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tute in the East, and was still in use in the kingdom of Naples and Sicily, during the 11th and 12th centuries.-The characters, the direction in which the lines are written, the abbreviations, the signs which supplied the places of whole words, the flourishes, varied considerably from one century to another. On some of the diplomas, the signature is a cipher or monogram; and, as it is often in the form of a cross, it is called chrismon. Seals of white wax are found, either imprinted on, or pending from diplomas, in small cases: at a later period, they were stamped on metal, and affixed in the same manner. In the conquered provinces of the Roman empire, and chiefly those which compose, at present, Great Britain and Germany, the Latin language at length gave way to the idions of the natives; and various languages, therefore, must be learned by the students of diplomatics to enable them selves to distinguish the genuine documents from the spurious, and to bring to light such facts as can increase historical knowledge, and clear up points of private or public right. Since the reformation, the science can be of little service in the latter respect, but it still promises valuable assistance in the study of antiquity. (See Charters.) In this point of view, diplomas are considered as literary documents; and much diligence and research have been bestowed, by men not less distinguished by learning than by industry, in the investigation of their contents and the examination of their authenticity. The Benedictine monks have done much in this department of learning: among them Mabillon, Toussaint and Tassin hold a distinguished place, and their works will long be the most valuable manuals for the study of diplomatics. A Jesuit named Papebroeck was the first, perhaps, who gave an example of the application which can be made of them to historical researches. The celebrated count Maffei, the most distinguished antiquary of modern Italy, is the author of a supplement to Mabillon's Code Diplomatique. Gatterer and Schönenian have, in tines still more recent, treated the science in the most systematic manner. Walter's Lexicon Dipl. Göttingen, 1745, is an excellent guide for abbreviations, and Carpentier's Alphabetum Tironianum, Paris, 1747, for characters representing whole words, in ancient diplomacy. See, also, Henselii, Synopsis Universe Philologiæ, and Kapp's Alphabet.

DIPPING, among miners, signifies the interruption of a vein of ore-an accident that often gives them a great deal of

trouble before they can discover the ore again.

DIPPING NEEDLE, or INCLINATORY NEEDLE; a magnetical needle, so hung, that, instead of playing horizontally, and pointing north and south, one end dips or inclines to the horizon, and the other points to a certain height above it. The inventor of this instrument was one Robert Norman, a compass-maker, of Wapping, about the year 1576.-Some persons have endeavored to find the latitude and longitude of places by means of the dipping needle; but nothing of importance has followed from their attempts. The following general rule, however, may be adopted in order to find the longitude or latitude by the dipping needle. If the lines of equal dip, below the horizon, be drawn on maps, or sea-charts, from good observations, it will be easy, from the longitude known, to find the latitude, and from the latitude known, to find the longitude. Suppose, for example, you were travelling or sailing along the meridian of London, and found the angle of dip, with a needle of one foot, to be 75°, the chart will show, that this meridian and the line of dip meet in the latitude of 53° 11', which therefore is the latitude sought. Or suppose you were travelling or sailing along the parallel of London, i. e., in 51° 32′ Ñ. lat., and you find the angle of dip to be 74°. This parallel, and the line of this dip, will meet in the map in 1° 46′ of E. lou. from London, which is therefore the longitude sought.

DIPTYCHA (Greek) originally signifies the same as diploma, something folded. The Greeks and Romans, among other materials for writing, used tablets of metal, ivory or wood, of equal size, fastened together by a hinge or little ring which went through them, that they might be more easily carried or passed from one hand into the other. Such double tablets were originally called diplomata or diptycha. Both terms, however, afterwards received different significations. The diptycha became important in the Christian church, and were of three sorts, containing the names of the bishops, of the living, and of the dead. The first contained the names and lives of deserving bishops. It was customary to read them at festivals, which gave rise afterwards to the custom of canonization. In the diptycha of the living, the names of popes, patriarchs, bishops and other ecclesiastics, then the names of the emperors, kings, princes, and other distinguished persons, who had deserved well of the church, though still alive, were

