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when, having been elected governor of Massachusetts, he resigned his seat. In March, 1835, having been elected to the U. S. senate, he resigned the office of governor, but reassumed it in 1841, and continued to discharge its duties till Jan. 1843. In March, 1845, he was again elected to the U. S. senate, and remained there until March, 1853, when he declined a reëlection, and retired to private life. In the early part of his professional career Mr. Davis was identified with the federal party; but, beyond writing occasionally for the local journals, had little to do with politics. His practice was extensive. His reputation as a man of sound learning, of practical sagacity, and of sterling integrity, made him essential to one or the other litigant in every important cause in his county. This left him little leisure for public affairs. His first entrance on public life was on the floor of congress. Coming from a quarter of the country already interested in manufactures, and from a district noted for the mechanical skill and industry of its population, he naturally became an advocate for protection to American industry. The tariff of 1824 had not given satisfaction to the manufacturing interests, and the people from all parts of the northern and middle states were petitioning congress to interpose legislative aid to protect the wool growers and manufacturers. Mr. Davis was a protectionist in advance of public opinion in New England. He thought that government should so lay the import duties which were necessary for revenue, that the industry of the country should be expanded, and its labor made more productive and more profitable. He advocated these views on the floor of congress with zeal and power. The speeches delivered by him in the sessions of 1828, 1830, and 1832, in reply to Mr. McDuffie, Mr. Cambreleng, and others, were regarded by the protectionists as the best statements and defences of their theories. During his first term in the senate, that body was mainly occupied with the controversy with Gen. Jackson's administration, of which he was a consistent opponent. He took a prominent part in the opposition to the expunging resolutions, and, it is understood, drafted a part, if not the whole, of the famous protest against them. He also acted with the whig party in opposing the administration of Mr. Van Buren, and contributed, in a short speech against the sub-treasury in 1840, the most efficient electioneering pamphlet for the canvass of that year. It was computed that more than one million copies of this speech were circulated among the voters. Before this time, the long public service and incorruptible integrity of Mr. Davis had gained for him the popular appellation of "Honest John Davis," a title which clung to him through life. During his second term as governor, the so-called Dorr rebellion took place in Rhode Island. He was urged by each side to render it aid, but refused to abandon the neutrality which he said Massachusetts ought to observe. For this, and for an imprudent act of one of his military staff, he failed of a reelection by the people, and the VOL. VI.-19

legislature after a protracted struggle supplanted him by a democrat. During his absence from the senate, the protective tariff of 1842 had gone into operation, and upon his return he found a democratic administration about to substitute for it the revenue scale of 1846. In the discussion of this measure he resumed in the senate the place in the protectionist ranks which he had formerly held in the house. Mr. Davis opposed the Mexican war from the beginning. He was one of the two senators who voted that the war did not exist by the act of the republic of Mexico. He supported the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in opposition to his colleague and other whig senators. In the great controversy which followed, as to the disposition to be made of the territories of the United States, he was decided and earnest in favor of excluding slavery from them. He supported what is known as the Wilmot proviso during the administration of Mr. Polk, and he was one of the most decided opponents of what were known as the compromise acts during the administration of Ġen. Taylor and Mr. Fillmore. He had no fear of a dissolution of the union. He retired from public life just as the passage of the compromise acts had completed the dissolution of the whig party, with which he had acted during his whole career. For a brief period, surrounded by friends whom he loved and respected, his favorite agricultural pursuits afforded occupation for his leisure hours. But his constitution was undermined, and a short but painful illness soon terminated his life.

DAVIS, JOHN A. G., professor of law in the university of Virginia, born in that state in 1801, died Nov. 14, 1840. He was educated at William and Mary college, and commenced the practice of law in the county of Albemarle. He was also for a time editor of a journal published at Charlottesville. In 1830 he was appointed to the law professorship in the university, and performed its duties with great promise and success. He was for some time chairman of the faculty. Hearing one night the report of a pistol before his door, he went out to ascertain the cause, and found there a student masked, who slowly retreated before him, and deliberately discharged a pistol at him. He died in consequence. He published a volume on criminal law for the use of justices of the peace, the copyright of which was purchased by the legislature from his family for $12,000.

