Chapter XX: Part 20

The _Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex_, was published in 1871; as the title implies, it really consists of two distinct works. The first, and by far the shorter, was the full justification of his statement in the Origin that "light would be thrown on the origin of man and his history." In the second part he brought together a large mass of evidence in support of his hypothesis of sexual selection which he had briefly described in the 1858 essay. This hypothesis explains the development of colours and structures peculiar to one sex and displayed by it in courtship, by the preferences of the other sex. The majority of naturalists probably agree with Darwin in believing that the explanation is real, but relatively unimportant. It is interesting to note that only in this subject and those treated of in the _Variation under Domestication_ had Darwin exhausted the whole of the material which he had collected. The _Expression of the Emotions_, published in 1872, offered a natural explanation of phenomena which appeared to be a difficulty in the way of the acceptance of evolution. In 1876 Darwin brought out his two previously published geological works on _Volcanic Islands_ and _South America_ as a single volume. The widely read _Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms_ appeared in 1881. He also published various volumes on botanical subjects. The _Fertilization of Orchids_ appeared in 1862. The subject of cross-fertilization of flowers was in Darwin's mind, as shown by his note-book in 1837. In 1841 Robert Brown directed his attention to Christian Conrad Sprengel's work (Berlin, 1793), which confirmed his determination to pursue this line of research. _The Effects of Cross- and Self-Fertilization in the Vegetable Kingdom_ (1876) contained the direct evidence that the offspring of cross-fertilized individuals are more vigorous, as well as more numerous, than those produced by a self-fertilized parent. _Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species_ appeared in 1877. It is here shown that each different form, although possessing both kinds of sexual organs, is specially adapted to be fertilized by the pollen of another form, and that when artificially fertilized by its own pollen less vigorous offspring, bearing some resemblance to hybrids, are produced. He says, "no little discovery of mine ever gave me so much pleasure as the making out the meaning of heterostyled flowers" (_Autobiography_). _Climbing Plants_ was published in 1875, although it had, in large part, been communicated to the Linnean Society, in whose publications much of the material of several of his other works appeared. This inquiry into the nature of the movements of twining plants was suggested to him in a paper by Asa Gray. _The Power of Movement in Plants_ (1880) was produced by him in conjunction with his son Francis. It was an inquiry into the minute power of movement possessed, he believed, by plants generally, out of which the larger movements of climbing plants of many different groups had been evolved. The work included an investigation of other kinds of plant movement due to light, gravity, &c., all of which he regarded as modifications of the one fundamental movement (circumnutation) which exists in a highly specialized form in climbing plants. _Insectivorous Plants_ (1875) is principally concerned with the description of experiments on the Sun-dew (_Drosera_), although other insect-catching plants, such as _Dionaea_, are also investigated.

Charles Darwin's long life of patient, continuous work, the most fruitful, the most inspiring, in the annals of modern science, came to an end on the 19th of April 1882. He was buried in Westminster Abbey on the 26th. It is of much interest to attempt to set forth some of the main characteristics of the man who did so much for modern science, and in so large a measure moulded the form of modern thought. Although his ill-health prevented Darwin, except on rare occasions, from attending scientific and social meetings, and thus from meeting and knowing the great body of scientific and intellectual workers of his time, probably no man has ever inspired a wider and deeper personal interest and affection. This was in part due to the intimate personal friends who represented him in the circles he was unable frequently to enter, but chiefly to the kindly, generous, and courteous nature which was revealed in his large correspondence and published writings, and especially in his treatment of opponents.

In a deeply interesting chapter of the _Life and Letters_ Francis Darwin has given us his reminiscences of his father's everyday life. Rising early, he took a short walk before breakfasting alone at 7.45, and then at once set to work, "considering the 1(1/2) hours between 8.0 and 9.30 one of his best working times." He then read his letters and listened to reading aloud, returning to work at about 10.30. At 12 or 12.15 "he considered his day's work over," and went for a walk, whether wet or fine. For a time he rode, but after accidents had occurred twice, was advised to give it up. After lunch he read the newspaper and wrote his letters or the MS. of his books. At about 3.0 he rested and smoked for an hour while being read to, often going to sleep. He then went for a short walk, and returning about 4.30, worked for an hour. After this he rested and smoked, and listened to reading until tea at 7.30, a meal which he came to prefer to late dinner. He then played two games of backgammon, read to himself, and listened to music and to reading aloud. He went to bed, generally very much tired, at 10.30, and was often much troubled by wakefulness and the activity of his thoughts. It is thus apparent that the number of hours devoted to work in each day was comparatively few. The immense amount he achieved was due to concentration during these hours, also to the unfailing and, because of his health, the necessary regularity of his life.

The appearance of Charles Darwin has been made well known in numerous portraits and statues. He was tall and thin, being about six feet high, but looked less because of a stoop, which increased towards the end of his life. As a young man he had been active, with considerable powers of endurance, and possessed in a marked degree those qualities of eye and hand which make the successful sportsman.

Charles Darwin was, as a young man, a believer in Christianity, and was sent to Cambridge with the idea that he would take orders. It is probable, however, that he had merely yielded to the influences of his home, without thinking much on the subject of religion. He first began to reflect deeply on the subject during the two years and a quarter which intervened between his return from the "Beagle" (October 2nd, 1836) and his marriage (January 29th, 1839). His own words are, "disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress." His attitude was that of the tolerant unaggressive agnostic, sympathizing with and helping in the social and charitable influences of the English Church in his parish. He was evidently most unwilling that his opinions on religious matters should influence others, holding, as his son, Francis Darwin, says, "that a man ought not to publish on a subject to which he has not given special and continuous thought" (_l.c._ i. p. 305).

