DETERMINATE. 



DEUTERONOMY. 



1. To act on the UDM of operation of an enemy Mid oblige him to 

 retire, or, if retiring, to cripple hi* retreat. 



J. To kmp in check or retard the junction of Urge detachment 

 of the rneniT with a mailer force, and thiu allow an oTerwhelming 

 force to he thrown on the deeiave point, or to protect the junction of 

 a detachment 



3. To seize or proteot a large convoy, as was effected before Pwltowa 

 by Peter the Great against Charles XII., whow detachment of pro- 

 tection lost iu war, entailing the loat of Lowanhaupt'i convoy, thereby 

 Mailing hi* defeat 



4. To draw off an enemy's attention while an operation is being 

 dfcutlJ in a different direction, or to maak a fortrww and contain iU 

 garrison for a abort time. Thus Moreau. in 1800, while he himself 

 marched on Stockach, deceiTed Kray by smding his left wing from 

 Kehl to RacUdt, which then rejoined him by Fribourg. 



5. A detachment made almoat on the field of battle to act on the 

 flank or rear of the enemy, as at the battle of Vittoria, where the 

 troop* under General Graham, though under very unfavourable cir- 

 cnmsUnoes for unity of action, from the difficulty of the ground, yet 

 managed to co-operate with great nicety. 



However enticing and important theae various objects may appear 

 to the general of an army, history has proved that the success of a 

 campaign never depends on such isolated and secondary event*, but on 

 the grand decisive actions, or, as at Ulm, merely manoeuvres about 

 the decisive point. Hence, it follows that when these approach, 

 exertion should be made even to the running some risks to recall and 

 concentrate the whole available forces. A good example of this is 

 given by Jomini. In 1797, Napoleon, obliged to leave a corps of 

 16,000 men in the volley of the Adige to contain the Tyrol while he 

 advanced on the Noric Alps, preferred making this corps rejoin him 

 at the risk of compromising for the time his line of retreat, to affording 

 the opportunity, by leaving his army disunited, of having them beaten 

 in detail. Persuaded that he would be victorious with his army 

 united, he considered the temporary presence of some detachments of 

 the enemy on his communications of little moment. 



Small flying detachment*, whose absence does not materially reduce 

 the strength of an army, do not however come under this category ; 

 they may and have often been employed with great advantage, when 

 under intelligent daring officers, partisan leaders, and more especially 

 with irregular troops, whose presence with the army itself would be of 

 little use. The guerillas in the Peninsula afford a good example, 

 entailing endless annoyance to the enemy in cutting off convoys, inter- 

 cepting orders, and reducing his available forces by compelling him to 

 use large bodies of men in these harassing duties. 



DETERMINATE, a word applied in mathematics to those problems 

 which have one answer only, or at least a certain and finite number of 

 answers. Thus the problem, " given the base of a triangle, and the 

 sum of the other two sides, to construct the triangle so that ite vertex 

 may be on a given straight line," is determinate ; for the number of 

 ways of solving it cannot exceed two. But if we omit the condition 

 that the vertex is to be upon a given straight line, and merely require 

 that a triangle shall be constructed having a given base, and two other 

 sides of a given amount of length, the problem becomes indeterminate ; 

 that is, has an infinite number of solutions. The peculiarities of this 

 subject namely, determinate analysis are not striking ; it is to the 

 word INDETERMINATE that we must look for the most characteristic 

 points of distinction. 



DETINUE is the form of action prescribed by the English law for 

 the recovery of goods and chattels which have lawfully come into the 

 possession of a defendant either by delivery or finding. It does not 

 lie for real property, but for mere personal chattels, except only deeds 

 and charters. [CHATTELS.] In this action the plaintiff recovers either 

 the thing detained, or if the thing cannot be had, the value of it, with 

 damages for the detention. In order to enforce the redelivery of the 

 specific chattel, a special writ of execution has been provided, by the 

 Common Law Procedure Act, 1854. The action of detinue is similar 

 to the actio deposit! of the civil law, and is identically the same in its 

 properties, process, circumstances, and forms as the action of debt, 

 with this difference, that one is for the recovery of a chattel, the other 

 of money. In order to ground an action of detinue, which is only for 

 the detaining, these points are necessary 1. That the defendant 

 came lawfully into the possession of the goods. 2. That the plaintiff 

 have a property. 3. That the goods themselves be of some value. 

 4. That they be ascertained in point of identity. 



DETONATION i, a rl,,,,,ical term employed to express combina- 

 tion or decomposition which occurs with noise and frequently with 

 combustion. It may take place between bodies in very different 

 states, at between gaseous bodies, a gas and a solid, Ac. One of the 

 simplest and most powerful cases of detonation is that which happens 

 when two volume* of hydrogen gas and one volume of oxygen gas 

 are mixed, and fired either by the taper, electricity, the action of 

 spongy platinum or midden comjiression ; in this case the detonation 

 .I, and the result of the chemical action is water formed by the 

 union, in the proportions stated, of the gases above incut 



The sun's rays (ailing suddenly on a mixture of hydrogen and 

 chlorine gas cause them to detonate and combine with the formation 

 of hydrochloric acid. Detonation also occurs when phosphorus, mixed 

 with chlorate of potash or with nitrate of lead, Ac., is struck upon 



an anvil And there are certain combinations of metals which detonate 

 or fulminate, bv slight friction, by heat, or by electricity ; such are the 

 ammoniureU of silver and gold, fulminate of silver and of mercury. 

