DAMASCENUS

design to be worked out is undercut in the metal, | into this the gold or silver wire is laid, and the scarp edge is beaten down with a hammer, thus securing the wire in its position. Another method consists in scratching the surface, and beating into the scratched lines the gold or silver wire, after which the whole surface is burnished to remove the incisions.

Damascenus. See JOANNES DAMASCENUS. Damascus is the capital of Syria, and the largest town in Western Asia. It is called by the natives Dimashk es-Sham, or simply es-Sham, the name which is generally applied to all Syria. The city stands 11⁄2 mile from the mouth of the gorge, through which the Barada, the Chrysorrhoas of the Greeks, forces its way into the plain; and it is now connected with Beyrout on the Mediterranean by an excellent French road about 70 miles long. The plain of Damascus, 500 sq. m. in area, is dotted by over a hundred towns and villages. It is bounded on the north-west by the AntiLibanus range, on the south by the Black Mountains, beyond which are the hills of Bashan, and on the east by the marshes of the plain. Damascus is situated on the western side of the great plain at an elevation of 2260 feet above the level of the sea, and immediately to the north-west of the city the Anti-Libanus rises to a height of 3840 feet. This elevated part of the mountain, called Jebel Kasyún, is crowned by the Kubbet en-Nasr (* Dome of Victory'). From the base of this dome the best view of Damascus is obtained. Its exquisite beauty, as seen from the mountain, is greatly enhanced by contrast. Towards the west there are the bare chocolate sahara and the stormbleached, lime-streaked mountains. But the Barada, having forced its way through the mountain, spreads fan-like by seven rivers over the plain of Damascus, and everything lives whither the river cometh. A beautiful green meadow, the joy of all orientals, extends almost from the mountain to the city; gardens, in which all the trees of the forest and the field blend their many shades, extend for many a mile and hold the desert at bay. From out this bower of soft green the city lifts to heaven its forest of minarets towering above pearly domes, The rivers of Damascus are the constant source of the city s perennial existence. According to tradition, Abraham on his westward march lingered by the crystal waters, and ruled the city in peace.

The seven canals by which water is drawn off from the central Barada are called rivers. The most important on the right side is Nahar Abanias. This is the river Abana, and it flowed through the fashionable west-end suburb in the palmy days of Damascus. The most important canal on the left, side of the Barada is Nahar Taura-the Pharpar of 2 Kings, v. 12. Both rivers flowed through the residential parts of the city, and were largely used for bathing purposes.

|

yards east of the citadel the Great Mosque towers above the city. The Mosque was erected by Walid 'Abd el-Melik at the beginning of the 8th century on the site of the church of St John, just as that church had been erected by Arcadius about the beginning of the 5th century on the site of a pagan temple, which probably occupied the site of the ancient Beit Rimmon. The church was constructed from the splendid material of ancient temples, and the mosque is made up of the materials of ancient churches. The old walls and many of the columns of the church are still in position, and on a portal, older than Mohammedan or Christian times, is carved a cross, followed by the 13th verse of the 145th Psalm in Greek, from the Septuagint, with the abbreviation Xe added. The mosque is adorned by three minarets, one of which, called the minaret of Jesus, rises to a height of 250 feet, and on this minaret, according to Mohammedan tradition, Jesus will appear when he comes to judge the world. Near to the pulpit there is a richly gilded dome, beneath which the head of John the Baptist is said to rest, and in the court there is another dome which contains precious fragments of Kutie, Syriac, and other manuscripts. Damascus contains 70 other mosques, and more than 150 chapels for prayer and instruction. The churches and synagogues have no architectural pretensions, and their internal decorations are gorgeous but tawdry. The tomb of Nur ed-Din is one of the ornaments of the city, and the walls of the best baths are decorated with beautiful Kishani tiles, and the floors with parian marble. The public cafes, though picturesque when lighted up, are dirty and sodden.

The religious communities occupy different quarters of Damascus, The Jewish quarter (Haratel-Yahoud) lies to the south of the street called Straight, which runs east and west for about a mile, with Roman gateways at either end. The course of the Via Recta can be traced by the columns in situ. The Christian quarter (Harat-enNasara) lies north of the street called Straight in the eastern part of the city, and the remainder of the city is occupied by "Mohammedans. It is spoken of as Harat-el-Islam, The Christians are superior in physique, in education, in enterprise, in skill, in industry to their Mohammedan neighbours.

