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superiority of that music. In England, a society called the "Dilettanti Society" was originated in 1760, by gentlemen who had travelled in Italy, at first for social purposes; but it afterward acquired celebrity by devoting its funds to the encouragement of the study of classical art, by sending out travellers, and by publishing books on antiquarian subjects.

which took place in the apartments of the society in 1846, and which was renewed in the following year. Among many tokens in recognition of his labors received by Mr. Dilke, was his appointment by Prince Albert as a member of the royal commission, in which capacity until his resignation he rendered important service. For this it was desired to bestow upon him some special acknowledgment, but as he constantly refused proffers either of honor or emolument, the queen forwarded to his wife a bracelet of diamonds. In 1853 he was a British commissioner to the industrial exhibition in New York.

DILKE, CHARLES WENTWORTH, an English journalist, born Dec. 8, 1789. He was graduated at Cambridge, and became employed in the navy pay office, where he remained 20 years. During this time he had contributed largely to the "Westminster Review," the DILIGENCE, a kind of stage coach drawn by "Retrospective Review," and other periodicals from 3 to 6 horses, which was the principal public of note. In 1830 Mr. Dilke became editor of conveyance in France before the introduction of the "Athenæum," which, from having been railways, and which is still in use in many parts but very partially successful under its original of Europe. The French 4-wheeled diligence is proprietors, Mr. James Silk Buckingham and Mr. composed of 3 compartments. The front diviStirling, speedily rose to the rank it now holds sion (coupé) is the most expensive, and holds 3 in English periodical literature. He not only im- persons. The middle division (intérieur) acproved its quality, but diminished its cost to the commodates 6 persons at a lower rate. Behind public; it had formerly been sold for 18., but the inside is the rotonde, a much less comfortable Mr. Dilke reduced the price to 4d. In 1846, place, which affords the same number of seats having intrusted the editorship of the "Athe- at a still lower rate. There is also room for 4 næum" to Mr. Thomas Kibble Hervey, Mr. persons including the conductor on the roof over Dilke undertook the editorship of the "Daily the coupé (banquette or impériale), which is the News," a large newspaper which had recently cheapest place. With a full number of persons appeared under the auspices of Mr. Charles the diligence weighs about 5 tons, exclusive of Dickens. With the cooperation of Mr. Dilke, baggage. The Spanish and Italian diligences are and the application by him of the principle of superior to the French. The German diligences reduction in price, the success of the "Daily (Postwagen, Eilwagen) are attached to the post News" was very remarkable. In the second year office; so are those of Switzerland. In Russia of its existence more than 12,000 copies were diligences are built with a succession of coupés, printed. This prosperity speedily and perma- each capable of containing 2 or 3 passengers; nently declined, however, on the surrender of others have 2 or 3 coupés, and then a rotonde the editorship by Mr. Dilke in 1849-a decline holding 4 persons. The conductor's seat is in accelerated also by a mistaken resolution on the front, and beside him sits the yamtchik (post part of the new director to increase the price. boy); the number of horses is generally 4, harThe consequence was a reduction of the issue nessed abreast, but to these 2 leaders are freto 4,000, which it has not since exceeded. quently added, and on the off horse sits another -CHARLES WENTWORTH, Son of the preced- post boy. ing, born in London, Feb. 18, 1810. He was graduated and studied law at Cambridge, but did not during that time contribute, as he is reputed to have done, to the columns of the "Athenæum." He manifested early that bias for the conduct of industrial and artistic organization, the development of which in subsequent enterprises has proved a source of public benefit, and of honor to himself. In 1844 he submitted to the society of arts, of which he was a member, and is now the vice-president, a plan for the exhibition of English industrial products, which contained the germ of the idea more fully realized in the universal exhibition of 1851. A commission of inquiry was instituted to ascertain the measure of assent and cooperation that might be expected for the project from various quarters, but met with little encouragement. Mr. Dilke persisted in his endeavors, and, in conjunction with Mr. Henry Cole and Mr. Scott Russell, presented his original plan to Prince Albert, president of the society of arts; and after combating various obstacles, he had the gratification of seeing it realized in the exhibition

DILL, the common name of the anethum graveolens (Linn.), an annual plant of the natural order of the umbellifera, a native of Spain, but naturalized in the south of France and Germany, It has an upright smooth stem, much dissected leaves, yellow flowers, and small oblong seeds, with sharp, filiform dorsal ridges. It is culti vated for the carminative and stimulant properties of its seeds. They are imported in large quantities from the south of France into Eng land, where, beside their medicinal use, they are employed in the manufacture of British gin. In Germany they are used in pickling cucumbers and in the manufacture of sour crout.