written down, to be mentioned in the church prayers. The diptycha of the dead, finally, comprised the names of those who had departed in the Lord, which were also mentioned in the church prayers. There was also another species of diptycha, containing the names of the baptized. Casaubon, in his observations on Athenæus, lib. vi. cap. 14, supposes the Christians to have borrowed the custom of writing names in a book, and rehearsing them at mass, from the heathens, who entered the names of persons to whom they would do any signal honor in the verses of the Salii, as was done to Germanicus and Verus, sons of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, and a long time before, during the period of the republic. (See Tacitus, lib. ii.) The profane diptycha were frequently sent as presents to princes, &c., on which occasions they were finely gilt and embellished. Those presented were usually made of ivory.

DIRE, or EUMENIDES. (See Furies.) DIRECTORY; a guide, a rule to direct. This name was given to five officers, to whom the executive authority in France was committed by the constitution of the year III. This regulation was imitated in other states over which France exercised an immediate influence, as in Switzerland, Holland, &c. The two legislative bodies, called the councils, elected the members of the directory: one of them was obliged to retire yearly, and his place was supplied by election. This body was invested with the authority, which, by the constitution of 1791, had been granted to the king. The seven ministers of state were immediately under, and were appointed and removed by, the directory. By the revolution of the 18th Brumaire, this body, and the constitution of the year III, were abolished. (For the history of the directory and of the 18th Brumaire, see the Mémoires de Louis Jérome Gohier (Paris, 1824, 2 vols.), the last president of this body. See Napoleon.)

DIRECT TAX. Taxes are distinguished into direct and indirect. A tax is direct when it is paid by the persons who permanently own, or use, or consume the subject of the tax. An indirect tax falls ultimately on a different person from the one who inmediately pays it to the government. Thus the importer of goods pays a duty on them to the government, but reimburses himself by charging the amount of this duty in the price of the goods, so that the retailer who takes them of him refunds the duty, and the consumer who takes them of the retailer

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again reimburses the latter. On the contrary, a land-tax, a capitation-tax, an annual excise on watches, coaches, &c., or an excise collected on articles as they are distributed by the retail dealer among his customers for consumption, is a direct tax; for the party really taxed is the one who pays the tax to the government. (See Taxes, and Revenue.)

Dis; among the Romans, a name of Pluto (q. v.) and Hades.

DISCORD. A discord is a dissonant or inharmonious combination of sounds, so called in opposition to the concord, the effects of which the discord is calculated to relieve and sweeten. Among various other discords, are those formed by the union of the fifth with the sixth, the fourth with the fifth, the seventh with the eighth, and the third with the ninth and seventh, all which require to be introduced by certain preparatives, and to be succeeded by concords to which they have some relation.

DISCOUNT, or REBATE, is an allowance made on a bill, or any other debt not yet become due, in consideration of present payment. Bankers, merchants, &c., allow for discount a sum equal to the interest of the bill for the time before it becomes due, which, however, is not just; for, as the true value of the discount is equal to the difference between the debt and its present worth, it is equal only to the interest of that present worth, instead of the interest on the whole debt. And, therefore, the rule for finding the true discount is this: As the amount of £1 and interest for the given rate and time is to the given sum or debt, so is the interest of £1 for the given rate and time to the discount of the debt. Thus, if the interest or discount of money were five per cent., then the allowance on a bill of £100 would be found thus: As 21s.: £100 :: 1s.: £4 15s. 218 d.

DISCUS, DISC, or DISK; among the Greeks and Romans, a quoit of stone or metal, convex on both its sides, perforated in the middle, and fastened to the hand by strings. Throwing the discus was one of the gymnastic exercises; and in the Olympic and other games, it was considered a great honor to conquer in the contest. Perseus is said to have invented this instrument, and Apollo killed his favorite, Hyacinth, with it. In some places, the plate which contains the host during the act of consecration, is called disk.-Disk, in astronomy, means the face of the sun and moon, as they appear to observers on the earth.

