DARTMOUTH 



DARWIN 



C83 



of die granite. The largest china-clay works in 

 England are at Lee Moor, and are connected by 

 a naniway with wharves at Plymouth. 



The fauna ami flora, of Dartmoor have many 

 points of interest. Trees are very rare; but there 

 is a very singular group of gnarled and stunted 

 oaks on a slope overlooking the West Dart, near 

 Croekerii Tor, of high antiquity and weird asj.e.-t, 

 whirh has IM-CII called one of the ' wonders 01 the 

 moor' 'Wistman's Wood.' 



The chief rivers rise at a height of over 1800 feet 

 aliove the sea, in a wide stretch of peat-bog around 

 Cianiuere Pool -the Dart, Teign, Taw, Okement, 

 Lyd, Tavy, and Walkham. From the morasses of 

 the southern quarter spring the Plym, Yealm, 

 Ernie, and Avon. 



Dartmoor is unrivalled in England in the extent 

 and character of its prehistoric and rude stone an- 

 tiquities earthworks, barrows, kistvaens, men- 

 hirs, lines or avenues, cyclopean bridges, circles, 

 cromlechs, trackways, and pounds or inclosures 

 of stones, sometimes coutaining the remains of 

 villages. Many stone implements have been found. 

 On several of the tors there are rock basins, formerly 

 called Druidical, but now assigned to the operation 

 of natural causes. 



The chief centre of population is Prince Town, 

 named after George IV. when Prince Regent. 

 Here a prison was built ( 1806) during the war with 

 Napoleon, for the reception of prisoners of war. 

 When the war ended it was abandoned, and was at 

 one time used for the manufacture of naphtha from 

 peat, which failed, as all attempts to utilise the 

 Dartmoor peat l>eyond the supply of local wants 

 have done. In 1855 the buildings "were adapted to 

 their present purpose of a convict prison. Attached 

 is a fertile reclaimed farm. A very picturesque 

 railway runs to Prince Town. See Rowe's Peram- 

 bnll',nn of hnrlntnni- ( 1856 ; 3d ed. 1896). 



Dartmouth, a seaport and municipal borough 

 (till 1867 also parliamentary) in the south of 

 Devonshire, 32 miles S. by VV. of Exeter. It is 

 built in picturesque terraces on a steep slope 300 

 to 400 feet high, on the right bank of the romantic 

 estuary of the river Dart, at a short distance from 

 the sea. The streets are narrow', and many of 

 the houses very old, with overhanging stories, pro- 

 jecting gables, and wood-carvings. St Saviour's 

 Church (circa 1372) has a richly sculptured, 

 painted, and gilt stone pulpit, ami a beautifully 

 carved rood-loft. A battery, and the remains 

 of a castle built during the reign of Henry VII., 

 stand at the entrance to the harlwur. Pop. (1891) 

 6038. Dartmouth is a quarantine port of the Eng- 

 lish Channel, and has a considerable trade with the 

 Mediterranean, and in the Newfoundland fisheries. 

 It is the port of departure of the ' Castle ' line of 

 mail steamers to South Africa, and a favourite 

 yachting station the harlmur Iteingdeep and land- 

 locked. At Dartmouth, in 1190, the Crusaders, 

 under Richard Cu;ur-de-Lion, embarked for the 

 Holy Land. The French burned it in Richard's 

 reign, but were repulsed, chierly by the women, in 

 an attack in 1404. In 1346 Dartmouth furnished 

 31 ships for the siege of Calais. In 1643 Prince 

 Maurice besieged and garrisoned it; but in 1646 

 Fairfax stormed and took it. Newcomen, the in- 

 ventor of the steam engine, was born here ; Sir 

 Humphrey Gillert was born at Greenway, on the 

 opposite side of the Dart ; and another great 

 Elizabethan worthy, -John Davis, at Sand ridge. 