DILLENIUS, JOHANN JAKOB, a German botanist, born in Darmstadt in 1687, died in Oxford, April 2, 1747. Following a not uncommon German custom of the time, each generation of his family added some letters to their name, his grandfather being called Dill, his father Dillen, and himself Dillenius. He studied at the university of Giessen, and was received a member of the society of "Inquirers into Nature," under the auspices of which he published a “Disser

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tation upon the Plants of America naturalized in Europe;" a "Treatise upon Coffee," with an account of the seeds which might displace it, giving the preference to burnt rice; and a volume of "Observations upon the Mode of Development of Ferns and Mosses," in which he confirmed the theory of different sexes in plants. He first obtained a reputation among naturalists by his "Catalogue of the Flora of Giessen," published in 1719. The great merit of Dillenius as a botanist consists in a constant attention to the discrimination of the genera by the parts of the flower and fruit, a principle of classification first proposed by Gesner and which became the foundation of the system of Linnæus. William Sherard, a scientific English traveller, succeeded in persuading Dillenius to leave Germany for England. He arrived in London in 1721, and had a rich garden at Eltham placed at his disposition by James Sherard, a brother of William. He edited an enlarged edition of Ray's "Synopsis of British Plants," which he enriched with engravings of his own. In 1728 William Sherard died, and founded by his will a chair of botany at Oxford, to which Dillenius was appointed, who in 1732 published his Hortus Elthamensis, containing not only descriptions of plants arranged in alphabetical order, but also 324 plates engraved by himself on pewter. This work was enthusiastically received by his contemporaries, among others by Linnæus, then commencing his labors. In 1741 he published his "History of Mosses," his greatest work, which places him in the first rank of the botanists of the last century. He was more than 20 years in collecting the materials of this work, which is a noble monument of acute discrimination and minute research. The plates, numbering 85, and the descriptions were all by his own hand. He published no subsequent work, but many of his drawings and collections are preserved in the Sherardian museum at Oxford. The isolation which the labors of Dillenius required affected his social qualities. He thought only of his own knowledge and opinions, and believed himself the prince of botanists. Linnæus visited him in 1736, and implicitly adopted some of his faulty views in opposition to his own better judgment; and the subsequent correspondence between these two naturalists shows a polite condescension on the part of the Swede to the pretensions of the Oxford professor. Linnæus dedicated to Dillenius a magnificent genus of plants of tropical India, which is the type of the family of the Dilleniacea.

DILUVIUM, DRIFT, BOWLDER FORMATION, the deposits of clay, sand, gravel, and bowlders spread over the surface of the polar regions and adjacent portions of the temperate zones. For a time these deposits were confounded with those called alluvial, and when it was seen that they could not have been produced by the action of existing currents, their origin was commonly referred to the Noachian deluge. As the extent, depth, and nature of the materials constituting the formation came to be better under