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DISEASES, HEREDITARY. The influence of the parents on the organization of the child is so great, that even the individual peculiarities which distinguish one man from another are, in part at least, transmitted to his children; hence the similarity, in person and looks, of the child to its parents. The internal organs, too, as well as the external form, have the same resemblance; so that the peculiar constitution, the greater or less activity and developement of these organs, are found to pass from parent to child. Now, as it is the particular state of the several organs and functions, in which a very great part of diseases have their foundation, it follows that these diseases may be inherited; and, in fact, it has been observed, that the son is not unfrequently attacked by a disease at the same period of life in which his father was. These diseases are called hereditary; but it is only the predisposition to them that is, properly speaking, inherited. Hence the actual developement of hereditary diseases requires certain co-operating circumstances. Constitutional diseases are very often not hereditary, but depend on circumstances which affect the foetus during pregnancy. The father has no influence on the child, beyond the act of generation; the mother operates upon it during pregnancy, and it is possible that hereby occasion may be given to hereditary diseases. Among the diseases which are most frequently hereditary, are scrofula, bleeding (especially at the lungs) and hemorrhoids, consumption, gout, the gravel and stone, scirrhus and cancer, disorders of the mind and spirits, hysterical and hypochondriac affections, apoplexy, epilepsy, and organic diseases of particular parts, especially of the heart. They have this peculiarity, that they are produced, and appear as constitutional diseases, more from the action of internal than of external, of predisposing than of occasional causes. Such diseases are much more difficult to reach and to cure, than those which originate in accidental, external causes. Hence it is especially necessary to prevent in season their growth and developement. The means of doing this are the following: 1. Whoever has a hereditary predisposition to any disease, should not marry one who has the same constitution. For this reason, marriages between near relations are not advisable, as tending to perpetuate such hereditary diseases. This, too, appears to be the reason why attachments are generally formed between persons of opposite constitution and different tempera

ment. 2. We ought to order all the circumstances, in which the child grows up, in such a way, that the inherited predisposition may not only not be favored, but counteracted. 3. The accidental occasions which favor the growth of the disease should be avoided, especially at the time of life in which the father was attacked by it. The medical treatment of hereditary diseases is not essentially different from that which is requisite in the same diseases, arising under different circumstances.

DISHING WHEELS. Wheels should be exactly cylindrical, if roads were, in all cases, level and smooth; but since the unequal surface of most roads exposes carriages to frequent and sudden changes of position, it is found advantageous to make the wheels a little conical, or, as it is commonly called, dishing, so that the spokes may all diverge with their extremities from the carriage.

DISMAL SWAMP; a large tract of marshy land, beginning a little south of Norfolk, in Virginia, and extending into North Carolina, containing 150,000 acres; 30 miles long, from north to south, and 10 broad. This tract is entirely covered with trees, some of which grow to a very large size; and between them the brushwood springs up so thick, that many parts are utterly impervious. In the midst of the swamp is a lake, called Drummond's pond, seven miles in length. The Pasquotank flows from this lake south, and the Nansemond flows from it north.

Dismal Swamp Canal, or Chesapeake and Albemarle Canal, passes through this swamp, beginning at Deep creek, a branch of Elizabeth river, seven miles above Norfolk, and terminating at Joyce's creek, a branch of the Pasquotank, 30 miles from its entrance into Albemarle sound. It is 224 miles long, 38 feet broad at the surface, and 54 feet deep. (See Canals.)