DAVIS, MATTHEW L., an American writer, born in 1766, died at Manhattanville, N. Y., June 21, 1850. He was originally a printer by trade, and acquired in the course of that business a desultory education and considerable skill as a writer. He early attached himself in politics to the fortunes of Aaron Burr, and was an advocate of his elevation to the presidency, at the time when the balance hung so long undecided between him and Jefferson. For many years he was the correspondent at Washington of the "New York Courier and Enquirer," under the signature of "The Spy in Washington." For the "London

Times" also he wrote under the name of the "Genevese Traveller." During many years before the death of Aaron Burr Mr. Davis was apparently his only attached friend, and the most important of his writings is his "Memoirs of the Life of Aaron Burr." Burr's diary was also edited by him.

DAVIS'S STRAIT, an arm of the North Atlantic ocean, communicating with Baffin's bay, and separating Greenland on the east from Cumberland island on the west. It stretches north from Cape Farewell, about lat. 60° N., to Disco island, near lat. 70° N. Its narrowest part, where it is cut by the arctic circle, is 220 miles wide; its greatest breadth is about 600 miles. Its coasts are high, rocky, broken by numerous bays and inlets, the largest of which are Northumberland inlet and Hudson's strait, almost barren, and peopled by tribes of Esquimaux. Notwithstanding its dangerous currents and vast icebergs, it is a favorite resort for whalers, the whale being found here in greater number than in any other polar waters.

DAVITS, the projecting arms of wood or iron upon which boats are hoisted and hung over the sides or stern of ships. They are rigged with sheaves or blocks for that purpose. DAVOUST (or more correctly DAVOUT), LOUIS NICOLAS, a French general, born at Annoux, in Burgundy, May 10, 1770, died in Paris, June 1, 1823. A schoolmate of Bonaparte at the military school of Brienne, he was, when only 15, appointed 2d lieutenant in a cavalry regiment. In 1791 he served as major in the army commanded by Dumouriez, and was a brigadier-general as early as 1793, while Bonaparte was but a major. In that capacity he was employed for 3 years in the armies on the Moselle and the Rhine, where he gained the esteem of Moreau, who intrusted him with important commands. He accompanied Bonaparte to Egypt, and greatly contributed to the victory at Aboukir. On his return to France he was appointed division-general in 1800, chief commander of the consular guard in 1801, and in 1804 marshal of the empire. He took a distinguished part in the victories of Ulm and Austerlitz; and on the same day that Napoleon conquered the Prussians at Jena (Oct. 14, 1806), he won over them the victory of Auerstadt, and received as a reward the title of duke of Auerstadt. In 1809 he was made prince of Eckmühl, for his part in the battle of that name. After Wagram he was appointed military commander in Poland, which country he ruled with an iron hand. In the Russian campaign he defeated Bagration at Mohilev, and was wounded at the battle of the Moskwa (Borodino). After the disastrous retreat from Russia, he took up his head-quarters at Hamburg, where he was soon besieged by the victorious allied armies. He boldly opposed their forces; and it was only in April, 1814, that he consented to deliver the city into the hands of Gen. Gérard, a commissioner of Louis XVIII. Napoleon, on his return from Elba, appointed him minister of war. After the defeat at Wa

terloo, he was placed in command of all the troops in and around the capital, and was ready for the contest when he received positive orders from the provisional government to negotiate with the allies. In consequence of this order, he signed, July 3, 1815, at St. Cloud, the capitulation of Paris. A few days later he consented to a mere acknowledgment of the new government, and retired from active life. On the trial of Marshal Ney, he boldly declared that he would not have signed the capitulation of Paris if it had not, in his opinion, guaranteed the safety of all the military men then in that city. The firmness of his conduct was not palatable to the Bourbons; he was not fully reinstated in his position until 1818.-His only son, born in 1818, was a member of the chamber of peers, and for some time connected with the army, but became afterward insane, and died Aug. 18, 1853.

