157 



DISSECTION. 



DISTILLATION. 



658 



[WILL], the usual form of family settlements in which such pro- 

 perty is disposed of is the disposition. 



DISSECTION'. The art of separating the parts of organised bodies 

 in such a manner as to display their structure. It is an art equally 

 applicable to both divisions of the organic kingdom, and indispensable 

 alike to the discovery of the structure of plants and animals. The 

 grounds on which, for the well-being of the community, every facility 

 should be afforded to the cultivation of this art, as far as regards 

 human dissection, have been already stated. [ANATOMY ACT.] It is 

 satisfactory to observe that the prejudices which formerly obstructed 

 this practice are rapidly disappearing, and that even the most uneducated 

 are beginning to appreciate its great importance and its signal utility. 



DISSEISIN. [SEisra.] 



DISSENTERS, the general name for the various Protestant religious 

 sects in this country that disagree in doctrine, discipline, or mode of 

 worship with the Established Church. The Jews and Roman Catholics 

 are not commonly called dissenters. The origin of Protestant dissent 

 from the Church of England is usually traced back to the year 1548, 

 in the reign of Edward VI., when a controversy arose among the 

 adherents of the new Reformation in consequence of the excellent 

 Hooper (afterwards the martyr) scrupling to be consecrated as bishop 

 of Gloucester in the customary canonical habit, which he deemed 

 objectionable as a relic of Romanism. Hooper eventually received 

 consecration without being attired in canonicals. At this time the two 

 parties received the names of Conformists and Nonconformists ; very 

 soon after that of Puritans came into use as the general appellation of 

 the dissenters, and it continued to be that by which they were commonly 

 distinguished down to the close of the civil wars in the next century. 

 The toleration of the dissenters, even in the most limited extent, dates 

 only from the Revolution. During the century and a half that elapsed 

 between the Reformation and that event, with the exception only of 

 the short period of the Commonwealth, during which first the Presby- 

 terians and afterwards the Independents had the ascendancy, they con- 

 tinued to be persecuted by a succession of restrictive and penal laws of 

 almost constantly increasing severity. It was not till 1828 that the 

 dissenters were raised from being a merely tolerated body to a free 

 participation in the rights of their fellow-subjects, by the abolition of 

 the Test and Corporation Acts. If the relaxation of the marriage law, 

 that has since taken place, shall be followed by the abolition of Church 

 rates, the dissenters will be placed as nearly on an equality in all 

 respects with the adherents of the Established Church as it is possible 

 that they should be, without the Established Church itself being 

 abolished. In the early times of dissent the great classes of dissenters 

 were the Presbyterians, the Independents, the Baptists, and the 

 Quakers. The most numerous now are the Methodists, or followers 

 -ley and Whitfield, some only of whom are avowedly dissenters. 

 The Methodists are subdivided into Wesleyan Methodists, Primitive 

 Methodists, United Free Church, &c. The minor sects of dissenters 

 now make a long list ; but many of them may be considered as only 

 subdivisions of or included in the four leading denominations. Until 

 the formation of the Free Church, the most numerous classes of dis- 

 senters in Scotland were those which originated hi a separation from 

 the Established Church in 1736. [EnsKiNE, EBENEZER, in Bioc. Div.] 

 They were called generally Seceders, and were divided into Burghers, 

 Anti-Burghers, Original Burghers, and Original Seceders. The greater 

 number of the Burghers and Anti-Burghers united in 1820, under the 

 designation of the United Associate Synod of the Secession Church ; 

 in 1847 this body united with the Relief Church (which originated in 

 a separation from the Establishment in 1752), the aggregate body 

 taking the name of the United Presbyterian Church. The Free 

 Church of Scotland, which separated from the Establishment in 1843, 

 forms now the most numerous body of dissenters in Scotland, although 

 in some respects the members of the Free Church disclaim the 

 designation of dissenters. These bodies are all Presbyterians, and 

 differ chiefly on the theory of the relations of the Church to the 

 State. The only considerable body of Scottish dissenters of older 

 standing, with the exception of the Episcopalians, is that of the Came- 

 ronians, or Reformed Presbyterian Synod, who are the representatives 

 of the Covenanters of the 17th century. The Congregationalists, or 

 Independents, form a considerable body in Scotland ; the Baptists, of 

 whom there are several sections, are fewer in number. In Ireland, 

 exclusive of the Roman Catholics, the principal dissenters are the 

 Presbyterians, who are mostly confined to the province of Ulster. In 

 the Census of 1851 an attempt was made to ascertain the number of 

 each sect, by taking the number who attended divine service on a 

 certain Sunday, but the result was confessedly imperfect, though it 

 may afford a rough approximation. [CENSUS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM, 

 vol. ii., col. 723J 



1 1 ISSONANCE, in music, a term synonymous with discord. [Dis- 



DI8TANCE. The only remark which we need make upon this 

 common word is that it is very frequently applied to angular distance, 

 meaning the angle of separation which the directions of two bodies 

 incldHe. In the apparent sphere of the heavens, distance always means 

 angular distance. The term apparent distance is frequently applied in 

 the same case. 



