DECORATION DAY 



DKI-: 



727 



ornament- became iclined, JIM, for instance, the dog 

 tooth \\a-~ enriched into u four leaved tlower, uml 

 the ball-flower is &bo of frequent use. BqgMWtel 

 aivho ami square lintels are occasionally employed. 

 In tin- beginning of the 15th century tin- Decorated 

 gradualU passed into the Perpendicular style. 



Decoration Day, or Memorial Day, in 



tlie United States, is u day set apart, on which day 

 the Craves of soldiers are visited, and decorated with 

 lloNM-r- lv surviving comrades and friends. 



Decorations. See OKDKKS, MKDAL. 



Decort, FRANS, a Flemish lyrical |x>et, born at 

 Antwerp, 21st June 1834. At first he was engaged 

 in trade, later he edited newspapers, was secre- 

 tary to a steamship company, and hecame in 1861 

 secretary to the general auditor in the Cour 

 Militaire at Brussels, where he died, 18th January 

 1878. Decort's poetry deals mainly with the 

 .Minnie JOYS and sorrows of the family hearth, but 

 it docs not lack passion and power. For some 

 years he issued at Antwerp a very popular alma- 

 nac, Jan en Alteinan. Various collections of his 

 poems were Liederen (2 vols. 1857-59), Zinnzang 

 ( istiti), and Liederen ( 1868). In 1862 he published 

 a line Flemish translation of some of Burns 's songs. 



Decoy. See WILD FOWL. 



Decoying of Children. See ABDUCTION, 

 KIDNAPPING. 



Decree, or, as it is frequently called in Scot- 

 land, a Decreet, is a final judgment of a court, 

 whereby the question at issue is set at rest. In 

 England, it used to be commonly applied to the 

 final judgments of courts of equity. Tor a decree 

 nisi, see DIVORCE. Decree in absence, in Scotland, 

 is equivalent to a judgment by default in a common- 

 law court. 



In the United States, a decree is the order or 

 judgment of a court of equity, admiralty, or a 

 common-law court with equity powers. It may 

 he either final or interlocutory, and is conclusive 

 if all parties in interest have been served with 

 proper notice. It cannot l>e set aside by an act 

 of congress or the state legislature. By the 

 United States Constitution, the decrees of a com- 

 petent court having full jurisdiction in one state 

 are equally binding in every other state, and must 

 be received in evidence in all the courts of the 

 United States. 



Decree, in Theology. See PREDESTINATION. 



Decrepitation is the term applied to the 

 crackling sound heard when a suostance like 

 common salt is thrown upon a fire. A series of 

 niiiiii 1 ' 1 explosions occur, owing to the water 

 between the plates of the crystalline particles 

 becoming expanded by the heat, and ultimately 

 bursting them. 



Decrescent, a heraldic term by which the 

 wane of the moon is indicated. A moon decrescent 

 is a half moon with her horns turned to the 

 (heraldic) sinister i.e. the right of the spectator. 



Decretals, collections of the Canon Law 

 (q.v.). 



Dedication. See BOOK, PATRON. 



Deduction, i Logic, as opposed to Induction 

 (q.v.), is the method of reasoning from generals to 

 particulars, as the latter is from particulars to 

 generals. Induction is the mode by which all the 

 materials of knowledge are brought to the mind and 

 analysed ; Deduction, the process by which the 

 knowledge thus acquired is utilised, and by which 

 new and more complicated inductions are rendered 

 possible. Thus every step in a deduction is also an 

 induction. See INDUCTION, LOGIC. 



Dec, ft Welsh and English river, issuing from 

 Bala Lake, in Merionethshire, and flowing NE., 



N., and N\V. to the Irish Sea. Near Trevor it w 

 crossed by the Ellexmere Canal, on an aqueduct 

 1007 feet long and 120 high ; and al*o by the 

 stone viaduct of the Cheater and Shrewsbury Kail- 

 way, of 19 arches, each 90 feet Hpan and IfiO 

 high. Below Trevor it winds first Mouth-cant, and 

 then north-east and north to Cheater, which city it 

 nearly encircles. At Chester (q.v.) it is 100 yards 

 broful. and thence runs alongside marshes in an 

 artificial tidal canal 7 miles long, which should 

 admit -liip- of 600 tons, but which in the autumn 

 of 1888 was reported to lie rapidly silting up. 

