652 



DAGGER 



DAHLIA 



, a weapon resembling a sword, but 

 considerably smaller, being used for stabbing at 



weapon given 

 moralities. 



Dagliestan ('mountain- land'), a triangular 

 territory of Ciscaucasia, between the Caucasus 

 and the west coast of the Caspian Sea. Area, 

 11,425 sq. m. ; pop. (1895) 610,000. The surface 

 is generally mountainous, being; traversed by 

 offsets from the Caucasus ; the level tracts are 

 chiefly near the coast, and here and in the valleys 

 the land is very fertile. The country is well 

 watered, the climate generally mild in the low- 

 lands, and dry, except along the coast, where the 

 rainfall is considerable. In the highlands large 

 flocks of sheep are herded. The chief town is 

 Derbend (q.v.). See CAUCASUS, and SHAMYL ; 

 also Cunynghame's Daghestan ( 1872). 



DagO, an island near the entrance of the Gulf 

 of Finland, forming part of the Russian govern- 

 ment of Esthonia, and separated by the narrow 

 channel called Sele-sund from the island of Oesel 

 on the south. Area, 367 sq. m. ; pop. 15,000, of 

 whom one-third are Swedes and Germans. The 

 coast is rugged, and the soil fertile only in the south 

 and south-west ; inland there are large forests and 

 swamps ( 54 sq. m. ). 



Dagoba, the common name in Ceylon for a 

 Buddhist tope. See TOPE. 



Dagobert was the name of several of the 

 Merovingian kings of France, the first of the name 

 reigning from 631 to 638. See FRANCE. 



Dagon, the national god of the Philistines, 

 half-man, half-fish, is mentioned in the Old Testa- 

 ment as having temples at Gaza and Ashdod. 

 Several names of places prove that the worship of 

 Dagon existed also in other parts of Palestine. It 

 seems to have come to Canaan from Babylonia, the 

 Assyrian monuments presenting a figure with the 

 body of a man and the tail of a fish, and the cunei- 

 form inscriptions containing the name of a god 

 Da/can or Dagan, which is probably identical with 

 Dagon. Baudissin favours the old derivation of 

 the name from dag ('fish"), with the formative 

 syllable -on. Dagon and the fish-goddess Derketo 

 or Atargatis probably answered to each other as 

 male and female water- deities. 



of the photo- 

 coated with 



silver by the successive action of the vapours of 

 iodine, bromine, and mercury. Louis Daguerre, 

 after whom the invention is named, was born in 

 Normandy in 1789, was a scene-painter in Paris, 

 made a famous diorama in 1822, and devoted the 

 rest of his life mainly to perfecting the processes 

 of photography, from 1826 till 1833 in conjunction 

 with M. Niepce. He wrote two works on the 

 subject, and died in the neighbourhood of Paris, 

 12th July 1851. The history of the invention is 

 given at PHOTOGRAPHY. 



Dahabeeall, a boat used by voyagers on the 

 Nile, which varies in size, has one or two masts, 

 and accommodation for from two to eight passen- 



fers, including a raised cabin on the after-deck, 

 'he boat sails, is rowed, or is dragged by ropes, 

 according to circumstances. 



Dahl, JOHANN CHRISTIAN CLAUSEN, a Nor- 

 wegian landscape-painter (1788-1857), who from 

 1821 onward was professor of Painting at Dresden. 

 Dahlak, a group of three islands, with many 

 smaller rocks, in the Red Sea, off the Bay of 

 Massowah. They were famous in Roman times 

 for their pearl-fisheries, but the beds have long 

 since been exhausted and abandoned. The inhab- 



Daguerreotype is the name of 

 graphs fixed on a pTate of copper thinly 



itants number about 1500, are under the rule of a 

 sheik holding authority from Egypt, and carry on 

 a trade with the Arabian coast. 



Dahlgren, KARL FREDRIK, Swedish poet and 

 humorist, born at Stensbruk in Ostergotland, 

 20th June 1791, studied at Upsala, and acted from 

 1815 as preacher at Stockholm, where he died, 2d 

 May 1844. As a writer he made his debut in 

 Atterbom's Phosphorus, and afterwards published 

 novels, humorous tales, poems, and dramas. His 

 works fill 5 vols. (1847-52). 



Dahlgren Gun is so called after John Adolph 

 Dahlgren ( 1809-70 ), an officer in the United States 

 navy, by whom it was introduced in 1850. It is 

 a muzzle-loading, cast-iron, smooth-bore gun, with 

 great thickness of metal at the breech. Many 

 Dahlgren guns are still in the United States 

 service. In 1883 six of 10-inch calibre and muzzle- 

 loaders were converted into 8-inch breech-loading 

 rifle guns, by lining and strengthening them with 

 wrought-iron coils. 



Dahlia (Dahlia Georqina] after Dahl, a 

 Swedish botanist, and pupil of Linnaeus a genus 

 of large perennial composites (sub-order Tubuli- 

 florse, family Asteroideae ). It was first brought 

 from the botanic garden of Mexico to that of 

 Madrid in 1784, whence it reached England in 



Dahlia : 

 A, single ; B, double varieties. 



1789, and France in 1802, while in 1804 Humboldt 

 sent a fresh supply of seed to Berlin. Its extra- 

 ordinary variability soon attracted the attention of 

 florists, who brought to bear on it all the resources 

 of selection and crossing, with so much success 

 that by about the middle of the present century no 

 fewer that 2000 varieties had been described, all 

 from D. variabilis or D. coccinea or their hybrids, 

 and chiefly from the first named. For a long time 

 only ' double ' dahlias were cultivated, but of late 

 years the single dahlia, in which the florets of the 

 disc remain tubular, has again come into fashion ; 

 while among double dahlias the less regular cactus 

 dahlia is highly esteemed. They are easily culti- 

 vated, and propagated by seeds, cuttings, or tubers ; 

 but the tubers require to be taken up and stored in 

 a dry place out of the reach of frost. They flower 

 luxuriantly in autumn, until cut off by the first 

 frosts. On account of the quantity of inulin 

 in their tubers, they are cultivated for food in 

 Mexico, but similar attempts in Europe have failed 



