DANUBE 



DANZIG 



wide stream, through a district fertile indeed, 

 but solitary and poorly cultivated, constantly 

 broadening into a lake, or overspreading its banks 

 with swamps. It drains the country between the 

 Transylvanian mountains and the Balkans, form- 

 ing the northern boundary of Bulgaria as far as 

 Silistria ; and from here it turns northward, skirt- 

 ing the Dobruja, and flows between marshy banks 

 to Galatz, receiving on the way the Jalomit'za and 

 the Sereth. From Galatz it flows E., and, after 

 being joined by the Pruth from the N., SE. to the 

 Black Sea. The delta, which begins 5 miles W. of 

 Tuldja, is a vast wilderness, covering an area of 

 1000 sq. m., and resembling an immense green sea 

 of rushes ; it is cut up by numerous channels and 

 lakes, and is the haunt of sea-birds, wolves, and 

 buffaloes. The farthest mouths are 60 miles apart. 

 Two-thirds of the Danube's volume passes through 

 the Kilia, but this arm forms a secondary delta 

 near its outlet, and the southern or St George 

 branch also forms two channels ; it is consequently 

 by the middle or Sulina mouth that ships enter, 

 although it discharges only ^V of the river s waters. 

 The improvements (1858-95) of this mouth have 

 increased the depth over the bar from 7 or 11 feet 

 (according to the season) to a minimum depth of 

 23 feet. And cuttings (1890-94) have shortened 

 the course of the Sulina branch by six nautical 

 miles. To defend Vienna against risk of inun- 

 dation, the course of the Danube skirting it was, in 

 1868-81, diverted into an artificial channel, and the 

 bed has since been improved, above and below the 

 city, from the mouth of the Isper to that of the 

 March. Similar works have been carried out near 

 Pesth, and a new channel, cut at vast expense, to 

 avoid the impediments to navigation at the Iron 

 Gate, \vasopened in 1893. Until then any effectual 

 improvements of that passage had never advanced 

 beyond the stage of projects, while throughout 

 Hungary and along the lower course inundations 

 had caused great damage. The operations were 

 actually begun by the Hungarian government in 

 1890. A great steel cantilever railway bridge 

 across the Danube at Tchernavoda in Roumania 

 (with its approaches, 11, 800 yards long) was opened 

 in 1895. It partly rests on the island of Balta. 

 The Danube has about 400 tributaries, 100 of them 

 navigable, and the Danube Steam Navigation 

 Company (1830), which has done much to increase 

 the commerce, possesses nearly 200 steamers and 

 over 700 iron tow-boats ; other companies also have 

 placed steamers on the upper portions of the river. 

 Nevertheless, owing to the obstructions and to the 

 shifting course of the stream, the tonnage of the 

 Danube trade is inferior to that of the Elbe. The 

 Danube is connected with the Rhine by means of 

 the Ludwigs- Canal (1844), and with the Elbe by 

 means of the Moldau and Miihl, and canals. 



THE INTERNATIONAL DANUBE NAVIGATION 

 COMMISSION was constituted in 1856, when at the 

 Peace of Paris the navigation of the river was 

 declared free to all nations, and was composed of 

 delegates of all the great powers, to whom a re- 

 presentative of Roumania has been added since 

 1878. It was appointed on the express condition 

 that it should dissolve in 1858, but such was its 

 usefulness that it was informally continued till 

 1866, when the Conference of Paris formally pro- 

 longed its powers for five years. In 1871 the Con- 

 ference of London continued the Commission for 

 twelve years, and in 1883 a second London con- 

 ference extended its existence for other twenty-one 

 years. It exercises almost sovereign power on the 

 mouths of the Danube, where it has conducted the 

 great engineering works already referred to ; it has 

 its own flag, uniform, and revenue, and has raised 

 loans, made laws, and maintained its own small 

 army of police. Its jurisdiction, originally limited 



to the river between Isaktcha and the sea, was 

 extended at the Congress of Berlin ( 1878) as far as 

 Galatz, and afterwards to the Iron Gate ; but in 

 the last-named portion of the stream its authority 

 is exercised only by delegation to the Riverain 

 Commission of the states on the bank (also con- 

 stituted in 1856), or on appeal from its decisions. 