Darn. PIERRE ANTOINE, COMTE, a French 

 writer and financier, was born at Montpellier, 12th 

 January 1767. At sixteen he entered the army, and 

 rose rapidly, but was flung into prison during the 

 Terror, where he amused himself by translating 

 Horace. Under Napoleon he was Intendant- 



general in An-tria and Pruwin, and a councillor 

 of state, while in I sis Louis XVI II. made him a 

 peer. Thenceforth In- devoted himself e\r|iihivc|y 

 to letters. He died a member of the Institute anil 

 of the Academy of Sciences, 5th September 

 Of bin many lxoks the chief are Cleotttdie. ( 1800), a 

 spirited IMHHII ; Hwtoire tie la RepuMi^ne de Venue 

 (< vols. 1819-21); and Uuitoire de la lirrtayne (3 

 vols. 1820). His son, NAPOU0NI DARU (1807-90), 

 opposed the coup d'etat, and wan prottcribed ; but 

 became a member of the National Assembly in 

 1871, of the senate in 1876. 



DurWOZ. See BOKHARA. 



Darwen, a municipal borough of I,anca*hire, 

 on the river Darwen, 3J miles S. of Blackburn, and 

 9 N. of I'.olton. Cotton is the staple manufacture ; 

 then come paper-making and paper-staining ; and 

 to these anu other industries, \\ith its water facili- 

 ties, and the neighbouring coal-mines and stone 

 quarries, Darwen owes its rapid growth and its 

 well-l>eing. It was incorporated iu 1878. Chief 

 buildings are the free library, market hall, co-oj>era- 

 tive hall, and the public baths, erected in memory 

 of Sir Robert Peel. Pop. (1851) 7020; (1881) 

 29,744 ; ( 189J ) 34, 192. See History by Shaw ( 1891). 



Darwin, CHARLES ROBERT, naturalist, the 

 discoverer of the principle of natural selection, 

 was born at Shrewsbury, February 12, 1809. His 

 grandfather was Dr Erasmus Darwin, am! his father 

 Dr Robert W. Darwin, F.R.S. His mother was a 

 daughter of Josiah Wedgwood, the celebrated pot ter. 

 Darwin was educated at Shrewsbury grammar- 

 school, studied at Edinburgh University for two 

 sessions in 1825-6-7, and entered at Christ's College, 

 Cambridge, in 1828. Already at Edinburgh he had 

 become a member of the local Plinian Society ; he 

 took part in its natural history excursions, and read 

 before it his first scientific paper a new contribu- 

 tion to our knowledge of the Flustra or sea-mats. 

 It was at Cambridge, however, that his biological 

 studies seriously began. Here he became ac- 

 quainted with Professor Henslow, the well-known 

 botanist, who encouraged his interest in botany and 

 zoology. His chief taste at this time was for 

 geological research. In 1831 he took his degree of 

 B.A., and shortly after was recommended by 

 Henslow as naturalist to the expedition of H.M.S. 

 Beagle, under Captain (afterwards Admiral) Fitz- 

 roy, R.N., then about to start for a scientific 

 survey of South American waters. He sailed on 

 December 27, 1831, and did not return to England 

 from his long cruise till October 2, 1836. Mean- 

 while he visited Teneriffe, the Cape de Verde 

 Islands, the Brazilian coast, Mont* Video, Tierra 

 del Fuego, Buenos Ayres, Valparaiso, and the 

 Chilian region, the Galapagos Archiix?lago, Tahiti, 

 New Zealand, Tasmania, and the Keeling Islands, 

 in which last he laid the foundation for his famous 

 theory of coral reefs. It was during this long 

 expedition that Darwin obtained that intimate 

 knowledge of the fauna, flora, and geological con- 

 ditions of many tropical, subtropical, and tem- 

 perate climates which so admirably equipped him 

 at last for the great task he was afterwards to per- 

 form in settling the factors of biological evolution. 



On his return to England in 1836, lie set to work to 

 co-ordinate the results obtained during his voyage. 

 He formed the friendship of Sir Charles Lyefl and 

 other scientific leaders, by whose aid he was ap- 

 pointed secretary of the Geological Society \\\ \- - 

 A year later, he was elected to the fellowship of the 

 1 loyal Society, and early in 1839 he married his 

 cousin, Miss Wedgwood. In the same year he pub- 

 lished his Journal of Researches into' the Geology 

 ninl .\ntiiral History of the various Countries visited 

 by H.M.S. Beagle. From 1840 to 1843 Darwin was 

 occupied with the publication oi the Zoology of tht 