In addition to the personal qualities and powers of Charles Darwin, there were other contributing causes without which the world could never have reaped the benefit of his genius. It is evident that Darwin's health could barely have endured the strain of working for a living, and that nothing would have been left over for his researches. A deep debt of gratitude is owing to his father for placing him in a position in which all his energy could be devoted to scientific work and thought. But his ill-health was such that this important and essential condition would have been insufficient without another even more essential. Francis Darwin, in the _Life and Letters_ (i. pp. 159-160), writes these eloquent and pathetic words:--"No one indeed, except my mother, knows the full amount of suffering he endured, or the full amount of his wonderful patience. For all the latter years of his life she never left him for a night; and her days were so planned that all his resting hours might be shared with her. She shielded him from every avoidable annoyance, and omitted nothing that might save him trouble, or prevent him becoming over-tired, or that might alleviate the many discomforts of his ill-health. I hesitate to speak thus freely of a thing so sacred as the lifelong devotion which prompted all this constant and tender care. But it is, I repeat, a principal feature of his life, that for nearly forty years he never knew one day of the health of ordinary men, and that thus his life was one long struggle against the weariness and the strain of sickness. And this cannot be told without speaking of the one condition which enabled him to bear the strain and fight out the struggle to the end."

Charles Darwin was honoured by the chief societies of the civilized world. He was made a knight of the Prussian order, "Pour le Merite," in 1867, a corresponding member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences in 1863, a fellow in 1878, and later in the same year a corresponding member of the French Institute in the botanical section. He received the Bressa prize of the Royal Academy of Turin, and the Baly medal of the Royal College of Physicians in 1879, the Wollaston medal of the Geological Society in 1859, a Royal medal of the Royal Society in 1853, and the Copley medal in 1864. His health prevented him from accepting the honorary degree which Oxford University wished to confer on him, but his own university had stronger claims, and he received its honorary LL.D. in 1877.

Two daughters and five sons survived him, four of the latter becoming prominent in the scientific world,--Sir George Howard (b. 1845), who became professor of astronomy and experimental philosophy at Cambridge in 1883; Francis (b. 1848), the distinguished botanist; Leonard (b. 1850), a major in the royal engineers, and afterwards well known as an economist; and Horace (b. 1851), civil engineer.

See _The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, including an
autobiographical chapter_, edited by his son Francis Darwin (3 vols.,
London, 1887); _Charles Darwin and the Theory of Natural Selection_,
by E. B. Poulton (London, 1896); _Life and Letters of Thomas Henry
Huxley_, by Leonard Huxley (2 vols., London, 1900); A. R. Wallace,
_Darwinism_ (1889); G. J. Romanes, _Darwin and after Darwin_ (1895).
Also the article on T. H. HUXLEY. (E. B. P.)

DARWIN, ERASMUS (1731-1802), English man of science and poet, was born at Elton, in Nottinghamshire, on the 12th of December 1731. After studying at St John's College, Cambridge, and at Edinburgh, he settled in 1756 as a physician at Nottingham, but meeting with little success he moved in the following year to Lichfield. There he gained a large practice, and did much, both by example and by more direct effort, to diminish drunkenness among the lower classes. In 1781 he removed to Derby, where he died suddenly on the 18th of April 1802. The fame of Erasmus Darwin as a poet rests upon his _Botanic Garden_, though he also wrote _The Temple of Nature, or the Origin of Society, a Poem, with Philosophical Notes_ (1803), and _The Shrine of Nature_ (posthumously published). The _Botanic Garden_ (the second part of which--_The Loves of the Plants_--was published anonymously in 1789, and the whole of which appeared in 1791) is a long poem in the decasyllabic rhymed couplet. Its merit lies in the genuine scientific enthusiasm and interest in nature which pervade it; and of any other poetic quality--except a certain, sometimes felicitous but oftener ill-placed, elaborated pomp of words--it may without injustice be said to be almost destitute. It was for the most part written laboriously, and polished with unsparing care, line by line, often as he rode from one patient to another, and it occupied the leisure hours of many years. The artificial character of the diction renders it in emotional passages stilted and even absurd, and makes Canning's clever caricature--_The Loves of the Triangles_--often remarkably like the poem it satirizes: in some passages, however, it is not without a stately appropriateness. Gnomes, sylphs and nereids are introduced on almost every page, and personification is carried to an extraordinary excess. Thus he describes the _Loves of the Plants_ according to the Linnaean system by means of a most ingenious but misplaced and amusing personification of each plant, and often even of the parts of the plant. It is significant that botanical notes are added to the poem, and that its eulogies of scientific men are frequent. Erasmus Darwin's mind was in fact rather that of a man of science than that of a poet. His most important scientific work is his _Zoonomia_ (1794-1796), which contains a system of pathology, and a treatise on generation, in which he, in the words of his famous grandson, Charles Robert Darwin, "anticipated the views and erroneous grounds of opinions of Lamarck." The essence of his views is contained in the following passage, which he follows up with the conclusion "that one and the same kind of living filaments is and has been the cause of all organic life":--

"Would it be too bold to imagine that, in the great length of time
since the earth began to exist, perhaps millions of ages before the
commencement of the history of mankind,--would it be too bold to
imagine that all warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living
filament, which the great First Cause endued with animality, with the
power of acquiring new parts, attended with new propensities, directed
by irritations, sensations, volitions and associations, and thus
possessing the faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent
activity, and of delivering down these improvements by generation to
its posterity, world without end!"

In 1799 Darwin published his _Phytologia, or the Philosophy of Agriculture and Gardening_ (1799), in which he states his opinion that plants have sensation and volition. A paper on _Female Education in Boarding Schools_ (1797) completes the list of his works.

Robert Waring Darwin (1766-1848), his third son by his first marriage, a doctor at Shrewsbury, was the father of the famous Charles Darwin; and Violetta, his eldest daughter by his second marriage, was the mother of Francis Galton.