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stood, this opinion, too, was necessarily abandoned; for it was apparent that no transient deluge could have produced effects so vast as those exhibited in this formation. In the northern hemisphere the drift is found in Europe, Asia, and America, extending from the polar regions toward the equator, and disappearing on the continent of North America about lat. 38°. In Europe, all trace of it is lost in the countries bordering the Mediterranean. Its distribution southward on the two continents appears to accord with the deflections of the present lines of equal winter temperature. In South America it is recognized in Patagonia, and traced from Cape Horn to lat. 41° S. Throughout these regions the features of the formation are the same. The surface is irregularly covered with the deposits above named. Sometimes they are so arranged in strata as to indicate that a long time has been occupied in their deposition; while occasional marine shells, nearly all of recent species, testify to tranquil action in the localities where they are met with, and to an epoch of production closely approximating to the recent period. The superficial strata of sand and gravel are found at times 300 feet or more in thickness. They rest upon geological formations of all ages up to the beds of older pliocene, such as the mussel and clam beds found at Augusta and Gardiner in Maine, 60 feet beneath the sand and gravel, and filled with shells scarcely distinguishable from those in our harbors. The drift is met with upon the summits of high mountains; it is seen 3,000 feet above the level of the Baltic, and upon the highest points of the Grampian hills, 4,000 feet above the sea. Everywhere the formation is characterized by loose masses of rock scattered over the surface, more or less rounded in form, and differing from the solid ledges beneath them. As already described in the article BOWLDER, they are often of great dimensions, and their sizes increase as they are traced toward the pole to their parent beds. In Russia they have thus been identified with ledges more than 800 m. distant toward the north. Bowlders of the same kind of granite, easily recognized, traced from Moscow to St. Petersburg, vary from 2 to 3 feet in diameter at the former to as many yards at the latter point. Instances of these phenomena are everywhere to be seen in the northern United States. In southern Wisconsin pieces of native copper were often found in the superficial deposits long before the mines of this metal were discovered on the S. shore of Lake Superior, 300 m. to the north. The N. shores of Long island are strewn with bowlders of red sandstone, and of granite and other primary rocks, arranged in groups which correspond with the position of the ledges of the same rocks in Connecticut, across the sound to the north. So on the European continent, the stratified rocks of which the whole region on the S. side of the gulf of Finland is composed, are covered with granitic bowlders from the primary region of Scandinavia on the other side of the gulf. The surface

of the bowlders is often found to be striated and grooved, as if worn by hard rubbing over rough surfaces; but sometimes it is smooth and almost polished. The solid ledges of rock when exposed to view very frequently display a similar grooved and worn surface. The furrowed lines, called diluvial scratches, are sometimes seen in 2 sets, one much fainter than the other, the 2 crossing each other at a sharp angle. Their general direction is that in which the bowlders are traced to their parent ledges. In the northern states this is usually from S. S. E. to N. N. W. Upon the slopes of high lands greater abrasion and grooving are observed on the N. than on the S. sides; but if these elevated tracts were opposed to a great current, they do not appear to have had the effect of diverting this from its course, except it may have been in the great valleys of drainage, where the stria have been observed in some instances to coincide with their direction. The bowlders in an open country are usually scattered about without regularity, but in some localities they are traced in long, narrow, and well defined belts, which cross the summits of ridges in lines oblique to the direction of these. That all parts of the region covered with drift did not occupy their present elevation at the time its deposition took place, is proved by the deposits of clay containing marine shells found in many localities in New England and New York, reaching at a maximum about 500 feet above the present level of the sea, and overlaid by the sand and gravel of the drift. The valleys of the St. Lawrence and of Lake Champlain were thus depressed, and the waters of the ocean must at that time have reached the basin of Lake Ontario. Some regard this as evidence that all the neighboring territories now covered with drift were similarly submerged, but such beds of shells are only met with in the valleys named and in certain localities not far removed from the present margin of the sea. Sir Charles Lyell observes of the drift fossils of Canada found near Montreal and Quebec, and of those of Scotland, that they are of species indicating a colder climate than now belongs to the regions in which they are found. He also noticed near Upsal in Sweden, in a ridge of stratified diluvial sand and gravel, a bed of marl 100 feet above the present level of the gulf of Bothnia, containing myriads of the peculiar forms of shells still common to the brackish waters of the Baltic, and which must have originally formed the bottom of the sea before the distribution of the bowlders; for upon the top of the ridge are several huge blocks belonging to the drift. He hence infers that the transport of the bowlders continued after the sea was inhabited by existing testacea, and after the continent had assumed its peculiar configuration, by which the Baltic is separated from the salt waters of the North sea, and the gulf of Bothnia is made to have only the saltness of the ocean. The shells found in the drift refer the period of its production to a time subsequent to the pliocene epoch. It preceded the extinction

