three years, but can hold the office only three years in six. The principal rivers besides the Delaware, which forms a part of the boundary, are Brandywine creek, Christiana creek, Duck creek, Mispillion creek, Indian river, Choptank and Nanticoke. Delaware is, next to Rhode Island, the smallest state in extent in the Union, and the least diversified in surface. The general aspect of the greater part is that of an extended plain, though the northwestern part of the county of Newcastle is hilly or uneven. The heights of Christiana are lofty and commanding, and the hills of Brandywine are rough and stony; but in the lower country, there is very little diversity of level. The highest ridge between Delaware and Chesapeake bays passes through this state. On the summit of the ridge, there is a chain of swamps, from which a number of waters descend on the west to Chesapeake bay, and on the east to the river Delaware. Along the Delaware river, and for about 9 miles into the interior, the soil is generally a rich clay, which produces large timber, and is well adapted to the purposes of agriculture; but, between this tract and the swamps, the soil is light, sandy, and of an inferior quality. In the county of Newcastle, the soil is a strong clay; in Kent, it is mixed with sand; and in Sussex, the sand greatly predominates. The principal articles of produce are wheat, Indian corn, rye, barley, oats, flax, buck-wheat and potatoes. The county of Sussex contains some excellent grazing lands; and it exports great quantities of timber, obtained from Cypress swamp, on Indian river, which extends about 6 miles from E. to W., and nearly 12 from N. to S. The staple commodity is wheat, which is of a superior quality, and is highly esteemed for its uncommon softness and whiteness, and is preferred in foreign markets. Large establishments have been erected for manufacturing wheat into flour. Of these, the Brandywine mills, in the vicinity of Wilmington, are the most important. These are the finest collection of mills in the U. States, and are celebrated both for the excellence and the quantity of flour which they manufacture. Delaware contains very few minerals. In the county of Sussex, and among the branches of the Nanticoke, are large quantities of bog iron ore, well adapted for casting. Before the revolution, it was wrought to a great extent; but since that event, the business has declined. Delaware was settled by the Swedes and Finns as early as 1627. The colony was formed under the auspices of

165

Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, who named the country Nova Suecia. Hoarkill (now Lewistown) was founded in 1630, but, the Dutch claiming the country, it passed under their power in 1655. In 1664, the colony on the Delaware fell, with other parts of New Amsterdam, into the hands of the English, and was granted by Charles II to his brother James, duke of York, who, in 1682, conveyed it, as far as cape Henlopen, to William Penn. In 1704, Delaware, though under the same proprietor, became a separate colonial establishment, and remained such until the revolution. Its constitution was formed in 1776. The Chesapeake and Delaware canal crosses this state. As a manufacturing state, Delaware holds a rank far above its relative extent and population. The works near Wilmington are extensive and highly valuable. As early as 1810, the value of the various manufactures exceeded $1,733,000.

DELAWARE; a river of the U. States, which rises in Catskill mountains, in New York. In its course, it separates Pennsylvania from New York and New Jersey, and loses itself in Delaware bay, about 5 miles below Newcastle. It is navigable for a 74 gun ship to Philadelphia, 55 miles above the head of the bay, and about 120 from the ocean; for sloops to the head of the tide, at Trenton, 35 miles above Philadelphia; and for boats about 100 miles farther, though the boat navigation above Easton is very difficult. Its two most important tributaries are the Schuylkill and the Lehigh. The whole length, from its source to the bay, is about 300 miles. The principal towns on the Delaware, besides Philadelphia, are Easton and Bristol, Pa., Trenton, Bordentown and Burlington, N. J.

DELAWARE BAY; a large bay or arm of the sea, between the states of Delaware and New Jersey, formed by the mouth of the Delaware river and several other smaller ones. It is 65 miles long, and, in the centre, about 30 miles across, and about 18 at its mouth, from cape Henlopen, in lat. 38° 47' N., lon. 75° 6' W., to cape May, in lat. 38° 57′ N., lon. 74° 52′ W.