See Anna Seward, _Memoirs of the Life of Dr Darwin_ (1804); and
Charles Darwin, _Life of Erasmus Darwin, an introduction to an essay
on his works by Ernst Krause_ (1879).

DASENT, SIR GEORGE WEBBE (1817-1896), English writer, was born in St Vincent, West Indies, on the 22nd of May 1817, the son of the attorney-general of that island. He was educated at Westminster school, King's College, and Oxford, where he was a contemporary of J. T. Delane (q.v.), whose friend he had become at King's College. On leaving the university in 1840 he was appointed to a diplomatic post in Stockholm. Here he met Jacob Grimm, and at his suggestion first interested himself in Scandinavian literature and mythology. In 1842 he published the results of his studies, a version of _The Prose or Younger Edda_, and in the following year he issued a _Grammar of the Icelandic or Old-Norse Tongue_, taken from the Swedish. Returning to England in 1845, he became assistant editor of _The Times_ under Delane, whose sister he married; but he still continued his Scandinavian studies, publishing translations of various Norse stories. In 1853 he was appointed professor of English literature and modern history at King's College, London. In 1861-1862 he visited Iceland, and subsequently published _Gisli the Outlaw_ and other translations from the Icelandic. In 1870 he was appointed a civil service commissioner and consequently resigned his post on _The Times_. In 1876 he was knighted. He retired from the public service in 1892, and died at Ascot on the 11th of June 1896. In addition to the works mentioned above, he published _The Story of Burnt Njal_, from the Icelandic of the _Njals Saga_ (1861).

See the _Life of Delane_ (1908), by Arthur Irwin Dasent.

DASHKOV, CATHERINA ROMANOVNA VORONTSOV, PRINCESS (1744-1810), Russian _litterateur_, was the third daughter of Count Roman Vorontsov, a member of the Russian senate, distinguished for his intellectual gifts. (For the family see VORONTSOV.) She received an exceptionally good education, having displayed from a very early age the masculine ability and masculine tastes which made her whole career so singular. She was well versed in mathematics, which she studied at the university of Moscow, and in general literature her favourite authors were Bayle, Montesquieu, Boileau, Voltaire and Helvetius. While still a girl she was connected with the Russian court, and became one of the leaders of the party that attached itself to the grand duchess (afterwards empress) Catherine. Before she was sixteen she married Prince Mikhail Dashkov, a prominent Russian nobleman, and went to reside with him at Moscow. In 1762 she was at St Petersburg and took a leading part, according to her own account _the_ leading part, in the _coup d'etat_ by which Catherine was raised to the throne. (See CATHERINE II.) Another course of events would probably have resulted in the elevation of the Princess Dashkov's elder sister, Elizabeth, who was the emperor's mistress, and in whose favour he made no secret of his intention to depose Catherine. Her relations with the new empress were not of a cordial nature, though she continued devotedly loyal. Her blunt manners, her unconcealed scorn of the male favourites that disgraced the court, and perhaps also her sense of unrequited merit, produced an estrangement between her and the empress, which ended in her asking permission to travel abroad. The cause of the final breach was said to have been the refusal of her request to be appointed colonel of the imperial guards. Her husband having meanwhile died, she set out in 1768 on an extended tour through Europe. She was received with great consideration at foreign courts, and her literary and scientific reputation procured her the _entree_ to the society of the learned in most of the capitals of Europe. In Paris she secured the warm friendship and admiration of Diderot and Voltaire. She showed in various ways a strong liking for England and the English. She corresponded with Garrick, Dr Blair and Principal Robertson; and when in Edinburgh, where she was very well received, she arranged to entrust the education of her son to Principal Robertson. In 1782 she returned to the Russian capital, and was at once taken into favour by the empress, who strongly sympathized with her in her literary tastes, and specially in her desire to elevate Russ to a place among the literary languages of Europe. Immediately after her return the princess was appointed "directeur" of the St Petersburg Academy of Arts and Sciences; and in 1784 she was named the first president of the Russian Academy, which had been founded at her suggestion. In both positions she acquitted herself with marked ability. She projected the Russian dictionary of the Academy, arranged its plan, and executed a part of the work herself. She edited a monthly magazine; and wrote at least two dramatic works, _The Marriage of Fabian_, and a comedy entitled _Toissiokoff_. Shortly before Catherine's death the friends quarrelled over a tragedy which the princess had allowed to find a place in the publications of the Academy, though it contained revolutionary principles, according to the empress. A partial reconciliation was effected, but the princess soon afterwards retired from court. On the accession of the emperor Paul in 1796 she was deprived of all her offices, and ordered to retire to a miserable village in the government of Novgorod, "to meditate on the events of 1762." After a time the sentence was partially recalled on the petition of her friends, and she was permitted to pass the closing years of her life on her own estate near Moscow, where she died on the 4th of January 1810.

Her son, the last of the Dashkov family, died in 1807 and bequeathed his fortune to his cousin Illarion Vorontsov, who thereupon by imperial licence assumed the name Vorontsov-Dashkov; and Illarion's son, Illarion Ivanovich Vorontsov-Dashkov (b. 1837), held an appointment in the tsar's household from 1881 to 1897.

The _Memoirs of the Princess Dashkoff written by herself_ were
published in 1840 in London in two volumes. They were edited by Mrs W.
Bradford, who, as Miss Wilmot, had resided with the princess between
1803 and 1808, and had suggested their preparation.