DAVY, SIR HUMPHRY, an English chemist, born at Penzance, Cornwall, Dec. 17, 1778, died at Geneva, Switzerland, May 29, 1829. He was the eldest son of Robert and Grace Davy; he was a healthy, active, and forward child, fond of sports and stories, of retentive memory, and of a remarkably affectionate disposition. He made rapid progress at his first school; at the grammar school, kept by an incompetent teacher, he followed no particular course of study, but studied what and when he pleased, and during his stay there gave no indication of the great powers he exhibited in after life; he acquired, however, a good knowledge of Latin and Greek, and appears always to have stood at the head of his class. Among his boyish tastes was that of fishing, the relish for which he never lost, and which was the subject of his delightful book "Salmonia." At the age of 9 he went to live with Mr. John Tonkin, a friend of his mother, who from regard to her in a manner adopted the young Humphry, when his family removed to Varfell, about 24 miles from Penzance. At the age of 14 he went to Dr. Cardew's school at Truro, where he remained nearly a year at the expense of his kind friend, Mr. Tonkin, to whose house in Penzance he returned in Dec. 1793; his school education was now at an end, and his self-education, to which he owed almost every thing, was about to commence. The next year was passed in desultory study, in active sports with gun and rod, and in occasional dissipation; this was a most dangerous period of his life, but he resisted the temptations which beset him, and began to study again in earnest. The death of his father in Dec. 1794, and the narrow circumstances of his family, gave fixedness to his vacillating purposes, and it was determined that he should study the art of medicine; accordingly, in Feb. 1795, he was apprenticed to Mr. Borlase, a surgeon and apothecary of Penzance, who was afterward distinguished as a physician. His studies were now followed with great zeal; his note books show that he gave attention to a great variety of subjects beside those coming within the strict line of his profession, such as the modern languages, mathematics, metaphys

ics, and especially chemistry and physics; he grappled with some of the highest problems of metaphysical theology and mental philosophy, and at one time seemed lost in the perplexities of materialism. While cultivating the intellect his imaginative powers were not neglected, as is proved by his love of poetry and by the composition of verses of considerable merit; his chosen subjects of study were illustrated by the reading of the best works within his reach. From physics his attention was naturally turned to chemistry, which he took up with ardor toward the end of 1797, at the commencement of his 19th year, though only in reference to his medical progress; the reading of Lavoisier's "Elements of Chemistry" first led him to the experimental study of the science in which he was destined to work such remarkable changes; his apparatus was of the rudest kind, his materials such as are most commonly used in medicine, and his first experiments very simple; yet so rapid was his progress that in 4 months he had sent to Dr. Beddoes, an Oxford ex-professor of chemistry, a new theory on "Heat and Light," to which the latter became a convert; this was his first publication, which appeared in 1799. The young chemist's mental activity was favored by the acquaintance of Mr. Gregory Watt, a son of the famous James Watt, who came to reside at Penzance in the winter of 1797 for the benefit of his health; in the society, conversation, and sympathy of this young man, Davy found the stimulus he needed in the development of his intellectual powers. He also became acquainted with Mr. Davies Gilbert, a scientific and highly educated man, afterward his successor as president of the royal society of London. The mineralogical and geological structure of the surrounding country, abounding in tin and copper mines, the lithological characters of the cliffs and headlands, and the everchanging air and sea of that tempestuous climate, invited him to the investigation of the operation of natural causes; his very first original experiments, at the age of 18, were to determine the kind of air which filled the vesicles of the common sea weeds thrown upon the shore, and he demonstrated that the marine plants act upon the air in precisely the same way as the terrestrial, by decomposing, under the influence of the sun's rays, carbonic acid, in order to obtain the carbon necessary for their growth, and the oxygen for their respiration. The state of chemical science, too, was favorable to his rapid advance, as its boundaries were small, its theories ill-defined, most of its departments little developed, and vast unexplored regions waiting for the coming of a master spirit. His medical studies must have been zealously pursued, as in their 4th year he was considered by Dr. Beddoes competent to take charge of his pneumatic institution at Clifton, in which pulmonary diseases were treated by the inhalation of different gases. Mr. Borlase kindly released him from his apprenticeship, and early in Oct. 1798, he left Penzance, before he was 20 years old, to