DELAWARE BREAKWATER. The Delaware breakwater is situated at the entrance into the bay of Delaware, near cape Henlopen. The anchorage ground, or roadstead, is formed by a cove in the southern shore, directly west of the pitch of the cape and the seaward end of an extensive shoal called the shears; the tail of which makes out from the shore about

166

five miles up the bay, near the mouth of Broadkill creek, from whence it extends eastward, and terminates at a point about two miles to the northward of the shore at the cape. The breakwater consists of an insulated dike or wall of stone, the transversal section of which is a trapezium, the base resting on the bottom, whilst the summit line forms the top of the work. The other sides represent the inner and outer slopes of the work, that to the seaward being much greater than the other. The inward slope is 45 degrees; the top is horizontal, 22 feet in breadth, and raised 5 feet above the highest spring tide; the outward or sea slope is 39 feet in altitude, upon a base of 1054 feet; both these dimensions being measured in relation to a horizontal plane passing by a point 27 feet below the lowest spring tide. The base bears to the altitude nearly the same ratio as similar lines in the profiles of the Cherbourg and Plymouth breakwaters. The opening or entrance from the ocean is 650 yards in width between the north point of the cape and the east end of the breakwater. At this entrance, the harbor will be accessible during all winds coming from the sea. The dike is formed in a straight line from E. S. E. to W. N. W.: 1200 yards is the length of this portion of the work, which is destined to serve the purposes of a break water. At the distance of 350 yards from the upper or western end of the breakwater (which space forms the upper entrance), a similar dike, of 500 yards in length, is projected in a direct line, W. by S. S., forming an angle of 146° 15 with the breakwater. This work is designed more particularly as an icebreaker. The whole length of the two dikes above described, which are now partly commenced, will be 1700 yards: they will contain, when finished, 900,000 cubic yards of stone, composed of pieces of basaltic rock and granite, weighing from a quarter of a ton to three tons and upwards. The depth of water, at low tide, is from four to six fathoms throughout the harbor, which will be formed by these works and the cove of the southern shore, and which is calculated to afford a perfect shelter over a space or water surface of seven tenths of a square mile. The great objects to be gained by the construction of an artificial harbor in this roadstead are, to shelter vessels from the action of waves caused by the winds blowing from the E. to the N. W., round by the N., and also to protect them against injuries arising from floating ice descending the bay from the N. W.

DELEGATE. (See Delegation.)

DELEGATES, COURT OF, is so called because the judges thereof are delegated, by the king's commission under the great seal, to hear and determine appeals in the three following cases:-1. Where a sentence is given in any ecclesiastical cause, by the archbishop, or his official; 2. when any sentence is given in any 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 filled with lords spiritual and temporal, judges of the courts at Westminster, and doctors of the civil law.

DELEGATION; the investing with authority to act for another. Hence the name has been given to a body of persons thus deputed. Before the present constitution of the United States was adopted, the persons constituting the congress at Philadelphia were called delegates, and the body of representatives of a state in congress are still called the delegation of a state. In Maryland and Virginia, the most numerous branch of the state legislatures, which, in most of the other states, is called house of representatives, has the name of house of delegates. (See Constitution.) The name of delegate is also given to the representatives sent to the congress of the U. States from territories not yet formed into states. In Italy, branches of government are often called delegazione, and their members delegati. Thus there exist in the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom nine delegazioni for Lombardy, and eight for the Venetian part of the government, consisting of one delegato, a vice-delegato, and an adjunct.-In the civil law, delegation is that act by which a debtor transfers to another person the duty to pay, or a creditor transfers to another person the right to receive payment.

DELFT; the name of some celebrated Dutch painters, particularly of James (born 1619, died 1661) and William Delft (towards the end of the sixteenth century). Both were born at Delft, were portrait painters, and relations to the celebrated Mirevelt, also a native of this town.