DASS, PETTER (1647-1708), the "father" of modern Norwegian poetry, was the son of Peter Dundas, a Scottish merchant of Dundee, who, leaving his country about 1630 to escape the troubles of the Presbyterian church, settled in Bergen, and in 1646 married a Norse girl of good family. Petter Dass was born in 1647 on the island of Nord Hero; on the north coast of Norway. Seven years later his father died, and his mother placed him with his aunt, the wife of the priest of another little island-parish. In 1660 he was sent to school at Bergen, in 1665 to the university of Copenhagen, and in 1667 he began to earn his daily bread as a private tutor. In 1672 he was ordained priest, and remained till 1681 as under-chaplain at Nesne, a little parish near his birthplace; for eight years more he was resident chaplain at Nesne; and at last in 1689 he received the living of Alstahoug, the most important in the north of Norway. The rule of Alstahoug extended over all the neighbouring districts, including Dass's native island of Hero, and its privileges were accompanied by great perils, for it was necessary to be constantly crossing stormy firths of sea. Dass lived here in quietude, with something of the honours and responsibilities of a bishop, brought up his family in a God-fearing way, and wrote endless reams of verses. In 1700 he asked leave to resign his living in favour of his son Anders Dass, but this was not permitted; in 1704, however, Anders became his father's chaplain. About this time Petter went to Bergen, where he visited Dorothea Engelbrechtsdatter, with whom he had been for many years in correspondence. He continued to write till 1707, and died in August 1708. The materials for his biography are very numerous; he was regarded with universal curiosity and admiration in his lifetime; and, besides, he left a garrulous autobiography in verse. A portrait, painted in middle age, now in the church of Melhus, near Trondhjem, represents him in canonicals, with deep red beard and hair, the latter waved and silky, and a head of massive proportions. The face is full of fire and vigour. His writings passed in MS. from hand to hand, and few of them were printed in his lifetime. _Nordlands Trompet_ (The Trumpet of Nordland), his greatest and most famous poem, was not published till 1739; _Den norska Dale-Vise_ (The Norwegian Song of the Valley) appeared in 1696; the _Aandelig Tidsfordriv_ (Spiritual Pastime), a volume of sacred poetry, was published in 1711. _The Trumpet of Nordland_ remains as fresh as ever in the memories of the inhabitants of the north of Norway; boatmen, peasants, priests will alike repeat long extracts from it at the slightest notice, and its popularity is unbounded. It is a rhyming description of the province of Nordland, its natural features, its trades, its advantages and its drawbacks, given in dancing verse of the most breathless kind, and full of humour, fancy, wit and quaint learning. The other poems of Petter Dass are less universally read; they abound, however, in queer turns of thought, and fine homely fancies.

The collected writings of Dass were edited (3 vols., Christiania,
1873-1877) by Dr A. E. Eriksen.

DASYURE, a bookname for any member of the zoological family _Dasyuridae_. (See MARSUPIALIA.) The name is better restricted to animals of the typical genus _Dasyurus_, sometimes called true Dasyures. These are mostly inhabitants of the Australian continent and Tasmania, where in the economy of nature they take the place of the smaller predaceous Carnivora, the cats, civets and weasels of other parts of the world. They hide themselves in the daytime in holes among rocks or in hollow trees, but prowl about at night in search of the small living mammals and birds which constitute their prey, and are to some extent arboreal in habit. The spot-tailed dasyure (_D. maculatus_), about the size of a cat, inhabiting Tasmania and Southern Australia, has transversely striated pads on the soles of the feet. These organs are also present in the North Australian dasyure (_D. hallucatus_) and the Papuan _D. albopunctatus_, and are regarded by Oldfield Thomas as indication of arboreal habits; in the common dasyure (_D. viverrinus_) from Tasmania and Victoria, and the black-tailed dasyure (_D. geoffroyi_) from South Australia, these feet-pads are absent, whence these species are believed to seek their prey on the ground. The ursine dasyure (_Sarcophilus ursinus_), often called the "Tasmanian Devil," constitutes a distinct genus. In size it may be compared to an English badger; the general colour of the fur is black tinged with brown, with white patches on the neck, shoulders, rump and chest. It is a burrowing animal, of nocturnal habits, intensely carnivorous, and commits great depredations on the sheepyards and poultry-lofts of the settlers. In writing of this species Krefft says that one--by no means a large one--escaped from confinement and killed in two nights fifty-four fowls, six geese, an albatross and a cat. It was recaptured in what was considered a stout trap, with a door constructed of iron bars as thick as a lead pencil, but escaped by twisting this solid obstacle aside.

DATE PALM. The dates[1] of commerce are the fruit of a species of palm, _Phoenix dactylifera_, a tree which ranges from the Canary Islands through Northern Africa and the south-east of Asia to India. It has been cultivated and much prized throughout most of these regions from the remotest antiquity. Its cultivation and use are described on the mural tablets of the ancient Assyrians. In Arabia it is the chief source of national wealth, and its fruit forms the staple article of food in that country. The tree has also been introduced along the Mediterranean shores of Europe; but as its fruit does not ripen so far north, the European plants are only used to supply leaves for the festival of Palm Sunday among Christians, and for the celebration of the Passover by Jews. It was introduced into the new world by early Spanish missionaries, and is now cultivated in the dry districts of the south-western United States and in Mexico. The date palm is a beautiful tree, growing to a height of from 60 to 80 ft., and its stem, which is strongly marked with old leaf-scars, terminates in a crown of graceful shining pinnate leaves. The flowers spring in branching spadices from the axils of the leaves, and as the trees are unisexual it is necessary in cultivation to fertilize the female flowers by artificial means. The fruit is oblong, fleshy and contains one very hard seed which is deeply furrowed on the inside. The fruit varies much in size, colour and quality under cultivation. Regarding this fruit, W. G. Palgrave (_Central and Eastern Arabia_) remarked: "Those who, like most Europeans at home, only know the date from the dried specimens of that fruit shown beneath a label in shop-windows, can hardly imagine how delicious it is when eaten fresh and in Central Arabia. Nor is it, when newly gathered, heating,--a defect inherent to the preserved fruit everywhere; nor does its richness, however great, bring satiety; in short it is an article of food alike pleasant and healthy." In the oases of Sahara, and in other parts of Northern Africa, dates are pounded and pressed into a cake for food. The dried fruit used for dessert in European countries contains more than half its weight of sugar, about 6% of albumen, and 12% of gummy matter. All parts of the date palm yield valuable economic products. Its trunk furnishes timber for house-building and furniture; the leaves supply thatch; their footstalks are used as fuel, and also yield a fibre from which cordage is spun.