of the mastodon giganteus, for the bones of this animal are exhumed in New Jersey and New York from bogs in the surface of the drift, where they have lain undisturbed, not separated even from the decayed contents of the stomach of the animal, since life departed from them. With the remains of the mastodon occur several species of fluviatile shells, such as now live in fresh water. The deposit containing these and also well preserved mastodon bones is identified on both sides of the great chasm of the Niagara valley, in situations where it could only have been formed before this chasm was in existence. Thus, according to the calculations of Sir Charles Lyell, the period of production of the drift formation cannot approach within some 30,000 years the time commonly assigned for the introduction of the human race upon the earth.-Various theories have been devised to explain the phenomena of the drift. Under date of Nov. 21, 1825, Mr. Peter Dobson, of Vernon, Conn., addressed a short communication to Prof. Silliman, making a page of the 10th vol. of the "American Journal of Science" (1826), which, as remarked by Sir R. I. Murchison in his address before the geological society of London in 1842, contains the essence of the modified glacial theory since arrived at after much debate, and a previous acquaintance with which might have saved volumes of disputation on both sides of the Atlantic. Mr. Dobson describes the appearance of the bowlders abraded and scratched, " as if done by their having been dragged over rocks and gravelly earth in one steady position," and adds: "I think we cannot account for these appearances, unless we call in the aid of ice as well as water, and that they have been worn by being suspended and carried in ice over rocks and earth under water." The transportation of masses of rock by icebergs as they drift along the currents which set from the polar regions, and the distribution of their loads over the bottom of the ocean as the bergs melt away, present, in the view of many, a repetition of the process by which in remote times the surfaces of the present continents were covered with the drift materials. Lyell supposes that the lands, with their present irregularities of surface already defined, were slowly submerged, while islands of floating ice passed along in the polar currents, grounding on the coast and on shoals, and pushing forward the loose sand and gravel spread over the bottom. Thus abraded down to the solid rock, and the surface of this grooved and striated, the shoals by continued subsidence passed down to great depths, where the loose materials gathering upon them were no longer disturbed. Finally he supposes the direction of the movement to have been reversed, and the bottom of the ocean to have been again raised to form dry land; and that during its reemergence the arrangement of the materials which cover it was modified by exposure to the distributing and stratifying action of the waves, tides, and currents. The dearth of fossil shells in the clays of

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the drift would be accounted for under this hypothesis by the unfavorable influence of the icebergs on the growth of the testacea in the shallow waters frequented by them, while in other parts of the ocean the depth would be too great for their existence to be possible. The extent and immense number of modern icebergs seem to prove their capacity to reproduce upon the shoals and over the bottom of the Atlantic nearly all the phenomena of the drift formation. Measured as they are by miles in length, and rising at times more than 300 feet in height, with only of their bulk then visible above the water, they may well float off and distribute along their track the largest bowlders which they have abstracted from the rocky cliffs down which they moved as glaciers into the sea. So extensive are these floating ice islands that they have been mistaken by those travelling upon their surface for the solid continent; and one has been known to be aground where the soundings gave a depth of 1,500 feet of water. Urged on by the broad current in which they float, such masses must exert an enormous power upon obstacles presented to their progress. Where they rub upon the bottom, this must be worn and grooved in parallel furrows on the line of the straight course of the berg, and other sets of scratches would be produced by succeeding bergs, which might deviate slightly by a different slant of the current, or possibly by the effect of a strong wind upon the floating mass, from the exact bearing of the former set. The chief objection to the theory of the distribution of the drift by icebergs is, that no evidence is furnished of the great body of lands covered with this formation having been submerged immediately before or at the time of its deposition. The beds of clay containing marine shells, found on the borders of the St. Lawrence and Lake Champlain, and in other localities near the coast, are not traced into the hills of the interior, nor to elevations exceeding 500 feet above the level of the sea. In the strata of other formations, even of the most ancient periods, the occurrence of marine fossil shells affords unmistakable evidence of the locality having been covered by the ocean; but in this instance this familiar proof is wanting over areas of vast extent, large portions of which have been carefully explored by the most critical observers. It is disputed that icebergs could produce the parallel scratches on the rocks; and it is contended that if the northern part of the continent were beneath the sea, the effect would be to mitigate the coldness of the climate, and render this unfavorable for the required production of icebergs. It is also objected that the extent to which the bowlders are commonly traced from their parent ledges upon the North American continent is usually limited to from 20 to 200 m., while the bergs which now drift from northern seas bring the stones with which they are charged from 1,000 to 2,000 m.; and that, moreover, they travel a very circuitous route, the currents changing their course with the ir VOL. VI.-31

