500 DEL 
ecclesiastical cause in the places exempt. 
3. When a sentence is given in the admiral’s 
Court, in suits civil and marine, by order of 
the civil law. This commission is usually 
tilled with lords spiritual and temporal, judges 
of the courts at Westminster, and doctors of 
the civil law. 4 Inst. 339. 
DELEGATION, in the civil law, is a kind 
of nomination, by which a debtor appoints 
one that is debtor to him, to answer a cre- 
ditor in his place. This delegation differs 
from transferring, or translation, in this ; that 
three persons intervene in a delegation, viz. 
the creditor, the debtor, and a third indebted 
to the debtor ; whereas in a transfer, it is 
enough that the transferer and transferee be 
present. 
DELF, from to delve, or dig, denotes a 
quarry or mine, where either stone or coal is 
dug; but is more particularly used for the 
veins of coal lying under ground, before it is 
dug up. A delf, or delve of coals, also de- 
motes a certain quantity when dug. 
Delf, in heraldry, is by some supposed to 
represent a square rod or* turf, and to be so 
called from delving, or digging. 
DELFT ware, a kind of pottery of baked 
earth, covered with an enamel or white glaz- 
ing, which gives it the appearance and neat- 
ness of porcelain. Some kinds of this ena- 
melled pot.tery differ much' from others, 
either in their sustaining sudden heat without 
breaking, or in the beauty and regularity of 
their forms, of their enamel, and of the paint- 
ing with which they are ornamented. In ge- 
neral, the fine and beautiful enamelled ware, 
which approaches the nearest to porcelain in 
external appearance, is at the same time that 
which least resists a brisk fire. Again, those 
which sustain a sudden heat are coarse, and 
resemble common pottery. 
The basis of this pottery is clay, which is 
mixed, when too fat, with such a quantity of 
sand, that the earth shall preserve enough 
of its ductility to be worked, moulded, and 
turned easily; and yet that its fatness shall lie 
sufficiently taken from it, that it may not 
crack or shrink too much in drying or in 
baking. Vessels formed of this earth must 
be dried very gently, to avoid cracking. 
They are then to be placed in a furnace, to 
receive a slight baking, which is only meant 
to give them a certain consistence or hard- 
ness. And lastly, they are to be covered 
with an enamel or glazing, which is done by 
putting upon the vessel thus prepared the 
enamel, which has been ground very tine, 
and diluted with water. 
As vessels on which the enamel is applied, 
are but slightly baked, they readily imbibe 
the water in which the enamel is suspended, 
and a layer of this enamel adheres to their 
surface. These vessels may then be painted 
with colours composed of metallic calces, 
mixed and ground with a fusible glass. 
When they are become perfectly dry, they 
are to be placed in the furnace, included in 
cases of baked earth called seggars, and ex- 
posed to a heat capable of fusing uniformly 
the enamel which covers them. The heat 
given to fuse the enamel being much stronger 
than that which was applied at first to give 
some consistence to the ware, is also the heat 
necessary to complete the baking of it. The 
furnace and colours used for painting this 
Ware, are the saijae as those employed for 
DEL 
porcelain. Delft-ware is not so much used in 
England as formerly. 
DELIAC, or Delian problem, a pro- 
blem much celebrated in the writings of the 
undents, concerning the duplication of the 
cube. See Cube. 
DELIMA, in botany, a genus of plants 
belonging to the polyandria monogynia class, 
with an elongated style: it has no flower-pe- 
tals; the enp consists of five leaves ; the fruit 
is a bivalve capsule, and contains two seeds. 
There is one species. 
DELIRIUM. See Medicine. 
DELIVERY. See Midwifery. 
DELPHINIUM, DOLPHIN-FLOWER, Ol' 
larkspur, a genus of the trigynia order, in 
the polyandria class of plants, and in the na- 
tural method ranking under the 26th order, 
multisiliqux. There is no calyx; the petals 
are five ; the nectarium bifid, and horned be- 
hind; the siliquac three or one. There are 
11 species; four are cultivated in gardens. 
Two of these are annual, and two perennial : 
they are herbaceous plants of upright growth, 
rising from 18 inches to four feet in height, 
garnished with finely divided leaves, and ter- 
minated by long spikes of pentapetalous 
flowers, of blue, red, white, or violet colours. 
One annual species, the consolida, is found 
wild in several parts of Britain, and grows in 
corn-tields. According to Dr. Withering, the 
expressed juice of the petals, with a little 
alum, makes a good blue ink. The seeds 
are acrid and poisonous. When cultivated, 
the blossoms often become double. Sheep 
and goats eat this plant ; horses are not fond 
of it ; cows and swine refuse it. 
