DECLARATION 



DECJJ NATION NEEDLE 725 



Declaration, in lieu of an oath. See AXKIR- 



MVIION, U\TII. In tin- United States, the form 

 of an ii.-nii is i in mat t-i i;il, jiMiM. Ifil it ! Htich as 

 the \\itn.'-- lii-lii-M- is binding ujion bin ciin-riein-e. 

 It is fssfiiti.il that the oath, declaration, or utlir- 

 mation In- administered in a manner prescribed by 

 law. Mere tfcluiicul variations do not all'ect the 

 \.-ih. lii\ ..i .in oatli, and verltal deviations are iru- 

 mateiial. Perjury may be committed although the 

 person \\as improperly sworn. No person will lie 

 permitted to maKe a declaration or allirmation 

 unless hf has conscientious scruples against swear- 

 ing or taking an oath. Declaration in lieu of 

 an oath or aHirmatiun is becoming very general 

 throughout the United States. 



Declaration, DYING. The rule that second- 

 ary or hearsay evidence is inadmissible nutters an 

 exception, both in England and Scotland, in the 

 case of a declaration made by a person convinced 

 of his impending death, and who does not survive 

 the trial of the accused. In cases of murder, the 

 dying declaration of the victim as to the circum- 

 stances of the crime is always admitted as evidence 

 on the trial of the prisoner, provided that it was 

 deliberately emitted while the deceased was in 

 possession of his faculties, and that it is proved by 

 credible witnesses. In Scotland, the dying declara- 

 tion of a witness is admissible even though he is 

 not himself conscious of the danger of death, and 

 in the United States a declaration is frequently 

 admitted, l>oth in civil and in criminal cases, as 

 primary evidence, without regard to the immediate 

 apprehensions of death. In the same country, 

 declarations are also admitted as secondary 

 evidence under circumstances in which the declar- 

 ant is either actually or presumed to be dead. The 

 principle under which the dying declaration is 

 admitted is that the awful situation of the dying 

 person is as powerful over his conscience as the 

 obligation of an oath, and does away with all motive 

 to disguise the truth. Accordingly the person 

 against whom a dying declaration is put in evidence 

 may be allowed to show that the deceased was not 

 of such a character as to feel the religious obliga- 

 tion of his situation. A dying declaration may be 

 adduced for as well as against a person accused of 

 crime ; and there are cases on record in which 

 persons charged with murder have l>een success- 

 fully exculpated by this kind of evidence. 



Declaration of Rights. See KIGHTS. 



Declar'ator, a form of action in Scotland. 

 See ACTION. 



Declension, a grammatical term applied bv 

 the ancient grammarians to the system of modi- 

 fications called cases, which in many languages 

 nouns, pronouns, and adjectives undergo to indi- 

 cate the various relations in which thev stand to 

 other words. The word Case means ' falling ; ' De- 

 clension, a ' sloping down ; ' and were applied because 

 that form of a noun used as the subject of a sen- 

 tence was supposed to be represented by an upright 

 line, and the other forms by lines falling or sloping 

 off from this upright line at different angles. Hence 

 a collection of the various forms which a noun 

 might assume formed the declension or slufiiinj 

 down of the noun. The English language has no 

 proper declensions at all, having no cases but the 

 genitive, and some traces of a dative, while it has 

 no genders save in the pronouns of the third jw>rson. 

 The Sanskrit language again had eight cases ; Latin, 

 six ; and Greek, five. Groups of nouns forming 

 their case-endings in the same way are called de- 

 clensions. Thus Latin nouns are said to be dividd 

 into five declensions. The Latin cases are the 

 Nominative, which names the subject or actor ; the 

 Genitive, expressing the source whence something 

 proceeds, or to which it belongs ; the Dative, that 



to which something in given, or for which it Udone; 

 the Accusative, tin- object toward* which an action 

 is directed ; the Vocative, tin- person addreMM-d or 

 ailed ; and the Ablative, that from which - 

 thing in taken. The Greek ha* no Ablative CAM, 

 while the two additional case* of Sanskrit are an 

 Iiistiiiinental case, and a Locative cane. In time 

 case-endings liecome rubbed off, and preposition* 

 are used in their stead, thus French and Italian 

 have lost all the Latin cases of nouns arid adjec- 

 tives. Languages of the agglutinating order have, 

 in general, a great abundance of cases. Thus 

 Finnish nouns nave fifteen cases ; and in Magyar 

 as many as twenty cases may be reckoned. See 

 GRAMMAR and PHILOLOGY. 



Declination. If a great circle be drawn 

 through the pole of the neavens and any star, 

 the declination of the star is the portion of the 

 circle intercepted between the star and the equator 

 (see POLE). The place of a point in the heavens is 

 determined by its right ascension and declination, 

 just as a point in the earth's surface is determined 

 by its latitude and longitude. 



Declination Needle, or DECLINOMETER. 

 The magnetic meridian passing through any place 

 on the earth's surface is a vertical plane whose 

 direction is that in which a magnetic needle, free 

 to move about a vertical axis, comes to rest under 

 the influence of the earth's magnetic force. In 

 general, the magnetic and geographical (or astro- 

 nomical ) meridians are not coincident ; the angle 

 between is termed the magnetic declination, or 



(in nautical phraseology) the variation. It is east 

 or west, according as tlie magnetic is east or west 

 of the geographical meridian. Any apparatus for 

 the measurement of this angle is termed a declin- 

 ometer, and consists essentially of a means of ascer- 

 taining the two necessary elements viz. the direc- 

 tions, at the place of observation, of the two 

 meridians. The accomimnying figure represents 

 one such instrument, tne declination needle or 

 compass. I'pon a tritiod, provided with levelling 

 screws, stands the pillar P, to which is fixed the 

 graduated circle CC. The compaas-hox B. with the 

 attached vernier V, moves on the azimuthal circle 

 by mean- of a pivot on the pillar P. Two upright.-. 

 l',r, are lived to the side of the compass- box, on 

 the tops of which rest* the axis of the telescope T.' 

 A graduated arc, A, is fixed to the tint torn of one of 

 the uprights, and the angle of elevation of the 

 telescope is marked by the vernier on the arm , 