DELFT; a considerable town of South Holland, between Rotterdamn and Leyden, traversed by a canal which communicates with the Maese. Delft is tolerably well built, but dark; most of the streets are divided by narrow, stagnant canals, except in the centre of the town, where there are two spacious streets, with broad canals bordered with trees. The front of the stadthouse is extensive and curious, and

magnificent domes of white marble, flanked by two minarets. The city has two spacious streets, leading from the palace to the principal gates, and many good houses built of brick. "The inhabited part of Delhi," says bishop Heber, in his Narrative, "is about seven miles in circuit, seated on a rocky range of hills, and surrounded by an embattled wall, which the English government have put into repair. The houses are many of them large and high. There are a great number of mosques, with high minarets and gilded domes, and above all are seen the palace, a very high and extensive cluster of. Gothic towers and battlements, and the Jumnah Musjeed, the largest and handsomest place of Mussulman worship in India. The chief material of all these fine buildings is red granite, inlaid, in some of the ornamental parts, with white marble; and the general style of building is of a simple and impressive character." Most of the streets are narrow and irregular, and the houses built without order, of brick, mud, bamboos and mats, generally covered with thatch, resembling a motley group of villages, rather than an extensive town. The bazars are but indifferently furnished. Cotton cloths and indigo are manufactured in the town and neighborhood. In the vicinity, on the banks of the Jumnah, corn, rice, millet and indigo are principally cultivated. The Baptists have a missionary here.

DELILLE, Jacques (also Delisle, de Lille); the most distinguished of the French didactic poets of modern times; born in 1738, at Aigueperse, in Auvergne. His name after the revolution was Montanier-Delille. He resembled Pope (who was his model) in personal deformity, as well as in exquisite versification. In the college of Lisieux, at Paris, he distinguished himself by his precocious talents; and in the college of Amiens, he began his metrical translation of Virgil's Georgics. He had translated this work by the end of his 23d year, but spent many years in retouching it. It was published in 1770, with a Discours préliminaire, and numerous annotations, which gave him also an honorable place among the French prose writers. Notwithstanding the jealousy of his rivals, Delille was invited to Paris, and was made professor at the college de la Marche, and afterwards at the college de France; and his translations were ranked by the French among their classics. Delille translated, also, the Eneid of Virgil (1803), and was received, in his 37th year, into the academy. Before this time, he

had produced his didactic poem, Les Jardins, ou l'Art d'embellir les Paysages (Paris, 1782), in four cantos. This was considered the best didactic poem in the French language, though inferior to his translation of Virgil. Delille received the lower ordinations, to be enabled to hold a benefice, from which, together with his salaries as professor, and member of the academy, and his own fortune, he derived, before the revolution, an annual income of 30,000 livres, of which he preserved, at a later period, only 600. He was also made a member of the national institute. Though an adherent of the old system, Robespierre spared him on every occasion. At his request, Delille wrote, in twenty-four hours, the Dithyrambe sur l'Immortalité de l'Ame, to be sung on the occasion of the public acknowledgment of the Deity. This performance made an impression even on the members of the committee of safety, but was not sung. In 1794, he withdrew from Paris, and gave himself up to the sublime scenery of the Vosges, to meditations on the destiny of man, and on the laws of poetry. In Switzerland, he finished his Homme des Champs, a didactic poem on the charms of rural life, called also Géorgiques Françaises, which may be considered as a moral sequel to Virgil's Georgics. Delille labored on it for twenty years, principally during the reign of terror, in the vales of the Vosges, in 1794 and 1795; hence the deep melancholy of many passages. The sufferings of his country produced Le Malheur et la Pitié, four cantos (Lond. 1803), full of lovely and touching pictures, in harmonious verse. At London, he married (1802) mademoiselle Vaudchamps, for a long time the companion of his travels. Here he translated, in 15 months, Milton's Paradise Lost, perhaps the most poetical of all his works; but the exertion brought on a stroke of the apoplexy. After his return to France, he wrote his Trois Règnes de la Nature, and the admired poem La Conversation, a subject of which he was master. poetical character is the same as that of his other works. Lively feeling, richness of conception, animated descriptions, purity and great elegance of expression, harmonious and easy versification, are its chief excellences. Bouterwek justly remarks, "A didactic work, like Delille's elegant Homme des Champs, may have many charms of diction, without being a poem." Delille composed in his head, without writing, even the 30,000 verses of his translation of the Eneid, and, like Tasso, trusted them with more confidence

Its

to his memory than to his tablets. But his bodily vigor diminished, as his mental powers increased. He grew blind, and died the first of May, 1813. In a poem not committed to paper, he had sung of old age, and his approaching death; of the vanities of the present, and the happiness of the future life. He was universally lamented, on account of his amiable character, as well as of his talents. After his death appeared Le Départ d'Eden (Paris).