The different industries are also carried on in

separate quarters. There is the silversmiths' bazaar, where rough but very effective personal ornaments are made; the saddlers' bazaar, where scarlet saddles and horse-trappings are gaily decorated with gold and silver thread; the shoemakers' bazaar, where red and yellow slippers of gondola-form and gorgeous top-boots are made; the Greek bazaar, where imitation Damascus blades' and 'antiques' newly made are offered to the unwary. The book bazaar (the Paternoster Row of the East), the cloth bazaar, the seed bazaar, the silk bazaar, and all the other trades and commodities, The appearance of Damascus as viewed from the have their distinct locations. The narrow and mountain resembles a tennis-racquet. The handle, badly paved streets of Damascus are dusty in which lies in a south-westerly direction, is the summer and muddy in winter. On either side are Meidan, a suburb which extends along the Mecca the rows of arched niches which are the shops of pilgrim-route for about a mile, and ends at the the place. Each shopkeeper sits cross-legged in Bawabat Alla ('Gate of God'). The other part is | his dukkan, with his spices or Manchester goods concentrated on the rivers, and is inclosed within | piled up around him, awaiting enstomers, whom he ancient walls and encompassed by luxuriant gardens | serves with great stateliness of manner. Behind which seem to surge around and over the pearl | the mud walls and mean entrances there are coloured city like a sea. At the western side of the splendid houses in Damascus. On entering, one is city within the walls stands the citadel. It is a dazzled by the barbaric grandeur white marble large quadrangular structure about 300 yards long pavements, tesselated with coloured stone; snowy and 250 wide, with projecting towers, and surrounded fountains where the constant music of falling by a moat. It was erected in 1219 by Melik el-water mingles with the cooing of doves from their Ashraf, and has a massive appearance, but it is a nests in the lemon-trees or trellised vines; walls good deal dilapidated. The palace stands outside | frescoed and decorated with mosaics and Persian the walls west of the citadel, and about 400; tiles, and slabs inlaid with coloured pastes and

precious stones; arabesque ceilings set with Venetian mirrors, and adorned with blue and purple and gold-all that oriental art and lavish expenditure can do has been done to attract and charm the eye.

Great and steady progress is being made in Damascus in education, especially by the Christians; but the Jews and Mohammedans are also awaking to the necessity of a higher standard of civilisation. For many years the Irish Presbyterians have conducted successful educational establishments in the city and neighbouring villages as auxiliary to their mission work. The British Syrian schools have also an establishment, and the London Jews' Society.

One of the sights of Damascus is the Hajj (q.v.). When it is starting for Mecca the whole city turns out to see the procession. For miles around there is a surging sea of human beings, dressed in the brightest and most striking colours. Circassians and Afghans, Kurds and Kalmucks, Turkomans and Tekkes, Bedouins from the desert, and shepherds from the steppes, and all the heterogeneous tribes and peoples of the East, are represented in that brilliant procession. Damascus is also one of the meeting-places between the East and West. Enormous caravans of camels pass to and fro between Bagdad and Damascus, exchanging the dates and tobacco and spices and carpets of the East for the produce of the looms and workshops of Europe. The chief exports are grain, flour, native cotton and silk manufactures, wool, apricot paste and stones, raisins, and liquorice-root; the imports include textiles, indigo, tobacco, coffee, sugar, and leather. In 1887 the total exports were valued at £341,294, and the imports at £398,423, more than half of the latter being British. In 1889 gas and tramways were introduced into the city. Pop. about 150,000, of whom 20,000 are Christians of various sects (32,000 before the great massacre of July 1860); 6000 are Jews; and the remainder Mohammedans.

Damask. This name, long given to certain fabrics with ornamental patterns, appears to have originated through Damascus having become, as early as the 12th century, so celebrated for its figured silks that they were sought for everywhere. The term damask is now applied to stuffs made for table-covers, window curtains, and furniture coverings, with floral, scroll, heraldic, or partly geometrical patterns woven in the loom, but not to printed designs. There are silk, woollen, linen, and cotton damasks. Some are of two materials, usually dyed of different colours, such as silk and linen, or silk and wool, while many old damasks are of silk and gold. There are other figured textiles more or less resembling damask, such as Brocade (q.v.) and figured Velvet (q.v.), but on these the pattern is generally, at least slightly, raised, while in damask the surface is flat, and the pattern is distinct on both sides of the cloth. The structure of damask, like diaper, is merely a variety of twilling. It is by the order in which the warp threads are raised and depressed for the interweaving with the weft that the pattern is produced; the weft, as a rule, intersecting the warp from every fourth up to every eighth thread. This is accomplished by a Jacquard apparatus attached to the loom. The pattern is first painted on a specially prepared paper, and then read off' and perforated on cards by a cutting machine made for the purpose, each card being made to control the arrangement for one shot or weft thread. These cards, which may be from 200 to 2000 in number, are laced into an endless chain, and made to revolve on a cylinder forming part of the apparatus. The holes in the cards correspond to a certain number of cross needles,' into which are looped upright wires

DAMASUS

terminating in hooks for lifting the warp the
The mechanism for raising such of these wres
with them the warp threads as are requires, dr
each throw of the shuttle, is explained Late
JACQUARD-LOOM. It requires four Jace art
machines to complete some patterns of damek,
and a greater number if the design is exceptron
elaborate.

