Part 176 (1/2)
DURWARD, QUENTIN, a Scottish archer in the service of Louis XI., the hero of a novel of Scott's of the name.
DuSSELDORF (176), a well-built town of Rhenish Prussia, on the right bank of the Rhine; it is a place of manufactures, and has a fine picture-gallery with a famous school of art a.s.sociated.
DUTENS, JOSEPH, a French engineer and political economist (1763-1848).
DUTENS, LOUIS, a French savant, born at Tours; after being chaplain to the British minister at Turin, settled in England, and became historiographer-royal; was a man of varied learning, and well read in historical subjects and antiquities (1730-1812).
DUTROCHET, a French physiologist and physicist, known for his researches on the pa.s.sage of fluids through membranous tissues (1776-1847).
DUUMVIRS, the name of two Roman magistrates who exercised the same public functions.
DUVAL, CLAUDE, a French numismatist, and writer on numismatics; keeper of the imperial cabinet of Vienna; was originally a shepherd boy (1695-1775).
DWIGHT, TIMOTHY, an American theologian, grandson of Jonathan Edwards, and much esteemed in his day both as a preacher and a writer; his ”Theology Explained and Defended,” in 5 vols., was very popular at one time, and was frequently reprinted (1752-1817).
DWINA, a Russian river, distinguished from the DuNA (q. v.), also called Duna, and an important, which flows N. to the White Sea.
DYAKS, the native name of tribes of Malays of a superior cla.s.s aboriginal to Borneo.
DYCE, ALEXANDER, an English literary editor and historian, born in Edinburgh; edited several of the old English poets and authors, some of them little known before; also the poems of Shakespeare, Pope, &c.; was one of the founders of the Percy Society, for the publication of old English works (1798-1869).
DYCE, WILLIAM, a distinguished Scottish artist, born in Aberdeen, studied in Rome; settled for a time in Edinburgh, and finally removed to London; painted portraits at first, but soon took to higher subjects of art; his work was such as to commend itself to both German and French artists; he gave himself to fresco-painting, and as a fresco-painter was selected to adorn the walls of the Palace of Westminster and the House of Lords; his ”Baptism of Ethelbert,” in the latter, is considered his best work (1806-1864).
DYCK, VAN. See VANDYCK.
DYER, JOHN, English poet; was a great lover and student of landscape scenery, and his poems, ”Grongar Hill” and the ”Fleece,” abound in descriptions of these, the scenery of the former lying in S. Wales (1700-1758).
DYNAM, the unit of work, or the force required to raise one pound one foot in one second.
DYNAMITE, a powerful explosive substance, intensely local in its action; formed by impregnating a porous siliceous earth or other substance with some 70 per cent. of nitro-glycerine.
DYNAMO, a machine by which mechanical work is transformed into powerful electric currents by the inductive action of magnets on coils of copper wire in motion.
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