_Date sugar_ is a valuable commercial product of the East Indies, obtained from the sap or toddy of _Phoenix sylvestris_, the toddy palm, a tree so closely allied to the date palm that it has been supposed to be the parent stock of all the cultivated varieties. The juice, when not boiled down to form sugar, is either drunk fresh, or fermented and distilled to form arrack. The uses of the other parts and products of this tree are the same as those of the date palm products. _Date palm meal_ is obtained from the stem of a small species, _Phoenix farinifera_, growing in the hill country of southern India.

For further details see Sir G. Watt, _Dictionary of the Economic
Products of India_ (1892); and _The Date Palm_, U.S. Department of
Agriculture, Bureau of Plant Industry, Bulletin No. 53 (W. T.
Swingle), 1904.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Lat. _dactylus_, finger, hence fruit of the date palm, gave O.
Fr. _date_, mod. _datte_; distinguish "date," in chronology, from
Lat. _datum_, _data_, given, used at the beginning of a letter, &c.,
to show time and place of writing, e.g. _Datum Romae_.

DATIA, a native state of Central India, in the Bundelkhand agency. It lies in the extreme north-west of Bundelkhand, near Gwalior, and is surrounded on all sides by other states of Central India, except on the east where it meets the United Provinces. The state came under the British government after the treaty of Bassein in 1802. Area, 911 sq. m. Pop. (1901) 173,759. Estimated revenue, L70,000; tribute to Sindhia paid through the British Government, L1000. The chief, whose title is maharaja, is a Rajput of the Bundela clan, being descended from a younger son of a former chief of Orchha. The state suffered from famine in 1896-1897, and again to a less extent in 1899-1900. It is traversed by the branch of the Indian Midland railway from Jhansi to Gwalior. The town of Datia has a railway station, 16 m. from Jhansi. Pop. (1901) 24,071. It is surrounded by a stone wall, enclosing handsome palaces, with gardens; the palace of Bir Singh Deo, of the 17th century, is "one of the finest examples of Hindu domestic architecture in India" (_Imperial Gazetteer of India_, 1908).

DATIVE (Lat. _dativus_, giving or given, from _dare_, to give), the name, in grammar, of the case of the "indirect object," the person or thing to or for whom or which anything is given or done. In law, the word signifies something, such as an office, which may be disposed of at will or pleasure, and is opposed to perpetual. In Scots law the term is applied to persons, duties or powers, appointed or granted by a court of law; thus an "executor-dative" is an executor appointed by the court and not by a testator. It answers, therefore, to the English administrator (q.v.). In Roman law, a _tutor_ was either _dativus_, if expressly nominated in a testament, or _optivus_, if a power of selection was given.

DATOLITE, a mineral species consisting of basic calcium and boron orthosilicate, Ca(BOH)SiO4. It was first observed by J. Esmark in 1806, and named by him from [Greek: dateisthai], "to divide," and [Greek: lithos], "stone," in allusion to the granular structure of the massive mineral. It usually occurs as well-developed glassy crystals bounded by numerous bright faces, many of which often have a more or less pentagonal outline. The crystals were for a long time considered to be orthorhombic, and indeed they approach closely to this system in habit, interfacial angles and optical orientation; humboldtite was the name given by A. Levy in 1823 to monoclinic crystals supposed to be distinct from datolite, but the two were afterwards proved to be identical. The mineral also occurs as masses with a granular to compact texture; when compact the fractured surfaces have the appearance of porcelain. A fibrous variety with a botryoidal or globular surface is known as botryolite. Datolite is white or colourless, often with a greenish tinge; it is transparent or opaque. Hardness 5-5(1/2); specific gravity 3.0.

Datolite is a mineral of secondary origin, and in its mode of occurrence it resembles the zeolites, being found with them in the amygdaloidal cavities of basic igneous rocks such as basalt; it is also found in gneiss and serpentine, and in metalliferous veins and in beds of iron ore. At Arendal in Norway, the original locality for both the crystallized and botryoidal varieties, it is found in a bed of magnetite. In amygdaloidal basaltic rocks it is found at Bishopton in Renfrewshire and near Edinburgh; and as excellent crystallized specimens at several localities in the United States, e.g. at Westfield in Massachusetts, Bergen and Paterson in New Jersey, and in the copper-mining region of Lake Superior. At St Andreasberg in the Harz it occurs both in diabase and in the veins of silver ore. Fine specimens have recently been obtained from Tasmania.

Large crystals of datolite completely altered to chalcedony were formerly found with magnetite in the Haytor iron mine on Dartmoor in Devonshire; to these pseudomorphs the name haytorite has been applied. (L. J. S.)

