DELPHIN1 DEMARCATION. 



631 



the oracles (hence the proverb, to speak ex tripode, 

 used of obscure sentences, dogmatically pronounced). 

 After having first bathed herself, and particularly 

 her hair, in the neighbouring fountain of Castalia, and 

 crowned her head with laurel, she seated herself on 

 the tripod, which was also crowned with a wreath 

 of the same : then, shaking the laurel tree, and eating 

 perhaps some leaves of it, she was seized with a fit of 

 enthusiasm. Her face changed colour, a shudder 

 ran through her limbs, and cries and long protracted 

 groans issued from her mouth. This excitement 

 soon increased to fury. Her eyes sparkled, her 

 mouth foamed, her hair stood on end, and, almost 

 suffocated by the ascending vapour, the priests were 

 obliged to retain the struggling priestess on her seat 

 by force ; when she began, with dreadful howlings, 

 to pour forth detached words, which the priests col- 

 lected with care, arranged them, and delivered them 

 in writing to the inquirer. At first, the answers were 

 given in verse, but in later times, the authority of 

 the oracle being diminished, they contented them- 

 selves with delivering them in prose. 



This oracle was always obscure and ambiguous ; 

 yet it served, in earlier times, in the hands of the 

 priests, to regulate and uphold the political, civil, 

 and religious relations of Greece. It enjoyed the 

 reputation of infallibility for a long time ; for the 

 Dorians, the first inhabitants of the place, who soon 

 settled in all parts of Greece, spread an unbounded 

 reverence for it. At first, only one month in the 

 year was assigned for the delivery of oracles ; after- 

 wards, one day in each month but none who asked 

 the god for counsel dared approach him without gifts. 

 Hence the splendid temple possessed immense trea- 

 sures, and the city was adorned with numerous sta- 

 tues and other works of art, the offerings of gratitude. 

 Delphi was at the same time the bank, in which the 

 rich deposited their treasures, under the protection 

 of Apollo, though this did not prevent it from being 

 repeatedly plundered by the Greeks and barbarians. 

 The ancients believed Delphi to be the centre of 

 the earth : this, they said, was determined by Jupi- 

 ter, who let loose two eagles, the one from the east 

 and the other from the west, which met here. The 

 tomb of Neoptolemus (or Pyrrhus), the son of Achil- 

 les, who was killed here by Orestes, was also at 

 Delphi. Not far from the tomb was the famous 

 Lesche, adorned by Polygnotus with the history of 

 the Trojan war. (See Polygnotus.) In the plain 

 between Delphi and Cirrha, the Pythian games were 

 celebrated, in the month Targelion. These national 

 games, and the protection of the Amphictyons, gave 

 Delphi a lasting splendour. It is now a village 

 called Castri. 



DELPHINI, IN USUM. See Dauphin. 

 DELTA ; A, a Greek letter, answering to D. 

 The resemblance of the island formed by the allu- 

 vion, between the two mouths of the Nile, to a A, is 

 the reason why it was called by the Greeks Delta. 

 It contained Sais, Pelusium, and Alexandria. It was 

 divided into the great and small Delta. Islands at 

 the mouths of other rivers, shaped like a A, have the 

 same name. 



DELUC, JEAN ANDRE, a geologist and meteoro- 

 logist, was born in 1726, at Geneva, where his father 

 was a watch-maker, and passed his whole life in geo- 

 logical investigations, for the sake of which he made 

 numerous journeys. He enriched science with very 

 important discoveries. His theories and hypotheses, 

 which he endeavoured to accommodate to the histo- 

 rical accounts contained in the Holy Scriptures, have 

 met with violent opponents. (See Geology.) He 

 passed some time in England, as reader to the queen, 

 and died in 1817, at Windsor. Among his numer- 

 ous writings are his Recherches sur les Modifications 



de P Atmosphere (Geneva, 1772, 2 vols. 4to) ; No* 

 velles Idees sur la Meteorologie (London, 1786, 2 

 vols.) ; and his Traite elementaire de Geologie (Paris 

 1810, 8vo). 



DELUGE (from the Latin diluvies, diluvium, from 

 diluere, to wash away) ; the universal inundation, 

 which, according to the Mosaic history, took place 

 to punish the great iniquity of mankind. It was 

 produced, according to Genesis, by a rain of forty 

 days, and a breaking up of "the fountains of the 

 great deep," and covered the earth fifteen cubits 

 above the tops of the highest mountains, and killed 

 every living creature, except Noah, with his family, 

 and the animals which entered the ark, by the com- 

 mand of God. After the flood had prevailed upon 

 the earth a hundred and fifty days, and had de- 

 creased for an equal time, making its whole dura- 

 tion somewhat less than a year, Noah became 

 convinced that the land had again emerged, by the 

 return of a dove with an olive branch, and landed on 

 mount Ararat, in Armenia. The time when this 

 chastisement took place was, according to the com- 

 mon computation, in the 1656th year of the world ; 

 according to Petavius, 2327 B. C. ; according to 

 Mueller, 3547 B.C. Many other nations mention, in 

 the mythological part of their history, inundations, 

 which, in their essential particulars, agree with the 

 scriptural account of Noah's preservation. Hence 

 many persons have inferred the universality of this 

 inundation. Fohi in the Chinese mythology, Sottiv- 

 rata or Satyavrata in the Indian, Xisuthrus in the 

 Chaldffian, Ogyges and Deucalion in the Greek, have 

 each been recognized by many as the Noah of the 

 Sacred Scriptures, under a different name. Even 

 the American Indians have a tradition of a similar 

 deluge, and a renewal of the human race from the 

 family of one individual. All these individuals are 

 said by their respective nations to have been saved, 

 and to have become a second father of mankind. 

 The many skeletons, also, found petrified on the tops 

 or in the ulterior of mountains, the remains of ani- 

 mals of hot climates in countries now cold, have been 

 alleged as confirmations of an universal revolution on 

 our planet, occasioned by the violent action of water, 

 as the Mosaic relation states it to have been. An 

 interesting work on this subject has been lately pub- 

 lished, entitled Ueber den Mythos der Suendfluth (2d 

 edition, Berlin, 1819, by Buttmann). This subject 

 is of great interest, whether considered in connexion 

 with sacred history and theology, with civil history, 

 or with natural history. The works treating of it 

 are far too numerous to be mentioned here. 



DEMARARA, or DEMERARY ; a province of 

 English Guiana, which derives its name from the 

 river Demarara or Demerary (q. v.). It originally 

 belonged to the Dutch, and was ceded to Great Bri- 

 tain in 1814. It extends about 100 miles along the 

 coast, lying on the east of Essequibo, and on the 

 west of Berbice. The soil is very fertile, producing 

 abundant crops of sugar, coffee, cotton, rice, &c. 

 The climate resembles that of South Carolina. For 

 twenty miles up the river, the country consists of 

 extensive meadows, and is perfectly level ; then 

 appear some sand-hills ; afterwards the country be- 

 comes mountainous and broken. Chief town, Sta- 

 broek. For further information, see Guiana. 



DEMARCATION, LINE OF ; every line drawn 

 for determining a border, which is not to be passed 

 by foreign powers, or by such as are at war with 

 each other. Thus the pope drew a line of demarca- 

 tion through the ocean, to settle the disputes between 

 the Spanish and Portuguese, after the first discove- 

 ries in the fifteenth century. According to a treaty 

 between the French republic and the king of Prussia, 

 concluded at Basle, May 17, 1795, a line of neiv 



