DRIFT 



1863 



DROWNING 



a French penal colony. In answer to popular 

 demand the prisoner was retried in 1899. The 

 feeling in the army against Jews was so bitter 

 that the second trial was practically a mockery, 

 and Dreyfus was again declared guilty, "with 

 extenuating circumstances." The public was 

 not satisfied with the evidence or the manner 

 in which the trials had been conducted. In 

 1899, a few months after his second conviction, 

 he was pardoned by President Loubet. 



Emile Zola, the novelist, was among those 

 who strongly supported his cause, and his 

 complete vindication was obtained in 1906. 

 It was conclusively proved that Dreyfus had 

 been the victim of a conspiracy, and had been 

 condemned on forged evidence. He was given 

 the more advanced rank of major and enrolled 

 in the Legion of Honor. While witnessing the 

 removal of Zola's body, Dreyfus was wounded 

 by a fanatic, who was liberated, however, on 

 declaring that he had fired the shot only as a 

 "demonstration." At the outbreak of the War 

 of the Nations, in 1914, Major Dreyfus was 

 placed in command of one of the forts pro- 

 tecting Paris. 



DRIFT, in geology, is the name applied to 

 deposits of rock and earth that were carried 

 to their present position by ice and left there 

 when the ice melted. Drift was formed during 

 the Glacial Period. It varies in thickness, and 

 contains whatever the glacier gathered on its 

 surface during its course down the slope where 

 it grounded. Large rocks in the form of 

 boulders, differing in character from the rock 

 in the locality, are occasionally found; these 

 were brought to their present localities by a 

 glacier. In some places the ground is covered 

 with small boulders mingled with gravel, and 

 in other places there are masses of broken 

 rock, some of which may be deeply scratched. 

 All these formations are drift. See GEOLOGY; 

 GLACIAL PERIOD; GLACIER. 



DROMEDARY, drum' e da ri, a lightly-built, 

 fleet-footed, single-humped camel used for 

 travel in various parts of India, Arabia and 

 Africa. This enduring animal of the deserts 

 can live on a very small amount of food and 

 water, and requires only short periods of rest. 

 It can travel at the rate of nine miles an hour 

 for many hours, and can cover six hundred 

 miles in five days. Its swinging trot, like the 

 gait of a pacing horse, jolts less than the gait 

 of an ordinary camel, but it is nevertheless 

 hard on the rider. The general characteristics 

 of the dromedary, or Arabian camel, are out- 

 lined in the article CAMEL. 



S DROPSY, rfrop'si, a disease whose name is 

 the modern form of the word hydropsy, derived 

 from the Greek hydor, meaning water. It is 

 not applied to any particular malady, but to a 

 symptom which accompanies several diseases. 

 In dropsy there is an excess of fluid in the tis- 

 sues, causing swelling. This fluid is derived 

 from the blood. The presence of dropsy may 

 be recognized by the small pit remaining after 

 a finger is pressed upon the swollen part. It 

 is sometimes necessary, when other remedies 

 have failed, to remove the accumulation of 

 fluid by means of a drainage tube inserted in 

 the cavity or beneath the skin. This can be 

 done without danger in most cases, under the 

 direction of a skilled physician. Dropsy may 

 be general, or it may be localized, having as 

 its site the brain, the heart, etc. W.A.E. 



DROWNING, droun'ing, death caused by 

 suffocation in water or other liquid. From the 

 earliest times until the beginning of the seven- 

 teenth century drowning was a common form 

 of capital punishment in Great Britain and 

 most European countries. Feudal lords who 

 held power of life and death over their sub- 

 jects or retainers were authorized to inflict the 

 death penalty "by ditch or by gallows." In 

 some cases the victim was given his choice 

 of hanging or drowning. What was considered 

 the more honorable death by drowning was 

 usually chosen, a fact that may have given rise 

 to the widespread belief that drowning pre- 

 sents the least unpleasant form of death. The 

 death penalty was inflicted for trivial offenses 

 in Great Britain until the commencement of 

 the eighteenth century, but the practice of 

 drowning criminals was abolished earlier. In 

 Scotland a man was drowned, in 1611, for 

 stealing a lamb. The early laws of Burgundy 

 condemned a faithless wife to be smothered in 

 mud. Drowning as a capital punishment is 

 now practiced only in Mohammedan countries 

 and in the Far East. 



, A person falling, or being thrown, into the 

 water and unable to swim would probably lose 

 consciousness in a minute, or in two minutes, 

 at most. If the shock of immersion produces 

 insensibility, death does not usually occur until 

 after a longer interval than if the drowning 

 person struggled violently probably from two 

 to five minutes after immersion. The popular 

 belief that a drowning person must come to 

 the surface three times before finally sinking 

 is a fallacy. He may not rise at all, his doing 

 so depending on circumstances, especially on 

 the position of the arms during his struggles. 