*

Table-linen damask is perhaps the kind za wt largely made. In Great Britain, the principal of this manufacture are Dunfermline in Setar Belfast in Ireland, and Barnsley in Yorkshire some of the linen damask mills in Engla Scotland, coloured union damask, of wooi ats is also made on a large scale. Cotton uan.)*a both dyed and undyed, are woven extensive a Manchester and its neighbourhood, as well as Glasgow and Paisley. The mills where all s damasks are chiefly manufactured are at or near Halifax and Bradford, where a kind, consisting of mohair, or of mohair and sk has been recently fabricated. Silk damasis AT principally made in the neighbourhood of Los < Since 1860, largely through the labours of IBock of Aix-la-Chapelle, one or two very interest ing collections of European damasks and figured stuffs, ranging in date from the 13th so the 16th century, have been made. A cata. Osar with some illustrations of the specimens in South Kensington Museum was prepared years ago by the Rev. Dr Daniel Ri then some remarkable examples have been a m and the authorities of that institution are a publishing large coloured illustrations of these The original pieces, even though many of them an much faded, give a vivid idea of the beauty the products of the looms of Sicily, of Fore Venice, Lucca, and Genoa, and of some Spacio towns, during the middle ages. The materia's f which they are made are silk alone, si.k and gi silk and linen, and silk and cotton. When f or animals are represented on these damasks t are conventionally, not realistically, treated, the designs of most of them are so appropriate effective, that even the chromolithographs of them are of great value not only to the textile desi_~~~T. but to students of every branch of decorative art Damasus, the name of two popes of E. DAMASUS I. was born in 306, probably at i, e became archdeacon of the Roman Church m and pope in 366. The party of Ursinus, the of Damasus, were overpowered after a san" SAT struggle of three days in the streets of R afterwards in the Basilica Liberiana ( Maggiore), from which 137 corpses were carre in one day, the 25th October 366. The Entere Valentinian I. decided in favour of DaTTERSTIS twelve years later, the schism still contin edict of Gratian (378) made him the juge in case of all the clergy of the hostile party woo lived in Rome. He was a zealous opponent the Arians, and condemned the Illyrian test Ursacius and Valens at a synod which he at Rome in 368, and Auxentius, Bishop of M at a second synod there in 370. Damasus : his friend Jerome to undertake the revision vi Italia (in 383 and 384), which led him to ti paration of the Vulgate version; and he dai for the preservation and adornment of the Ho catacombs. He died in 384, and was canonume His festival falls on the 11th Decem" met writings of Damasus, which are chiefly letters epigrams, were published at Rome in lase editions, Rome, 1754, and Paris, 18401 See La” Geschichte der römischen Kirche (vol. i. Bonand Rade, Damasus, Bischof von Rom (F 1882).-DAMASUS II., previously Poppe R Brixen, was elected pope in 1048, through the

|

DAMPING OFF

DANAE

667

successful management of that journal on democratic lines. He has published several translations and anthologies, collaborated in a Life of Grant been an associate at Brook Farm, planned and edited the New American Cyclopædia (1857-63), and its revised edition, the American Cyclopædia (1873 76), both in 16 vols. See ENCYCLOPÆDIA.

buccaneering expedition, in which he coasted along the shores of Chili, Peru, and Mexico, sailing thence across the Pacific, and touching at the Philippine Islands, China, and New Holland. Put(1868), and, along with George Ripley, who had ashore on Nicobar Islands, May 1688, after a dispute with his comrades, he made his way by sheer seamanship in a native canoe to Atcheen, and after two years' trading in the neighbouring seas, made his way to England (1691), where he pub lished his vigorous and interesting Voyage round the World (1697). He was afterwards deputed by government to conduct a voyage of discovery to the South Seas, in which he explored the west and north-west coasts of Australia, also the coasts of New Guinea and New Britain, giving his name to the Dampier Archipelago and Strait. On the return voyage his vessel was wrecked off Ascension, and Dampier with his crew lived on turtles and goats on that island for over two months, until relieved. The old buccaneer was more skilful as a pilot than successful as a commander, and his overbearing cruelty to his lieutenant led to himself being court-martialled. Yet soon after he was

again appointed to the command of two vessels in a privateering expedition to the South Seas. He was as unfortunate as before. According to an account published by Furmell, one of his sailors, Dampier was guilty not merely of drunkenness and brutality, but even of cowardice, which at least is hard to believe of an old buccaneer. The master of one of his two vessels was that Alexander Selkirk who was marooned at Juan Fernandez, and was yet to