commence his public career at Clifton, near Bristol. In the year 1799, while resident at Clifton, he made his experiments on the protoxide of nitrogen (laughing gas), and published the results in 1800; he described its effects, which were much like those since produced by the inhalation of sulphuric ether; he also experimented with carburetted hydrogen, carbonic acid, and nitrogen, thereby seriously injuring his health. About the same time he had taken up the subject of galvanism, which afterward led to some of his greatest discoveries in decomposing the alkalies and alkaline earths. The pneumatic institution soon became very popular under his management, and some of the most obstinate diseases were benefited by the new remedies; the nitrous oxide was found very beneficial in many cases of palsy. The royal institution had just been founded after a plan of Count Rumford, with the intention of diffusing a knowledge of science in its applications to the common purposes of life; Davy received and accepted the invitation to become lecturer on chemistry, and in March, 1801, he took up his abode in London, and in May, 1802, he was formally appointed professor in the institution. His lectures at once became exceedingly popular; his youth, simple manners, eloquence, his knowledge of his subject, and his brilliant experiments, excited the attention of the highest ranks in London; his society was courted by all, and he seemed in danger of becoming a votary of fashion rather than of science. During the 11 years that he spent in the rooms of the royal institution, his bachelor apartments were furnished in the simplest manner; in the adjoining laboratory he spent most of his time, preparing for his lectures, and conducting his investigations on the fixed alkalies, on astringent vegetables in connection with the art of tanning, on the composition of mineral substances, on agricultural chemistry, on galvanism, and on electro-chemical science, which may be said to have sprung chiefly from his researches. His observations on tanning were published in the "Philosophical Transactions" for 1803; his lectures before the board of agriculture, which were delivered until 1813, were published under the title of "Elements of Agricultural Chemistry," a work which has passed through many editions, and has been translated into almost every European language. His important researches in electro-chemical science had been commenced at Clifton, and the results are published in the "Philosophical Transactions "from 1808 to 1812, and in the early "Bakerian Lectures" of 1806-27, the base potassium having been discovered on Oct. 6, 1807, and sodium a few days after, by decomposing moistened potash and soda by several voltaic batteries; his delight was most extravagant but excusable when he saw the globules of potassium appear and take fire as they entered the air. The mental labor of his experiments and the excitement of his discoveries threw him into a typhoid condition, which threatened his life for

a period of several weeks; on his recovery he experimented with a battery of 2,000 plates, discovered the base boron, showed the simple nature of chlorine, sulphur, and phosphorus, the compound nature of ammonia, and many other important facts. In 1803 he was elected a fellow, and in 1807 one of the secretaries of the royal society, which appointment he held for 5 successive years, an honorable and acceptable office to him, as it brought him into friendly intercourse with scientific men. The medical profession, which he had laid aside on coming to London, seems now to have been resumed for a short time; but the claims of science had too great an attraction, and he gave up medicine as he had previously declined an invitation to enter the church. So great was his reputation as a lecturer that he was invited to deliver courses before the Dublin society in 1810 and 1811, for which he received about $6,000, and was made doctor of civil law by Trinity college. He was knighted in April, 1812, by the prince regent, and in the same month married Mrs. Apreece, the widow of Shuckburgh Ashby Apreece, Esq., who brought him a considerable fortune; he was afterward created baronet. In the autumn of 1813, by express permission of the French government, granted on account of his scientific reputation, he visited the continent during the war, in company with Mr. Faraday 66 as his assistant in experiments and in writing;" the assistant has proved the peer of his master. While in Paris, where he spent 2 months, he became acquainted with the most eminent men of science, as Cuvier, Laplace, Gay-Lussac, Humboldt, and Vauquelin; during this brief period he discovered that iodine is a simple substance, analogous in its chemical relations to chlorine. He remained on the continent until the spring of 1815, visiting the south of France, Italy, and Switzerland, devoting special attention to the volcanic regions, and pursuing his chemical researches on colors, the iodine compounds, and oxymuriate salts, which were published in the "Philosophical Transactions" for 1815. As one of the results of his journey, he states in a letter to his mother that "England is the only country to live in, however interesting it may be to see other countries." Already in the front rank of scientific men, his next discovery placed him among the greatest benefactors of his race. In 1812 a terrific explosion of gas took place in a coal mine, causing the death of more than 100 men; and after many other such disasters, a committee of proprietors of mines waited upon Davy to see if his knowledge could devise any way of preventing similar accidents in future. He began by analyzing the gas, and ascertaining in what proportions its mixture with air rendered it most explosive, and the degree of heat necessary to ignite it; from observing that the combustion did not take place through tubes of small dimensions from the refrigerating effect of the metallic mass, he gradually reduced the length of the tubes till he