DISTEMPER, an inferior kind of colouring, in which size is the 

 principal vehicle employed for mixing with the colour. It is used for 



both internal and external walls, but principally for the former, instead 

 of oil colour, being a cheap substitute. 



It is composed of whitening mixed with size of a coarse quality, in 

 the proportions of twelve pounds of whitening to one of size. The 

 size is boiled and reduced to a proper working consistency by the 

 addition of water, after which the colour is added to form the neces- 

 sary tint. Coarser colours are used for distemper than are employed 

 in oil-painting and colouring. Scene-painting is executed in distemper, 

 and paper-stainers employ distemper colour in printing a,nd staining 

 papers for walls. The colours used in these cases are, however, of a 

 better quality, and the size employed is made from the hide of the 

 buffalo, or parchment cuttings. The proportions of size and whitening 

 in paper-staining depend on the strength of the size. In five quarts of 

 distemper, if the size be strong, one-fourth part will be sufficient ; if 

 weak, about one-half. In mixing the size and whitening much depends 

 on the judgment of the workman. The distemper is used in a chilled 

 state. Five quarts will stain about eighty-four yards of paper. 



The method of painting of the early Italian painters before the 

 employment of oil as a vehicle, is known as tempera, from which term 

 our word distemper as applied to painting is no doubt derived. 



DISTILLATION. The process of separating, by the aid of heat, a 

 volatile from a fixed or less volatile constituent. Sometimes the 

 volatile matter so separated condenses as a solid, and then the process 

 is termed sublimation. [SUBLIMATION'.] When the product obtained 

 is the result of a change induced by heat upon the original substance, 

 the operation is named destructive or dry distillation. The ordinary 

 process of gas-manufacture, wherein certain liquid products are con- 

 densed, is a process of dry distillation. Distillation in the unqualified 

 sense, however, signifies the volatilisation of a liquid by heat and 

 its subsequent condensation in a separate vessel by cold. It is 

 employed to separate a volatile liquid from less volatile solid or liquid 

 matters. It is thus largely employed in the arts (see following article). 

 In chemistry the operation is generally performed in an apparatus 

 figured under CONDENSER. The material to be operated upon is 

 placed in a jlatlc or retort connected with the higher extremity of 

 a condenser, which conducts the liquified product to a vessel called 

 the receiver. In order to attain perfect purity from the less volatile 

 matter, the process of distillation must in many cases be repeated, and 

 it is then termed rectification. Some liquids, on being boiled in glass 

 vessels, produce sudden bursts of vapour often causing the fracture of 

 the vessel ; this inconvenience may generally be remedied by placing 

 platinum wire, or angular particles like quartz-sand, at the bottom of 

 the vessel. Thus concentrated sulphuric acid can only be safely 

 distilled in glass vessels, by first converting it into a magma with 

 quartz sand. It is sometimes desirable to protect liqiiids from the air, 

 or to lower their boiling points [BOILING OF LIQUIDS] ; in either case 

 distillation in vacuo is resorted to. When small quantities only of 

 liquid are thus to be operated upon, the following is a very convenient 

 form of apparatus : 



A B are two glass bulbs blown near the ends of a tube about one foot 

 long, the extremities of the tube beyond the bulbs being drawn out 

 as shown in the figure. The capillary tube attached to B is now 

 immersed in the liquid to be distilled contained in the bottle 0, and 

 suction being applied to D, the necessary amount of fluid is raised into 

 B, which is then so inclined as to prevent its return. The neck E of 

 the capillary tube is now to be sealed off by the mouth-blowpipe, and 

 the extremity D connected with an air-pump, by means of a caoutchouc 

 joint. A vacuum being thus made in the bulbs, the tube D is fused, 

 off at F, and the distillation may now be commenced. The empty 

 bulb A being immersed in cold water, the necessary heat is applied 

 to B until a sufficient amount of the liquid has distilled over. The tube 

 connecting the two bulbs must now be cut across with a triangular 

 file, and the products removed from the bulbs. 