DELPHINUS, or dolphin, a genus of 
fishes belonging to the order of cete. There 
are three species : 
1. The delphinus, delphis, or dolphin. 
Historians and philosophers seem to have 
contended who should invent most fables 
concerning this fish. It was consecrated to 
the gods, was celebrated in the earliest time 
for its fondness of the human race, was ho- 
noured with the title of the sacred fish, and 
distinguished by that of philanthropist. At 
present the appearance of this fish, and the 
porpesse, are far from being esteemed fa- 
vourable omens by the seamen ; for their 
boundings, springs, and frolics, in the water, 
are held to be certain signs of an approaching 
gale. It is from their leaps out of that ele- 
ment that they assume a temporary form that 
is not natural to them ; but which the old 
painters and sculptors have almost always 
given them. A dolphin is scarcely ever ex- 
hibited by the antients in a straight shape, 
but almost always incurvated: such are those 
on the coin of Alexander the Great, which is 
preserved by Belon, as well as on several 
other pieces of antiquity; and the poets de- 
scribe them much in the same manner. The 
natural shape of the dolphin, however, is al- 
most straight, the back being very slightly 
incurvated, and the body slender; the nose 
is long, narrow, and pointed, not much un- 
like the beak of some birds, for which reason 
the French call it l’oie-de-mer. It lias in all 
40 teeth, 21 in the upper jaw and 19 in the 
lower; a little above an inch long, conic at 
their upper end, sharp-pointed, bending a 
little in. They are placed at small distances 
from each other; so that when the mouth is 
shut, the teeth of both jaws lock into one an- 
other; the spout-hole is placed ia the middle 
D E L 
of the head ; the tail is semilunar; the skin is 
smooth, the colour of the back anti sides 
dusky, the belly whitish; it swims with great 
swiftness, and its prey is fish. It was for- 
merly reckoned a great delicacy. This spe- 
cies of dolphin, however, must not be con- 
founded witii that to which .seamen give the 
name ; the latter being quite another kind of 
fish, the corypha'na hippuris of Linnaeus, and 
the dorado of the Portuguese. 
2. The phocama, or porpesse. This spe- 
cies is found in vast multitudes in all parts of 
the British seas; but in greatest numbers at 
the time when fish of passage appear, such as 
mackarel, herrings, and salmon, which they 
pursue up the bays with the same eagerness 
as a dog does a hare. In some places they 
almost darken the sea, as they rise, above 
water to take breath: but porpesses not only 
seek for prey near the surface, but often de- 
scend to the bottom in search of sand-eels 
and sea-worms, which they root out of the sand 
with their noses. Their bodies are very thick 
towards the head, but grow slender towards the 
tail. The nose projects a little^ is much shorter 
than that of the dolphin, and is furnished with 
very strong muscles, which enable it the rea- 
dier to turn up the sand. The colour of the 
porpesse is generally black, and the belly- 
whitish; but they sometimes vary. In the 
river St. Lawrence there is a white kind ; and 
Dr. Borlase, in his voyage to the Scilly isles, 
observed a small species of cetaceous fish, 
which he calls thornbacks, from their broad 
and sharp fin on the back. Some of these 
were brown, some quite white, others spot- 
ted : but whether they were only a variety of 
this fish, or whether they were small gram- 
puses, which are also spotted, we cannot de- 
termine. The porpesse is remarkable for the 
vast quantity of fat that surrounds the body, 
which yields a great quantity of excellent 
oil. From this, or from their rooting like 
swine, they are called in many places sea- 
hogs. This was once a royal dish, even so 
late as the reign of Henry VIII. and from its 
magnitude must have held a very respectable 
station at the table ; for in a household-book 
of that prince, extracts of which are published 
in the third volume of the Archaeologia, it 
is ordered, that if a porpesse should be too 
big for a horse-load, allowance should be 
made to the purveyor. This fish continued 
in vogue even in the reign of Elizabeth. 
3. The orca, or grampus, is found from the 
length of 15 feet to that of 25. It is remark- 
ably thick in proportion to its length; one of 
18 feet being in the thickest place 10 feet 
diameter. With reason then did Pliny call 
this “ an immense heap of flesh armed with 
dreadful teeth.” It is extremely voracious ; 
and will not even spare the porpesse, a con- 
generous fish. It is said to be a great enemy 
to the whale, and that it will fasten on it like 
a dog on a bull, till the animal roars with 
pain. The nose is flat, and turns up at the 
end. There are 30 teeth in each jaw ; those 
before are blunt, round, and slender; the 
farthest sharp and thick : between each is a 
space adapted to receive the teeth of the op- 
posite jaw when the mouth is closed. The 
spout-hole is in the top of the neck. The 
colour of the back is black, but on each 
shoulder is a large white spot; the sides 
marbled with black and white; the bellv of a 
snowy whiteness. These fishes sometimes 
appear on our coasts, but arc found jn much 