DAUB, KARL (1765-1836), German Protestant theologian, was born at Cassel on the 20th of March 1765. He studied philosophy, philology and theology at Marburg in 1786, and eventually (1795) became professor ordinarius of theology at Heidelberg, where he died on the 22nd of November 1836. Daub was one of the leaders of a school which sought to reconcile theology and philosophy, and to bring about a speculative reconstruction of orthodox dogma. In the course of his intellectual development, he came successively under the influence of Kant, Schelling and Hegel, and on account of the different phases through which he passed he was called the Talleyrand of German thought. There was one great defect in his speculative theology: he ignored historical criticism. His purpose was, as Otto Pfleiderer says, "to connect the metaphysical ideas, which had been arrived at by means of philosophical dialectic, directly with the persons and events of the Gospel narratives, thus raising these above the region of ordinary experience into that of the supernatural, and regarding the most absurd assertions as philosophically justified. Daub had become so hopelessly addicted to this perverse principle that he deduced not only Jesus as the embodiment of the philosophical idea of the union of God and man, but also Judas Iscariot as the embodiment of the idea of a rival god, or Satan." The three stages in Daub's development are clearly marked in his writings. His _Lehrbuch der Katechetik_ (1801) was written under the spell of Kant. His _Theologumena_ (1806), his _Einleitung in das Studium der christl. Dogmatik_ (1810), and his _Judas Ischarioth_ (2 vols., 1816, 2nd ed., 1818), were all written in the spirit of Schelling, the last of them reflecting a change in Schelling himself from theosophy to positive philosophy. Daub's _Die dogmatische Theologie jetziger Zeit oder die Selbstsucht in der Wissenschaft des Glaubens_ (1833), and _Vorlesungen uber die Prolegomena zur Dogmatik_ (1839), are Hegelian in principle and obscure in language.

See Rosenkranz, _Erinnerungen an Karl Daub_ (1837); D. Fr. Strauss,
_Charakteristiken und Kritiken_ (2nd ed., 1844); and cf. F.
Lichtenberger, _History of German Theology_ (1889); Otto Pfleiderer,
_Development of Theology_ (1890). (M. A. C.)

DAUBENTON, LOUIS-JEAN-MARIE (1716-1800), French naturalist, was born at Montbar (Cote d'Or) on the 29th of May 1716. His father, Jean Daubenton, a notary, destined him for the church, and sent him to Paris to learn theology, but the study of medicine was more to his taste. The death of his father in 1736 set him free to follow his own inclinations, and accordingly in 1741 he graduated in medicine at Reims, and returned to his native town with the intention of practising as a physician. But about this time Buffon, also a native of Montbar, had formed the plan of bringing out a grand treatise on natural history, and in 1742 he invited Daubenton to assist him by providing the anatomical descriptions for that work. The characters of the two men were opposed in almost every respect. Buffon was violent and impatient; Daubenton, gentle and patient; Buffon was rash in his judgments, and imaginative, seeking rather to divine than to discover truths; Daubenton was cautious, and believed nothing he had not himself been able to see or ascertain. From nature each appeared to have received the qualities requisite to temper those of the other; and a more suitable coadjutor than Daubenton it would have been difficult for Buffon to obtain. In the first section of the natural history Daubenton gave descriptions and details of the dissection of 182 species of quadrupeds, thus procuring for himself a high reputation, and exciting the envy of Reaumur, who considered himself as at the head of the learned in natural history in France. A feeling of jealousy induced Buffon to dispense with the services of Daubenton in the preparation of the subsequent parts of his work, which, as a consequence, lost much in precision and scientific value. Buffon afterwards perceived and acknowledged his error, and renewed his intimacy with his former associate. The number of dissertations on natural history which Daubenton published in the memoirs of the French Academy is very great. Zoological descriptions and dissections, the comparative anatomy of recent and fossil animals, vegetable physiology, mineralogy, experiments in agriculture, and the introduction of the merino sheep into France gave active occupation to his energies; and the cabinet of natural history in Paris, of which in 1744 he was appointed keeper and demonstrator, was arranged and considerably enriched by him. From 1775 Daubenton lectured on natural history in the college of medicine, and in 1783 on rural economy at the Alfort school. He was also professor of mineralogy at the Jardin du Roi. As a lecturer he was in high repute, and to the last retained his popularity. In December 1799 he was appointed a member of the senate, but at the first meeting which he attended he fell from his seat in an apoplectic fit, and after a short illness died at Paris on the 1st of January 1800.

DAUBENY, CHARLES GILES BRIDLE (1795-1867), English chemist, botanist and geologist, was the third son of the Rev. James Daubeny, and was born at Stratton in Gloucestershire on the 11th of February 1795. In 1808 he went to Winchester, and in 1810 he was elected to a demyship at Magdalen College, Oxford, where the lectures of Dr Kidd first awakened in him a desire for the cultivation of natural science. In 1814 he graduated with second-class honours, and in the next year he obtained the prize for the Latin essay. From 1815 to 1818 he studied medicine in London and Edinburgh. He took his M.D. degree at Oxford, and was a fellow of the College of Physicians. In 1819, in the course of a tour through France, he made the volcanic district of Auvergne a special study, and his _Letters on the Volcanos of Auvergne_ were published in _The Edinburgh Journal_, 1820-21. He was elected F.R.S. in 1822. By subsequent journeys in Hungary, Transylvania, Italy, Sicily, France and Germany he extended his knowledge of volcanic phenomena; and in 1826 the results of his observations were given in a work entitled _A Description of Active and Extinct Volcanos_ (2nd ed., 1848). In common with Gay Lussac and Davy, he held subterraneous thermic disturbances to be probably due to the contact of water with metals of the alkalis and alkaline earths. In November 1822 Daubeny succeeded Dr Kidd as professor of chemistry at Oxford, and retained this post until 1855; and in 1834 he was appointed to the chair of botany, to which was subsequently attached that of rural economy. At the Oxford botanic garden he conducted numerous experiments upon the effect of changes in soil, light and the composition of the atmosphere upon vegetation. In 1830 he published in the _Philosophical Transactions_ a paper on the iodine and bromine of mineral waters. In the following year appeared his _Introduction to the Atomic Theory_, which was succeeded by a supplement in 1840, and in 1850 by a second edition. In 1831 Daubeny represented the universities of England at the first meeting of the British Association, which at his request held their next session at Oxford. In 1836 he communicated to the Association a report on the subject of mineral and thermal waters. In 1837 he visited the United States, and acquired there the materials for papers on the thermal springs and the geology of North America, read in 1838 before the Ashmolean Society and the British Association. In 1856 he became president of the latter body at its meeting at Cheltenham. In 1841 Daubeny published his _Lectures on Agriculture_; in 1857 his _Lectures on Roman Husbandry_; in 1863 _Climate: an inquiry into the causes of its differences and into its influence on Vegetable Life_; and in 1865 an _Essay on the Trees and Shrubs of the Ancients_, and a _Catalogue of the Trees and Shrubs indigenous to Greece and Italy_. His last literary work was the collection of his _Miscellanies_, published in two volumes, in 1867. In all his undertakings Daubeny was actuated by a practical spirit and a desire for the advancement of knowledge; and his personal influence on his contemporaries was in keeping with the high character of his various literary productions. He died in Oxford on the 12th of December 1867.