DELISLE, OF DE L'ISLE, Guillaume; a geographer, born at Paris, in 1675. He was instructed by Cassini, and soon conceived the idea of reforming the whole system of geography. He published, in his 25th year, a map of the world, maps of Europe, Asia and Africa, a celestial and terrestrial globe of a foot in diameter. By rejecting Ptolemy's statements of longitude, or rather by comparing them with the astronomical observations and the statements of modern travellers, he founded the modern system of geography. The number of his geographical maps of the old and new world amounts to 100. His last edition of his map of the world was published in 1724. These maps are valuable even at the present day. His brother Joseph Nicolas, born, in 1688, at Paris, devoted himself in his earliest youth to astronomy, under the direction of Lieutaud and Cassini, and was admitted into the academy of sciences. His observations on the transit of Mercury over the sun, in 1723, and of the eclipse of the sun, in 1724, increased his reputation. The empress Catharine I invited him to Petersburg, to establish a school for astronomy, to which the fame of Delisle soon gave celebrity. His leisure time was employed in travelling, for the purpose of making interesting collections in natural science and geography. On his return, his collections were purchased by the king, and Delisle himself was appointed inspector of them. He continued his observations till his death, in 1768. Among his pupils were Lalande and Messier. His most important geographical work, Mémoires sur les nouvelles Découvertes au Nord de la Mer du Sud (1752), contains the results of the Russian voyages to discover a passage from the Pacific ocean into the waters north of America. His Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire et aux Progrès de Astronomie, de la Géographie et de la Physique (1738) remain unfinished., His Avertissement aux Astronomes sur l'Éclipse annulaire du Soleil que l'on attend le 25 Juin, 1748, gives a complete history of all annular eclipses of the sun.

169

DELLA MARIA, Dominique, a French composer, descended from an Italian family, was born at Marseilles, in 1778, composed, in his 18th year, an opera which was performed, with applause, in his native city, and went afterwards to Italy, where he enjoyed the instruction of several great masters, particularly of Paesiello, and composed six comic operas, of which I Maestro di Cappella is the most distinguished. After his return to Paris, his opera Le Prisonnier increased his reputation, and the airs of his Opéra Comique became national favorites. In his works, the song is easy and agreeable, the style pure and elegant, the expression natural, the accompaniment easy, original, and pleasing. He played with extraordinary skill on the piano and the violoncello. He died in his 29th year (1806).

DELOLME, John Louis, born at Geneva, 1740 (according to some, in 1745), was a lawyer in his native city, and the part which he took in its interual commotions by a work entitled Examen des trois Points de Droit, obliged him to repair to England, where he passed some years in great indigence. He wrote for journals, frequented low taverns, was devoted to gaming and pleasure, and lived in such obscurity, that, when he became known by his work on the English Constitution, and some people of distinction were desirous of relieving him, it was impossible to discover his place of residence. His pride was gratified by this kind of low independence, and he rejected all assistance, excepting some aid from the literary fund, to enable him to return to his country. This was probably in 1775, since, from that time, he calls himself member of the council of the two hundred in Geneva. Among his peculiarities was this, that, although principally occupied with political law, he was never present at a session of parliament. At the time of his arrival in England, aristocratical arrogance and turbulence had reached its highest pitch in Sweden and Poland, and it was feared, not without reason, in England, that the same evils threatened that country. Delolme entered into an investigation of this subject. Hence originated his famous work, Constitution de l'Angleterre, ou État du Gouvernement Anglais comparé avec. la Forme républicaine et avec les autres Monarchies de l'Europe (Amsterdam, 1771); and a work in English, called A Parallel between the English Government and the former Government of Sweden (London, 1772). In both, his principal object was to illustrate the excellence and sta