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regularities of the coast line, and counter currents giving diverse directions to the modern drift, while the distribution of that of ancient times was remarkably uniform in its direction. It is, however, impossible to show that the contour of the ancient continents was incompatible with the existence of more uniform currents than those of modern seas; and in the diluvium of Scandinavia and Russia the transportation of the bowlders appears to have been over nearly as many degrees of latitude as are traversed by modern icebergs.-Another class of natural agents are observed to be in operation, producing effects similar to those witnessed in the drift. These are the glaciers, vast accumulations of ice, which gather in elevated regions, and are slowly and irresistibly pushed down to lower levels. In their progress they score and groove the surface over which they pass, and rend masses of rock from the cliffs, moving the fragments forward, and finally leaving them rolled in the shapes of bowlders, and grooved by the rubbing to which they were subjected when fixed in the ice. In the Alpine regions of Europe the effects thus produced are so remarkable, and spread over such extensive districts, that eminent geologists who have made them their study have been disposed to refer all the phenomena of the drift to the action of glaciers; and in this disposition they have been confirmed by finding unmistakable evidence of the extent of the glacial action from the Alps having in former periods reached full 50 m. beyond their present limits. The researches of the late Dr. Kane have made us acquainted with a field in which these operations are now going on upon the grandest scale. Nearly the whole interior of Greenland, a continent in itself, appears to be covered with one broad glacier. From its edges, extending many hundred miles along the northern seas, its fringe is ever falling in vast masses of ice and rock into the deep waters to be floated off as icebergs, while from the interior the great field itself is slowly urged on in portions following the same unvarying directions. Such phenomena furnish an explanation for several examples of diluvium, which do not admit of reference to the drifting of icebergs in a polar current. In the extreme northern part of Lapland, for instance, the distribution of the bowlders appears to have been from the interior toward the White sea and the Arctic ocean. But geologists are far from generally admitting the probability that the large portions of the earth's surface now covered with the drift formation were ever in a condition to have been under the action of glaciers moving in one general direction; nor does it appear necessary to have recourse to them, when icebergs are now producing analogous effects, and upon a scale commensurate with the ancient distribution of the drift.-Beside these explanations to account for the phenomena, drawn from operations now going on, the extent of which we can investigate, and in some measure appreciate, a third hypothe

sis has been advanced by the Professors Rogers, which also appears to have been adopted by Murchison. Rejecting the supposition "that the cutting fragments and particles were ever pressed upon by ice, it appeals to the enormous erosive power which a thick and ponderous sheet of angular fragmentary rock would possess if driven forward at a high velocity under the waters of a deep and general inundation, excited and kept in motion by an energetic upheaval and undulation of the earth's crust during an era of earthquake commotion." By the uplifting of the floor of an arctic sea, accompanied, it may be, by an equal subsidence of the country south, a mass of water is conceived to be converted by earthquake pulsations into a series of stupendous and rapidly moving waves of translation. These, helped on by the still more rapid flexures of the floor over which they move, are considered to be agents adequate to produce the results exhibited in the phenomena of the drift formation. Dr. Whewell, recognizing the wave of translation as a mechanical agent, cautions against its being regarded as a current which flows continuously. Its effect must be to carry a single mass along with it at its own velocity, or to give a transient motion to a series of masses in succession as it passes over each, moving each but a small distance. A series of waves, each produced by some paroxysmal action, would mathematically account for any amount of result. He presents some simple numerical calculations, in which the quantities, it is true, are hypothetical, and which as they are modified would proportionately modify the result by which he arrives at the conclusion that a sea bottom 450 m. long, 100 m. broad, and 500 feet below the surface of the water, raised either at once or by paroxysmal lifts, would produce waves of translation with an effect equivalent to the dispersion of the whole body of northern drift.