Danubian Principalities, a name applied 

 to Moldavia and Wallacnia. See ROUMANIA. 



Danvers, a post-village of Essex county, 

 Massachusetts, 4 miles NW. of Salem, with 

 manufactures of shoes, carpets, bricks, &c. It is 

 the seat of a state asylum for the insane. Pea- 

 body, 3 miles to the south, was formerly South 

 Danvers. Pop. (1885) 7048 ; (1890) 7454. 



Danville, (1) capital of Vermilion county, 

 Illinois, on the Vermilion River, 132 miles S. of 

 Chicago by rail. It is an important railway junc- 

 tion, and contains railway-shops, besides a number 

 of steam-mills and foundries, and organ and chair 

 factories. Bituminous coal is mined near by. 

 Pop. (1890) 11,491. (2) Capital of Montour county, 

 Pennsylvania, on the north branch of the Susque- 

 hanria, 68 miles N. by E. of Harrisburg by rail. 

 The place was tirst settled in 1768, and the Penn- 

 sylvania Ironworks here is the oldest establishment 

 in the United States for the manufacture of rail- 

 road iron. There are also numerous blast-furnaces, 

 foundries, and rolling-mills, and the annual value 

 of the iron forged and rolled here has sometimes 

 reached $5,000,000. Pop. 9073. (3) A flourishing 

 town of Virginia, on the Dan River, here spanned 

 by an iron bridge, 141 miles SW. of Richmond by 

 rail, with a female college, large cotton and other 

 mills, and a very important trade in tobacco. Pop. 

 (1880) 7526 ; (1890) 10,305, with suburbs, 15,000. 



D'Anville, JEAN BAPTISTE BOURGUIGNON, a 

 geographer and map-maker, was born at Paris, 

 llth July 1697, ana devoted himself to mathe- 

 matical and geographical studies with such zeal 

 and success that in 1719 he was appointed geo- 

 grapher to the king. He died 28th January 1782. 

 He published in all 211 maps; the most notable 

 collections were the Atlas Giniral (1737-80), and 

 the Atlas Antiques Major, with its accompanying 

 three volumes of Geographic Ancienne ( 1769). 



Danzig (Polish Gdansk), an important seaport 

 and capital of West Prussia, and fortress of the 

 first rank, is situated on the left bank of the, 

 western branch of the Vistula, 284 miles NE. of 

 Berlin by rail, and about 4 miles from the river's 

 mouth in the shallow Gulf of Danzig, an inlet of 

 the Baltic. Danzig was an important town in the 

 10th century, and its possession was contended for 

 by Danes, Pomeranians, Prussians, Brandenburgers, 

 Poles, and the Teutonic Knights, the last of whom 

 held it from 1308 to 1454, when it became a free 

 city under Poland. In 1793 it fell to Prussia, in 

 whose hands, except during the years 1807-1814, 

 when it existed as a separate dukedom under 

 Napoleonic rule, it has since continued. It is 

 surrounded by a wall with twenty bastions, and by 

 wet ditches, and possesses works for laying the 

 surrounding country under water on three sides ; 

 its works are strengthened by outlying forts, and 

 a chain of batteries extends to the mouth of the 

 rivei-. The city is traversed by the Motlau and 

 Radaune, tributaries of the Vistula, the former of 

 which has been deepened to 15 feet, and admits 

 vessels up to the Speicherinsel, an island forming 

 one of the quarters of the town, retained for the 

 storage of grain. The principal port, however, is 

 at the mouth of the Vistula, below the sand-bars 

 across it. Many of the streets are narrow and 

 crooked, but the Langgasse, intersecting it from 

 east to west, presents a most picturesque appear- 

 ance, with its lofty gable houses of the 16th 