found that a simple fine metallic gauze was sufficient so to cool the burning gas in its passage through it as not to ignite the great explosive mass on the outside; he accordingly covered the lamps with a wire tissue, whose interstices were of the thickness proper to cool the burning gas which passed through it to a degree to prevent combustion, being permeable to air and light, but not to flame. This simple contrivance constituted the miner's safety lamp, and has saved the lives of thousands; the dangerous gas may burn within the gauze, and thus give timely warning, and may at last extinguish the lamp, but even then a suspended platina spiral will remain glowing in the midst of the explosive gas, and by its illumination enable the miner to see as long as the air is fit for respiration. His attention was first drawn to the subject in Aug. 1815, and in December his lamp was completed; urged by a friend to take out a patent for his invention, he nobly replied: "No, my good friend, I never thought of such a thing; my sole object was to serve the cause of humanity; and if I have succeeded, I am amply rewarded in the gratifying reflection of having done so." In May, 1818, he left England on a second continental journey, visiting Germany, Hungary, and Italy, and returning to England in June, 1819. On the death of Sir Joseph Banks in 1820, Sir Humphry Davy was almost unanimously elected president of the royal society of London, an office to which for 7 years afterward he was annually elected without opposition; thus the poor boy of Penzance by the strength of his own intellect had attained the highest honor to which a man of science in England can aspire, and the learned body over which he presided lost nothing of its ancient reputation during his official connection with it. The last term of his scientific labors extends from 1823 to the summer of 1826, during which time he communicated to the royal society 3 papers on the preservation of metals by electro-chemical means, and the Bakerian lecture for 1826, "On the Relation of Electrical and Chemical Changes." As in the case of the safety lamp, it was to remedy a practical evil that these papers were prepared. His attention was directed by the commissioners of the navy to the corrosion of the copper sheathing on the bottoms of vessels by the sea water; he ascertained that the popular notion that impure copper is soonest corroded is an error, and that the corrosion is owing to the joint action of the air and the saline ingredients in the water; he succeeded in preserving the copper sheathing from corrosion by rendering it negatively electrical by small pieces of tin or zinc, or iron nails, these metals making a surface of copper from 200 to 300 times their own size so electrical as to have no action on sea water; the very perfection of the protection rendered this method practically inapplicable where speed was requisite, as shells and sea weeds adhered to the non-corroded surface. This principle of galvanic protection has been successfully applied to various important uses in the arts and sciences. In 1824 he