DIME (Fr. dime, contraction of dixième), a silver coin of the United States, of the value of 10 cents, or of a dollar. It was first coined in 1796 in pursuance of the act of April 2, 1792, though pattern pieces were struck in 1792. Its legal standards have been as follows: by act of April 2, 1792, fineness 892.4 thousandths, weight 41.6 grains; by act of Jan. 18, 1837, fineness 900 thousandths, weight 411 grains; by act of Feb. 21, 1853, fineness 900 thousandths, weight 38.4 grains. (See COINS.)

DIMSDALE, THOMAS, baron, an English physician, born in Thoydon-Garnon, co. of Essex, in 1712, died in Hertford, Dec. 30, 1800. He was especially noted for his zeal in promoting inoculation for the small pox, his success in which caused him to be invited to Russia by the empress Catharine II. in 1768, for the purpose of inoculating herself and her son. Cath arine rewarded him with the title of baron and large presents. He afterward visited Frederic II. of Prussia, at Sans-Souci, and then returned to England, where, in 1776, he published a treatise on inoculation, which was translated into all the European languages. In 1780 he

was elected to the house of commons, and in 1781 made a second professional visit to Russia. Beside the treatise above mentioned, he published several pamphlets on the same subject. DINAGEPOOR, or DINAJPORE, a district of British India, under the lieut. gov. of Bengal, bounded N. E. by Bootan, between lat. 24° 53' and 26° 38′ N., long. 88° 2′ and 89° 16′ E.; length from N. to S., 130 m.; breadth, 75 m.; area, 3,820 sq. m.; pop. 1,200,000. It is a level country, watered by the Teesta and a vast number of other streams, and fertile in rice, pulse, oil seeds, pepper, ginger, turmeric, coriander, capsicum, potatoes, plantains, many other esculent vegetables, and the sugar cane. Small quantities of wheat, barley, tobacco, and a poor kind of cotton, are also produced. Silkworms are extensively reared.-DINAGEPOOR, the capital of the district, is a clean but ill-built town, on the river Purnabada, 261 m. N. from Calcutta, and the residence of the British authorities; pop. about 25,000.

DINAPORE, a town of British India, in the. district of Patna, lieut. governorship of Bengal, on the right bank of the Ganges, 10 m. W. from Patna and 411 N. W. from Calcutta; pop. about 16,000. It is an important military station, noted for its handsome and extensive cantonments. On July 25, 1857, a mutiny occurred here which, though attended with little immediate bloodshed, was one of the most mortifying and serious disasters which befell the British during that year. The garrison consisted of 3 full native infantry regiments, beside a European field battery and parts of the 10th and 37th European foot, commanded by Gen. Lloyd. When symptoms of revolt became unmistakable, this officer took the weak precaution of removing the percussion caps from the armory to the officers' mess-room, and then requiring the sepoys to give up the caps already issued. The latter order was resisted, and when the British troops were called out to enforce it, the rebels were seen running at full speed across the fields with their arms and accoutrements. They laid siege to Arrah, attached themselves to the notorious Koer Singh, and gave great trouble throughout the revolt. No pursuit of them was made until the 27th, when an effort to relieve Arrah terminated with great loss to the British. Gen. Lloyd, who had served with distinction, but was now far advanced in age, fell into disgrace on this occasion, and was superseded by Sir James Outram.

DINDORF, WILHELM, a German philologist, born in Leipsic in 1802. In 1819, at the age of 17, he published a continuation of the commentaries on Aristophanes begun by Beck. In 1828 he was appointed professor of the history of literature in the university of Leipsic, but resigned this office in 1833. He has edited Demosthenes, Eschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, &c., for the university of Oxford; also many works published at Paris and Leipsic.

DINGELSTEDT, FRANZ, a German poet, born in the Hessian village of Halsdorf in 1814. He

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