 The chloride of nitrogen and the iodide of the same element are very 

 powerful detonating bodies. In some oases, as has been mentioned, 

 the result of detonation is combination, as when oxygen and hydrogen 

 unite to form water, chlorine and hydrogen to form hydrochloric acid, 

 Ac. In other oases decomposition occurs and is the result of detona- 

 tion. Thus ammoniuret of gold is separated into metallic gold, and 

 other products ; iodide of nitrogen separates into its element*, the 

 iodine appearing as a purple vapour, and the nitrogen ainiuming the 

 gaseous form. 



OKTKlsioN, FORCE OF. [MATKIUALS, STBEWOTH or] 

 DEUCA'LION, a prominent personage in the mythical traditions 

 from which Greek history sprung up. He is represented as the son of 

 Prometheus and Clymene (Schol. Pind. ' Olyrnp.' ix. 72), or of Prome- 

 theus and Pandora (Strabo, ix. p. 448, and others), and is sometimes 

 called the father (Thucyd. i. 3), and sometimes the brother of Mellon 

 (Schol. Apollon. iii. 1086), the reputed founder of the Greek nation. 

 The seat of his authority was Phthia, in Thesgaly, from which, accord- 

 ing to general tradition, he was driven to Parnassus by a great deluge 

 (Apollodorus, i. 7, 2), which, however, according to Aristotle 

 ('MeteoroL' i. 14), occurred between Dodona and the Achelous. But 

 whatever may have been the scene of Deucalion's deluge, the old tradi- 

 tions represent it merely as a local one ; and it was not till the time of 

 Ptolemy Philadelphus, when the Hebrew scriptures became known to 

 the Greeks, that some features borrowed from the universal deluge of 

 Noah were incorporated into the story of the Thessalian flood. (See 

 Clinton's' Fasti,' vol. i., p. 43, note.) The legend is well known to the 

 readers of Ovid (' Hetam.' L 875, foil), which tells how he and his wife 

 Pyrrha repeopled tin wasted district by throwing stones behind him on 

 Mount Parnassus, in obedience to the in j unctions of the oracle of Themis, 

 which directed them to cover their heads and cast the bones of their 

 mother behind them. Strabo says that two small islands on the coast of 

 Phthiotis were called Deucalion and Pyrrha. The date assigned to 

 Deucalion by the Parian Marble is 1548 B.o.,andby Eusebiual541 B.I.'. ; 

 but the stories connected with his history are so manifestly fabulow, 

 that doubts as to his actual existence are unavoidably entertained, and it 

 seems reasonable to conclude that he was a mere personification. It 

 must be confessed that there are no etymological grounds for thinking 

 so, as appears to be the case more or less with the early kings of Attica 

 (' Philolog. Mus.' ii., p. 845, foil), for the name Deucalion seems to 

 signify nothing more than " the illustrious" (Hesych. sub v. StuKtt), 

 and is a possible name for a real person ; it was also borne by a son of 

 Minos II. (Apollod. iii.i. 2.) 



DEUTEKO'NOMY, the fifth book of the Pentateuch, or five books 



MI KMH, 



EMraw titi,> 



. (M 



" These (are) the words," consists as usual of the commencing phrase, a 

 mode of appellation similar to that adopted in technically quoting a 

 legal instrument. Among the Rabbins it is also called tepker tuckktUh, 

 " the book of reproofs," or " denunciations," of which there are many, 

 as in chaps, iv. ix. xxriii. xxx. xxxii ; and Mitlmrh hatlornh, the 

 repetition of the law, a restatement being made in this book of the 

 the Mosaic laws contained in the preceding books of the Pentateuch. 

 The Greek title AtfnftftfHr, dcutmntmim, given in the Septuagint 

 translation, is composed of two words signifying " second " and " law." 

 By the Jews this book is divided into ten paraschioth, or chapters. 

 In the translations the number of chapters is thirty-four. The events 

 directly related by the writer are comprised in a period of five lunar 

 weeks, from the commencement of the eleventh month to the seventh 

 day of the twelfth month of the fortieth year of the wandering of the 

 Israelites in the wilderness, after their departure from Egypt. The 

 book is generally considered to have been written A.M. 2553, or 1451 

 B.C., by Moses, in the last year of his life, when at the age of 120, and 

 in the plains of Moab (i. 5 ; Numbers xxxiii. 50, xxxv. 1), near the 

 ford of the Jordan, where the Israelites afterwards crossed over into 

 Canaan. The opinion which attributes the authorship of this book to 

 Moses is attended with some difficulties which have induced Eichhorn 

 and other learned commentators to assign a much later date to it than 

 the age of Moses. These have been ably met however, and the nume- 

 rous notices of nations with whom the Israelites had come in contact, 

 but who subsequently disappear altogether, afford strong indications of 

 the Mosaical origin of the book. The concluding chapter, wlii.-h 

 gives an account of the death of Moses, and of his having been buried 

 by God, is believed by most but not by all of the commentators to have 

 been not written by Moses, for some considered this account as a 

 prophetic one, related in the past tense, a practice not unusual among 

 the Jewish prophet*. This last chapter is supposed by others to have 

 been jointly or rather successively supplied by Joshua, Samuel, and 

 Esdras. Besides an historical repetition from the preceding books of 

 the Pentateuch of the event* which ]>assed throughout the forty 

 years from the departure from Egypt, the book contains a complete 

 recapitulation of the moral, ceremonial, and judicial law, exhibited in 

 the preceding books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, with altera- 

 tions, and some additions ; as, for instance, that of the law (xxi. 18) 

 which requires the parents of a stubborn son to lead him forth to be 

 atoned to death by his fellow citizens. The first thirteen verses of 