Dana, JAMES DWIGHT, an American mineralogist and geologist, was born at Utica, New York, 12th February 1813. He graduated at Yale College in 1833, and was sent out in 1838 as a scientific observer in the United States exploring expedition, under Wilkes, visiting the Antarctic and Pacific. During the course of this expedition Dana's ship was wrecked. He was afterwards associated with his father-in-law, the elder Silliman, in the editorship of the American Journal of Science. In 1846 he was elected professor of Natural History and Geology in Yale College. Among his works are a System of Mineralogy (1837), a Manual of Mineralogy (1848), two treatises on Corals, a Text-book of Geology (1864), and many highly valued reports on geological, mineralogical, and zoological subjects. His principal text-books have been repeatedly enlarged and revised. Dr Dana's labours have gained him world-wide distinction, and he has been elected to membership in most of the prominent scientific societies of Europe and America.

In 1818 he became associate

Dana, RICHARD HENRY, an American poet and prose writer, was born at Cambridge, Massabe made immortal as Robinson Crusoe. Dampierchusetts, 15th November 1787. He was educated returned home at the close of 1707, poor and broken, at Harvard College, and was admitted to the bar nor did his angry Vindication re-establish his at Boston in 1811. reputation. Next year he sailed again to the editor of the North American Review, to which he South Seas as pilot to a privateer, which rescued contributed largely. Some of his poems, such as Selkirk, and returned in 1711 after a prosperous The Dying Raven (1821), and The Buccaneer (1827), Voyage. Dampier died in London early in March were warmly praised by critics on both sides of the Atlantic. The American public, however, received them coldly, partly because it was not at that time educated up to the standard of Dana's work, but chiefly because that work, with all its literary merits, such as learning, neatness of execution, and precision in verbal expression, lacked the elements which most appeal to the popular feelings. Dana's best literary work was done in the field of criticism. His abilities as a critic were very decided; and though many of his best efforts were not duly appre

1715.

Damping off, in Horticulture, the death of plants from excess of moisture in the soil and atmosphere. Young seedlings in stoves and hotbeds are particularly liable to it. Although the cause is sufficiently obvious, prevention is not always easy; not only because some plants are very sensitive as to moisture, but also because the necessity of keeping sashes closed on account of temperature often stands in the way of the ventilaciated in his day, they did much to educate and ele tion which would otherwise be desirable, and it is when a moist atmosphere stagnates around them, and the temperature is not very low, that plants are most liable to damp off.

Damson, a rather small oval-fruited variety of the common plum, much esteemed for preserving, and not wholly unfit for dessert. The tree grows to a considerable height, but has a bushy, sloe-like appearance. It is extremely fruitful. There are many sub-varieties, with fruit of different colours, dark purple, bluish, black, yellow, &c. Damsons are produced in great quantities in some parts of | England. Damson pies and damson cheese' -made somewhat in the manner of fig-cake- are well known. The name is a corruption of Damascene, from Damascus. --The Mountain Damson or Bitter Damson of the West Indies is the Simaruba (q.v.).

Dana, CHARLES ANDERSON, an American man of letters, was born at Hinsdale, New Hampshire, 8th August 1819, spent two years at Harvard, and was a member of the Brook Farm (q.v.) community. From 1848 to 1862 he was the managing editor of the New York Tribune, which he was largely instrumental in making the leading organ, of the party opposed to the extension of slavery to new territories; and from 1863 to the close of the war he was assistant-secretary of war. In 1867 he purchased the New York Sun, and commenced the

vate the literary taste of New England. A collee. tion of his prose and verse appeared in 1833. He was for a time in 1821 22 connected with The Idle Man, a meritorious though ill supported literary periodical. He died at Boston, 2d February 1879. His son, RICHARD H. DANA, author and lawyer, was born 1st August 1815, and graduated at Harvard College in 1837. During an interval in his collegiate career, occasioned in part by a troublesome affection of the eyes, he shipped as a common sailor, and made a voyage to California and back. This voyage he described in Two Years before the Mast (1840), the best book of the kind in the language; in 1840 he was admitted to the Massachusetts bar. As a lawyer he attained great dis tinction, especially in the department of maritime law. Among his works are The Seaman's Friend (1841) and To Cuba and Back (1859). He also published an edition of Wheaton's International Ler, and was prominent as a Free-soiler and Republican politician. In 1879 he was nominated to the position of minister to England, but after a long contest the senate failed to confirm the appointment. He died in Rome, 7th January 1882.

Danaë, the daughter of Acrisius, king of Argos, himself the great grandson of Danaus An oracle had announced that she would one day give birth to a son, who should kill his grandfather. Acrisius,