichus the comic poet, Lysippus, Eupolis, Aristophanes (427 B. C.), Agathon, Xenocles, Ameipsias, Sannyrion, Astydamas, Antiphanes, Theopompus, Eubulus, Alexis, Heraclides, Menander (first exhibits 321 B. C.), after whom the Greek drama died obscurely.— The Romans derived their drama from the Greeks. Terence, Plautus, and Seneca are the only Latin dramatists worthy of mention, and these are but translators and imitators of the Greck. The only element introduced by the Romans into the drama was farce, an invention of the Tuscans; buffoonery became more popular than wit. In truth the Roman people took little pleasure in pure intellectual amusement, and what the poet was to the Greek the gladiator was to the Roman. The coarser Roman preferred to watch the agonies of the body suffered in the circus, rather than sympathize with the woes of the soul simulated in the theatre. Thus ended the first or classic age of the drama. The second, or romantic age, gave its first indication of existence in the 12th century, when dramatic performances called entremets were introduced, as the word implies, between the services at royal banquets and carousals. These entremets soon became pageants, masks, and mummeries, and lasted as distinct dramatic entertainments up to the period of Shakespeare. Simultaneously