made a journey to Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holstein, and Hanover, admiring the scenery, fishing and hunting, and communicating with their eminent men, among whom were Berzelius, Oersted, Gauss, Olbers, and Schumacher. In 1825 he began to experience considerable indisposition, which ever after affected his ordinary elasticity of spirits, depressed also by the illness and death of his mother in 1826. He had suffered for more than a year with numbness and pain in his right arm, when toward the close of 1826 he had a paralytic attack, affecting the right side of the body; his mental faculties were not impaired, and while confined to his room he corrected the proof sheets of his "Discourses to the Royal Society," published in Jan. 1827. In this month he had so far recovered as to start on a journey to the continent, going through France, over Mt. Cenis into Italy, where he occupied himself in hunting, fishing, and observations on natural history and chemical science, for about 3 months; he then journeyed through various parts of southern Germany and Switzerland, returning in October, with health and strength slightly improved, to England, where he remained until March, 1828. "Salmonia, or Days of Fly-fishing," is a kind of dramatization of the most interesting parts of his journal in these last travels, rendered doubly valuable by his observations in natural history, and glowing with the most exalted ideas of God drawn from nature. Finding no permanent improvement in his health, he left London again in March, 1828, for the Alpine regions of southern Austria, where he passed the summer, spending the winter in Italy; during this journey he wrote the "Consolations, in Travel," his last writing, which Cuvier calls the work of a dying Plato. On Feb. 20, 1829, he experienced at Rome a sudden and severe paralytic attack, which ultimately proved fatal, though he so far improved as to quit Rome on the last of April for Geneva, where he arrived May 28; he dined at 5 P.M. and retired at about 9 o'clock; at 23 the following morning he was taken alarmingly ill, and in a few moments expired; he was buried, in accordance with his expressed wish, where he died, in the city of Geneva, on June 1. His brother believed that the paralysis was caused by softening of the brain, which, with some enlargement of the heart, was the cause of his death. Sir Humphry Davy was of middle stature, 5 feet 7 inches in height, well proportioned and muscular, and able to endure considerable fatigue; of sanguine temperament, warm in his feelings, of cheerful disposition, fond of company, persevering and observing; he devoted himself assiduously to science, keeping aloof from political strife. He was chosen a member of the French institute in 1817; he was also connected with most of the great academies of Europe, and was by universal consent considered without a superior, if he had an equal, among the chemists of his time. His memory is dearly cherished at Geneva, where his widow founded a prize in his honor, to be given every 2 years for the

most original and important discovery in chemical science. Beside the life by his brother, there is one by John Ayrton Paris, M.D. (2 vols. 8vo., London, 1881).-DAVY, JOHN, M.D., a younger brother of the preceding, and the writer of his biography. After taking his degree of doctor of medicine at the university of Edinburgh in 1804, he was attached to the English army, and travelled extensively in the East. He was the author of several works of merit, the principal of which, beside the life of his brother, in 2 vols. 8vo., are: "An Account of the Interior of Ceylon and of its Inhabitants, with Travels in that Island" (4to., London, 1821; this work is especially valuable for its details on the natural history of Ceylon); "Researches, Physiological and Anatomical" (2 vols. 8vo., London, 1889); "Notes and Observations on the Ionian Islands and Malta, with some Remarks on Constantinople and Turkey" (2 vols. 8vo., 1842). Davy has spent most of his life in the foreign army service of his country, but was the travelling companion and physician of his illustrious brother during the last period of his life. He has published many important papers in the "Philosophical Transactions," several of which are collected, with illustrations, in his "Researches, Physiological and Anatomical." In 1858 he published a volume entitled "The Fragmentary Remains of Sir Humphry Davy."

Dr.

DAWES, RUFUS, an American poet, born in Boston, Jan. 26, 1803. He entered Harvard college in 1820, but did not graduate on account of a charge of participating in some disturbance. The charge was afterward disproved, and furnished the occasion for his first published poem, directed against the Harvard faculty. He was admitted to the bar, but has never practised. He was a contributor to the "U. S. Literary Gazette," and conducted for a time the "Emerald," a journal printed at Baltimore. He published in 1830 the "Valley of the Nashaway and other Poems;" and in 1839, "Geraldine, Athenia of Damascus, and Miscellaneous Poems," compris ing descriptions of natural scenery, songs, and odes. The next year he published "Nix's Mate," a historical romance. Mr. Dawes is a Swedenborgian, and has frequently officiated in the pulpits of that denomination.

DAWSON, GEORGE, an English clergyman and lecturer, born in London in 1821, was educated at the university of Glasgow, and became in 1844 the pastor of the Baptist Mount Zion chapel in Birmingham. His independence of character and disregard of the conventional usages of the denomination caused a separation in the congregation and a new chapel to be built for the minister, which was opened in 1847 under the name of the "church of the Saviour." He has been very successful as a lecturer, and is a proprietor of the "Birmingham Daily Press."

DAX, an arrondissement and town in the S. W. of France, department of Landes; pop. of the former in 1856, 113,794, and of the latter 6,125. The town is situated on the left bank of the Adour, about 30 m. S. W. from Mont-de

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