Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 03.djvu/346

LEFT DECCAN 294 DECIMAL FBACTI03T and was made at that time Duke of Gliicksbjerg by the King of Denmark. He turned Louis XVIII. into more liberal courses and was the active member of Dessoles' moderate-Liberal Ministry of 1918, having himself the Ministry of the Interior. The ultra- royalists accused him of complicity in the murder of the Duke de Berry, and forced his dismissal in 1820. The King made him Duke, however, and he retired to found the great coal and iron works of Decazeville. He died Oct. 24, 1860. DECCAN, a term, rather of historical interest than of actual use, applied sometimes to the whole peninsula of Hindustan to the S. of the Vindhya Moun- tains, which separate it from the basin of the Ganges; and sometimes restricted to that portion of the same which is rather vaguely bounded on the N. by the Nerbudda, which falls into the Gulf of Cambay, and on the S. by the Kistna or Krishna, a tributary of the Bay of Bengal. DECEBALUS (de-seb'a-lus), the name of several Dacian kings, or perhaps a general title of honor borne by them. One of them distinguished himself by his opposition to the Roman arms dur- ing the reigns of Domitian and Trajan. He entered the province of Moesia, de- feated and killed Appius Sabinus, the Roman governor, and captured many important towns and fortresses. Domi- tian agreed to pay him a yearly tribute, which was continued by Nerva, but re- fused by Trajan, who subdued Dacia, and Decebalus, to escape falling into the hands of the victors, committed suicide. DECEMBEB, the last month of the year in the old Roman calendar, before the time of Julius Caesar, the year began with March, and that which is now the 12th was then the 10th month; hence the name (decern "10"). Our Saxon ancesters called it Mindwinter - month and Yule-month. DECEMVIR (de-sem'ver), one of a body of 10 magistrates, in whom was vested the sole government of Rome for a period of two years, from 449 B. c. to 447 B. c. The brutal and licentious con- duct of one of the number, Appius Clau- dius, caused their downfall in the latter year. DECEPTION ISLAND, a volcanic is- land belonging to the South Shetland group m the Antarctic Ocean, directly S. of Cape Horn. Amid its ice-covered rocks lies a crater-lake, five miles in cir- cumference, surrounded by hot springs. DECHENITE (named after the Ger- man geologist. Von Dechen), a red or yellow greasy mineral, occurring mas- sive, botryoidal, nodular, stalactitic, and at times slightly columnar. Found in Germany. DECIDUOUS TREES, those which an- nually lose and renew their leaves. In cold and temperate countries the fall of the leaf in autumn, and the restoration of verdure to the woods in spring, are among the most familiar phenomena of nature. The greater part of the trees and shrubs of temperate regions are de- ciduous; but within the tropics the for- est retains always its luxuriance of foliage, except in countries where the dry season is extremely marked. Trees not deciduous are called evergreen. DECIMAL ARITHMETIC, the com- mon system of arithmetic, in which the figures represent a different value, pro- gressing or decreasing by tens; the value increasing tenfold for each place nearer to the left hand, and decreasing tenfold for each place nearer the right hand. Also that part of the science of numerical calculation which treats of decimal fractions. DECIMAL FRACTION, a fraction whose denominator is a decimal or 1234 power of 10. Thus ■ is a decimal fraction, the sum 1000 100 100 It may be decomposed into 200 + + 100 = 10 + 30 100 3 + 100 4 2 -f- -f 10 100 By an obvious extension of the method of local values, where each digit has 10 times the value of the like digit which immediately succeeds it, the above deci- mal fraction may clearly be written more concisely in the form 12.34, where the decimal rioint after the two merely serves to indiciite which digit represents units. In this abbreviated form a deci- mal fraction is termed a decimal. For the purpose of indicating the unit's place, other and less objectionable meth- ods have been proposed. Sir Isaac Newton's method, however, of using a point, placed for distinction near the top of the figures, is the one most comrnonly employed. The operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and. divi- sion may be applied to decimals in ex- actly the same manner as to integers; hence their great utility. They present, nevertheless, this disadvantage, that comparatively few fractional quantities or i-emainders can be exactly expressed by them; in other words, the greater number of common fractions cannot be