See Obituary by John Phillips in _Proceedings of Ashmolean Soc._,
1868.

DAUBIGNY, CHARLES FRANCOIS (1817-1878), French landscape painter, allied in several ways with the Barbizon School, was born in Paris, on the 15th of February 1817, but spent much time as a child at Valmondois, a village on the Oise to the north-west of Paris. Daubigny was the son of an artist, and most of his family were painters. He began to paint very early in life, and at the age of seventeen he took a studio of his own. Within twelve months he had saved enough to go to Italy, where he studied and painted for nearly two years; he then returned to Paris, not to leave it again until, in 1860, he took a house at Auvers on the Oise. By 1837 Daubigny had become famous as a river and landscape painter, although he had been devoting himself as well to drawing in black-and-white, to etching, wood engraving, and lithography. In 1855 his picture, "Lock at Optevoz," now in the Louvre, was purchased by the state; four years later Daubigny was created knight of the Legion of Honour, and in 1874 he was promoted to be an officer. In 1866, at the invitation of Lord, then Mr Leighton and others, he visited London, where, however, he was hurt by his now famous "Moonlight" being badly hung in the Old Royal Academy. But the personal encouragement of his admirers in England made up for the disappointment, and the sale of his picture to a Royal Academician greatly pleased him. In 1870-1871 he again visited London, and subsequently Holland, where he painted a number of river scenes with windmills. In 1874, having returned to Paris, he fell ill, and from that time until he died (on the 19th of February 1878) his work won less distinction than before. In 1904 the municipality of Auvers-sur-Oise decided to erect a bronze monument to Daubigny's memory.

Daubigny's finest pictures were painted between 1864 and 1874, and these for the most part consist of carefully completed landscapes with trees, river and a few ducks. It has curiously been said, yet with some appearance of truth, that when Daubigny liked his pictures himself he added another duck or two, so that the number of ducks often indicates greater or less artistic quality in his pictures. One of his sayings was, "The best pictures do not sell," as he frequently found his finest achievements little understood. Yet although during the latter part of his life he was considered a highly successful painter, the money value of his pictures since his death has increased nearly tenfold. Daubigny is chiefly preferred in his riverside pictures, of which he painted a great number, but although there are two large landscapes by Daubigny in the Louvre, neither is a river view. They are for that reason not so typical as many of his smaller Oise and Seine pictures.

The works of Daubigny are, like Corot's, to be found in many modern collections. His most ambitious canvases are: "Springtime" (1857), in the Louvre; "Borde de la Cure, Morvan" (1864); "Villerville sur Mer" (1864); "Moonlight" (1865); "Andresy sur Oise" (1868); and "Return of the Flock--Moonlight" (1878).

His followers and pupils were his son Karl (who sometimes painted so well that his works are occasionally mistaken for those of his father, though in few cases do they equal his father's mastery), Oudinot, Delpy and Damoye.

See Fred Henriet, _C. Daubigny et son oeuvre_ (Paris, 1878); D. Croal
Thomson, _The Barbizon School of Painters_ (London, 1890); J. W.
Mollett, _Daubigny_ (London, 1890); J. Claretie, _Peintres et
sculpteurs contemporains: Daubigny_ (Paris, 1882); Albert Wolff, _La
Capitale de l'art: Ch. Francois Daubigny_ (Paris, 1881). (D. C. T.)

DAUBREE, GABRIEL AUGUSTE (1814-1896), French geologist, was born at Metz, on the 25th of June 1814, and educated at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. At the age of twenty he had qualified as a mining engineer, and in 1838 he was appointed to take charge of the mines in the Bas-Rhin (Alsace), and subsequently to be professor of mineralogy and geology at the Faculty of Sciences, Strassburg. In 1859 he became engineer in chief of mines, and in 1861 he was appointed professor of geology at the museum of natural history in Paris and was also elected member of the Academy of Sciences. In the following year he became professor of mineralogy at the Ecole des Mines, and in 1872 director of that school. In 1880 the Geological Society of London awarded to him the Wollaston medal. His published researches date from 1841, when the origin of certain tin minerals attracted his attention; he subsequently discussed the formation of bog-iron ore, and worked out in detail the geology of the Bas-Rhin (1852). From 1857 to 1861, while engaged in engineering works connected with the springs of Plombieres, he made a series of interesting observations on thermal waters and their influence on the Roman masonry through which they made their exit. He was, however, especially distinguished for his long-continued and often dangerous experiments on the artificial production of minerals and rocks. He likewise discussed the permeability of rocks by water, and the effects of such infiltration in producing volcanic phenomena; he dealt with the subject of metamorphism, with the deformations of the earth's crust, with earthquakes, and with the composition and classification of meteorites. He died in Paris on the 29th of May 1896.