DISMOUNTING, in the military art, is rendering the enemy's cannon unfit for further service, by breaking their carriages and axle-trees; also, shattering the parapet of a retrenchment, or of a wall, by balls, so that it cannot be defended, particularly so that cannons cannot be worked behind it. Dismounting batteries are such as are intended to throw down the parapets of fortifications, and disable the enemy's cannons. They are placed generally in the second, often in the third parallel. If they are on the glacis, in the salient angles of the bastions, and fire against the flanks of the adjacent bulwark, they are called counterbaiteries. They are erected exactly op

posite the front to be battered, and consist of from four to eight cannons, mostly 12 pounders. These cannons are generally aimed, at the same time, at the same embrasure, whilst the others occupy the other cannon of the enemy: when one of the enemy's cannon is silenced, the fire is directed to another, and so on. Some mortars and howitzers, which may be placed either within the dismounting battery or by themselves, support its fire, by bombarding the attacked embrasures: the fire of both must be slow, and well aimed. The distance of the dismounting battery from the work attacked, is usually from 3 to 400 paces, according to the distance of the second parallel. It has been proposed, in modern times, to shoot grenades, instead of balls, from the cannons, into the works which are to be dismounted, to produce an effect, by their bursting, similar to that of mines.

DISPENSARY; a charitable institution, common in large towns of Britain and the U. States. Dispensaries are supported by voluntary subscriptions, and each has one or more physicians, surgeons and apothecaries, who attend, or ought to attend, at stated times, in order to prescribe for the poor, and, if necessary, to visit them at their own habitations. The poor are supplied with medicines gratis. Where these institutions are managed with care, they are of the utmost importance to society, it being unquestionably more for the comfort of the sick, to be attended at their own houses, than to be taken from their families to an hospital.

DISPENSATORY; a book in which all the medicines are registered, that are to be kept in an apothecary's shop, and the apothecaries directed how to compose them. Almost every country in Europe, and many large cities, have their own dispensatories, which the apothecaries are bound to follow.

DISSEIZIN, OF DISSEISIN, is the dispossessing one of a freehold estate, or interrupting his seizin. Under the feudal law, when a vassal was admitted to an estate, by the ceremony of investiture, he was said to be seized of it. The disseizing of him was the turning him out of his fee. The entry into a vacant estate is not a disseizin. In regard to incorporeal hereditaments, as of a certain office, or the right to receive a certain rent out of land, without that of possession, there could be only a constructive disseizin. The person disseizing another is called the disseizor, and the person whose estate is disseized, the disseizee. By a freehold is meant an 22

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estate for life, or some larger estate; and an estate for years, or a lease, though it be for a hundred years, is not a freehold. Of freeholds, only, can a seizin be had, or a disseizin done. Whether an entry upon lands is or is not a disseizin, will depend partly upon the circumstances of the entry, and partly upon the intention of the party, as made known by his words or acts. Thus, if one enters another's house without claiming any thing, it is not a disseizin. So, if one enters wrongfully upon another's land, and the owner afterwards receives rent of him, it will not be a disseizin; so, if a lessee at will makes a lease for years, it is a disseizin; so, if one enters upon lands of an infant, though with his consent, it is a disseizin, if the infant chooses afterwards so to consider it; so, if one commands another to make a disseizin, the person giving the command is a disseizor; and so it is a disseizin to prevent the owner from entering on his land, &c. Between joint-tenants and tenants in common, and coparceners, the entry of one, being construed to be made in behalf of all, is not a disseizin, which, in these cases, must be the actual ouster of the co-tenant; that is, putting or keeping him out of possession: thus, if one co-tenant, after entering, makes a feoffinent of the whole, this is a disseizin; for it shows the intention of the entry: so if one, being in possession, claims the whole, and refuses to pay rent, &c.

DISSENTERS. (See Non Conformists.) DISSIDENTS, in its more extensive meaning, denotes those who differ from the established religion of a country. It has been used in a more particular sense in Poland, since 1736, to denote all those who, though they do not belong to the established (Catholic) religion, are yet allowed the free exercise of their respective modes of worship, including Lutherans, Calvinists, Greeks and Arminians, and excluding Anabaptists, Socinians and Quakers. As early as the time of Luther, the reformation was introduced into Po land. During the reign of Sigismund Augustus (1548-72), great numbers of the people, and even half of the members of the diet, and more than half of the nobility, were Lutherans or Calvinists. The convention of Sandomir, concluded in 1570, united the Lutherans, Calvinists and Bohemian brethren into one church -a union which had also a political tendency, and whose members obtained the same rights with the Catholics, by the religious peace (par dissidentium) sworn to by the king in 1573. But the great mis