 Near Connah'h Quay, between Chester and Flint, 

 where it- width is 160 yards, it is cm- MM I by the 

 great railway swing-bridge, whose first cylinder 

 was laid by Mr Gladstone on 16th August 1887. 

 The Dee ends in the Irish Sea, in a tidal estuary 13 

 miles long and 3 to 6 broad, and forming at high- 

 water a noble arm of the sea ; but at low- water a 

 drearj- M-aste of sand and ooze ( Kingsley's ' sands 

 of Dee ), with the river flowing through it in a 

 narrow stream. Its whole course is 90 miles long, 

 and its chief tributaries are the Trevcryn, Alwen, 

 Ceirog, Clvweddog, and Alyn. Canals connect 

 the Dee with the rivers of central England. The 

 ancient Britons held its waters sacred ; Milton 

 speaks of its ' wizard stream,' and Spenser of the 



Dee. which Britons long ygone 

 Did call divine, that doth by Chester tend. 



!>''. a beautiful river of Aberdeen and Kincar- 

 dine shires, rising at an altitude of 4060 feet among 

 the Cairngorm Mountains, and nmning 87 miles 

 eastward, till it enters the German Ocean at Aber- 

 deen, where in 1870-72 a mile of its channel was 

 diverted for harbour improvements. It makes a 

 descent of 2084 feet during the first 2| miles of its 

 course ; at the Linn of Dee, 18 miles lower down, 

 tumbles through a chasm 300 yards long, and at one 

 point scarcely 4 feet wide ; thereafter flows by 

 Castleton of Braemar, Balmoral Castle, and Bal- 

 later ; since 1864 has supplied Aberdeen with water ; 

 and is still a good salmon river, though not what 

 it once was. The Kirkcudbrightshire Dee issues, 

 from Loch Dee (750 feet alx>ve sea-level), and flows 

 38 miles south-eastward and southward, past 

 Threave Castle and Kirkcudbright, to Kirkcud- 

 bright Bay. Midway it is joined by the Water of 

 Ken, 28 miles long, a stream of greater volume than 

 its own. It, too, affords fine fishing. 



Dee, DR JOHN, alchemist, was born in London, 

 13th July 1527, and educated there and at Chclms- 

 ford, till in 1542 he was sent to St John's College. 

 Cambridge, where for three years he studied 

 eighteen hours a day. One of the original fellows 

 of Trinity (1546), he earned the reputation of a 

 sorcerer by his mechanical beetle in a representation 

 of Aristophanes' Peace, and next year he fetched 

 from the Low Conn tries sundry astronomical instni 

 ments. This was the first of many foreign visits 

 to Louvain and Paris (1548-51 ), where he lectured 

 on Euclid, to Venice and Presburg in Hungary 

 (1563), to Lorraine (1571), to Frankfort on Oder 

 (1578), to Bohemia (1583-89), ami even, it is said. 

 to St Helena. He was imprisoned under i^uecn 

 Mary on suspicion of comias>ing her death by 

 magic (1555); but Edward VI. had conferred two 

 church livings on him, and Elizabeth showed him 

 considerable favour, twice visiting him at his Mort 

 lake home, and in 1595 making him warden of 

 Manchester College. He \\ a- constantly in diffi- 

 cult ie>. though lie claimed to have found in .the 

 ruins of ( ;ia-tonl>ury a quantity of the F.lixir, one 

 grain of which transmuted into gold a piece of a 

 warming-pan. Indeed, he appears to have been as 

 much dupe as deceiver, the uupe of lib own assist- 

 ant, Edward Kelly, during 1582-89. This knave, 

 who had lost both* ears in the pillory, professed to 