His publications were: _Etudes et experiences synthetiques sur le metamorphisme et sur la formation des roches cristallines_ (1860); _Etudes synthetiques de geologie experimentale_ (1879); _Les Eaux souterraines a l'epoque actuelle_ (2 vols., 1887); _Le Eaux souterraines aux epoques anciennes_ (1887).

DAUDET, ALPHONSE (1840-1897), French novelist, was born at Nimes on the 13th of May 1840. His family, on both sides, belonged to the _bourgeoisie_. The father, Vincent Daudet, was a silk manufacturer--a man dogged through life by misfortune and failure. The lad, amid much truancy, had but a depressing boyhood. In 1856 he left Lyons, where his schooldays had been mainly spent, and began life as an usher at Alais, in the south. The position proved to be intolerable. As Dickens declared that all through his prosperous career he was haunted in dreams by the miseries of his apprenticeship to the blacking business, so Daudet says that for months after leaving Alais he would wake with horror thinking he was still among his unruly pupils. On the 1st of November 1857 he abandoned teaching, and took refuge with his brother Ernest, only some three years his senior, who was trying, "and thereto soberly," to make a living as a journalist in Paris. Alphonse betook himself to his pen likewise,--wrote poems, shortly collected into a small volume _Les Amoureuses_ (1858), which met with a fair reception,--obtained employment on the _Figaro_, then under Cartier de Villemessant's energetic editorship, wrote two or three plays, and began to be recognized, among those interested in literature, as possessing individuality and promise. Morny, the emperor's all-powerful minister, appointed him to be one of his secretaries,--a post which he held till Morny's death in 1865,--and showed him no small kindness. He had put his foot on the road to fortune.

In 1866 appeared _Lettres de mon moulin_, which won the attention of many readers. The first of his longer books, _Le petit chose_ (1868), did not, however, produce any very popular sensation. It is, in its main feature, the story of his own earlier years told with much grace and pathos. The year 1872 produced the famous _Aventures prodigieuses de Tartarin de Tarascon_, and the three-act piece _L'Arlesienne_. But _Fromont jeune et Risler aine_ (1874) at once took the world by storm. It struck a note, not new certainly in English literature, but comparatively new in French. Here was a writer who possessed the gift of laughter and tears, a writer not only sensible to pathos and sorrow, but also to moral beauty. He could create too. His characters were real and also typical; the _rates_, the men who in life's battle had flashed in the pan, were touched with a master hand. The book was alive. It gave the illusion of a real world. _Jack_, the story of an illegitimate child, a martyr to his mother's selfishness, which followed in 1876, served only to deepen the same impression. Henceforward his career was that of a very successful man of letters,--publishing novel on novel, _Le Nabab_ (1877), _Les Rois en exil_ (1879), _Numa Roumestan_ (1881), _Sapho_ (1884), _L'Immortel_ (1888),--and writing for the stage at frequent intervals,--giving to the world his reminiscences in _Trente ans de Paris_ (1887), and _Souvenirs d'un homme de lettres_ (1888). These, with the three _Tartarins_,--Tartarin the mighty hunter, Tartarin the mountaineer, Tartarin the colonist,--and the admirable short stories, written for the most part before he had acquired fame and fortune, constitute his life work.

Though Daudet defended himself from the charge of imitating Dickens, it is difficult altogether to believe that so many similarities of spirit and manner were quite unsought. What, however, was purely his own was his style. It is a style that may rightly be called "_impressionist_," full of light and colour, not descriptive after the old fashion, but flashing its intended effect by a masterly juxtaposition of words that are like pigments. Nor does it convey, like the style of the Goncourts, for example, a constant feeling of effort. It is full of felicity and charm,--_un charmeur_ Zola has called him. An intimate friend of Edmond de Goncourt (who died in his house), of Flaubert, of Zola, Daudet belonged essentially to the naturalist school of fiction. His own experiences, his surroundings, the men with whom he had been brought into contact, various persons who had played a part, more or less public, in Paris life--all passed into his art. But he vivified the material supplied by his memory. His world has the great gift of life. _L'Immortel_ is a bitter attack on the French Academy, to which august body Daudet never belonged.

Daudet wrote some charming stories for children, among which may be mentioned _La Belle Nivernaise_, the story of an old boat and her crew. His married life--he married in 1867 Julia Allard--seems to have been singularly happy. There was perfect intellectual harmony, and Madame Daudet herself possessed much of his literary gift; she is known by her _Impressions de nature et d'art_ (1879), _L'Enfance d'une Parisienne_ (1883), and by some literary studies written under the pseudonym of Karl Steen. In his later years Daudet suffered from insomnia, failure of health and consequent use of chloral. He died in Paris on the 17th of December 1897.

The story of Daudet's earlier years is told in his brother Ernest
Daudet's _Mon frere et moi_. There is a good deal of autobiographical
detail in Daudet's _Trente ans de Paris_ and _Souvenirs d'un homme de
lettres_, and also scattered in his other books. The references to him
in the _Journal des Goncourt_ are numerous. See also L. A. Daudet,
_Alphonse Daudet_ (1898), and biographical and critical essays by R.
H. Sherard (1894); by A. Gerstmann (1883); by B. Diederich (1900); by
A. Hermant (1903), and a bibliography by J. Brivois (1895); also _The
Works of Alphonse Daudet_, translated by L. Ensor, H. Frith, E. Bartow
(1902, etc.). Criticism of Daudet is also to be found in F.
Brunetiere, _Le Roman naturaliste_ (new ed., 1897); J. Lemaitre, _Les
Contemporains_ (vols. ii. and iv.); G. Pellissier, _Le Mouvement
litteraire au XIX^e siecle_ (1890); A. Symons, _Studies in Prose and
Verse_ (1904). (F. T. M.)