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take committed in not settling the mutual relations of the two religious parties, gave rise to bloody contests. Although the rights of the dissidents were afterwards repeatedly confirmed, they were gradually repealed, particularly in 1717 and 1718, in the reign of Augustus II, when they were deprived of the right of voting in the diet. They lost still more, soine years afterwards (1733), under Augustus III; and in the diet of pacification, as it was called (1736), an old statute, requiring every Polish king to be of the Catholic church, was revived. After the accession of the last king, Stanislaus Poniatowski, the dissidents brought their grievances before the diet held in 1766, and were supported in their claims by Russia, Denmark, Prussia and England. Russia, in particular, profited by the occasion, to extend her influence in the affairs of Poland, supported them strongly, and succeeded, by her mediation, in bringing about a new convention, in 1767, by which they were again placed on an equal footing with the Catholics. The diet of 1768 repealed the decrees which had been formerly passed against them. The war against the confederates breaking out, however, and the kingdom being dis membered, nothing was accomplished, until the year 1775, when the dissidents regained all their privileges, excepting the right of being elected senators or ministers of state. Later events in Poland have again placed the dissidents on an equal footing with the Catholics.

DISSONANCE; that effect which results from the union of two sounds not in accord with each other. The ancients considered thirds and sixths as dissonances; and, in fact, every chord, except the perfect concord, is a dissonant chord. The old theories include an infinity of dissonances, but the present received system reduces them to a comparatively small number. One rule, admitted both by the ancients and the moderns, is, that of two notes, dissonant between themselves, the dissonance appertains to that one of the two which is most remote from the concord.

DISTICH; a couplet of verses, especially one consisting of a hexameter and pentameter; as,

“Turpe quidem dictu: sed, si modo vera fa

temur,

Vulgus amicitias utilitate probat.” The hexameter, which flows on in an uninterrupted course, being adapted to the expression of feeling, and the pentameter, which is broken by two nearly equal di

visions, expressing subdued emotion, this disposition is undoubtedly best suited to the elegy (q. v.), and for this reason was called the elegiac measure. At the same time, no form is more suitable for maxims or sentences than the distich. The Greeks, therefore, composed their epigrams almost exclusively in this form, and the Germans have followed their example. Other nations, who do not possess this measure, frequently call every piece of poetry in two lines, a distich.

DISTILLATION is an art founded upon the different tendencies which bodies have to pass into vapor, and to be condensed again by cold, and is performed in order to separate them from each other, when combined, or when they become products of chemical action. Its use is very important in obtaining spirits, essences, volatile oils, &c. The most common method of conducting this process consists in placing the liquid to be distilled in a vessel called a still, made of copper, having a movable head, with a swan-like neck, which is so formed as to fit a coiled tube, packed away in a tub of water constantly kept cold, and which is termed a refrigeratory. The fire is applied either immediately to the still, or mediately, by means of a water or sand-bath. The liquid to be obtained rises, in vapor, into the head of the still, and, passing down the curved tube, or worm, becomes condensed, and makes its exit in a liquid state. The still should be constructed with a diameter considerably greater than its height, in order to expose a larger surface to the fire; and the tube should not be so narrow as to impede the passage of the vapor into the worm. An improvement made by Mr. Tennant in this apparatus, consists in introducing the spiral tube into the body of a second still, so that the heat from the condensation of the steam, passing through the tube, is applied to the distillation of liquor in the second. The pressure of the atmosphere is removed from the latter, by connecting it with an air-tight receiver, kept cool. The air in this receiver is allowed to escape at the commencement of the operation; its place is occupied by the steam from the liquor, which being condensed, a vacuum is kept up, whence the distillation proceeds, without any further heat being directly applied to the second still. This form of distilling apparatus is called the double still. The process introduced by Mr. Barry, for preparing vegetable extracts and inspissated juices, by evaporation in vacuo, is of a somewhat similar nature. The