Page:EB1911 - Volume 07.djvu/784

 double daisy, consists of dwarf, showy, 3 to 4 in. plants, flowering freely in spring if grown in rich light soil, and frequently divided and transplanted. The white and pink forms, with the white and red quilled, and the variegated-leaved aucubaefolia, are some of the best.

DAKAR, a seaport of Senegal, and capital of French West Africa, in 14° 40′ N., 17° 24′ W. The town, which is strongly fortified, holds a commanding strategic position on the route between western Europe and Brazil and South Africa, being situated in the Gulf of Goree on the eastern side of the peninsula of Cape Verde, the most westerly point of Africa. It is the only port of Senegal affording safe anchorage for the largest ships. Pop. (1904), within the municipal limits, 18,447; including suburbs, 23,452.

The town consists for the most part of broad and regular streets and possesses several fine public buildings, notably the palace of the governor-general. It is plentifully supplied with good water and is fairly healthy. It is the starting point of the railway to St Louis, and is within five days steam of Lisbon. The harbour, built in 1904–1908, is formed by two jetties, one of 6840 ft., the other of 1968 ft., the entrance being 720 ft. wide. There are three commercial docks, with over 7000 ft. of quayage, ships drawing 26 ft. being able to moor alongside. Cargo is transferred directly to the railway trucks. There is also a naval dock and arsenal with a torpedo-boat basin 755 ft. by 410 ft. and a dry dock 656 ft. long and 92 ft. broad. The Messageries Maritimes Company use the port as a coaling station and provisioning depot for their South American trade. Dakar is a regular port of call for other French lines and for the Elder Dempster boats sailing between Liverpool and the West Coast of Africa. It shares with Rufisque and St Louis the external trade of Senegal and the adjacent regions. For trade statistics see.

Dakar was originally a dependency of Goree and was founded in 1862, a year after the declaration of a French protectorate over the mainland. The port was opened for commerce in 1867, and in 1885 its importance was greatly increased by the completion of the railway (163 m. long) to St Louis. Dakar thus came into direct communication with the countries of Upper Senegal and the middle Niger. In 1887 the town was made a commune on the French model, all citizens irrespective of colour being granted the franchise. In 1903 the offices of the governor-general and of the court of appeal of French West Africa were transferred from St Louis to Dakar, which is also the seat of a bishop. In February 1905 a submarine cable was laid between Brest and Dakar, affording direct telegraphic communication between France and her West African colonies by an all French route.

DALAGUETE, a town of the province of Cebú, island of Cebú, Philippine Islands, at the mouth of the Tapón river on the E. coast, 50 m. S.S.W. of Cebú, the capital. The town has a healthy climate, cool during November, December, January and February, and hot during the rest of the year. The inhabitants grow hemp, Indian corn, coffee, sibucao, cacao, cocoanuts (for copra) and sugar, weave rough fabrics and manufacture tuba (a kind of wine used as a stimulant), clay pots and jars, salt and soap. There is some fishing here. The language is Cebú-Visayan.

DALBEATTIE, a police burgh of Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 3469. It lies on Dalbeattie Burn, 14 m. S.W. of Dumfries by the Glasgow & South-Western railway. The town dates from 1780 and owes its rise to the granite quarries at Craignair and elsewhere in the vicinity, from which were derived the supplies used in the construction of the Thames Embankment, the docks at Odessa and Liverpool and other works. Besides quarrying, the industries include granite-polishing, concrete (crushed granite) works, dye-works, paper-mills and artificial manures. The estuary of the Urr, known as Rough Firth, is navigable by ships of from 80 to 100 tons, and small vessels can ascend as far as the mouth of Dalbeattie Burn, within a mile of the town. A mile to the north-west stand the ruins of the castle of Buittle or Botel, where lived John de Baliol, founder of Baliol college, who had married Dervorguila, daughter of Alan (d. 1234), the last “king” of Galloway.

DALBERG, the name of an ancient and distinguished German noble family, derived from the hamlet and castle (now in ruins) of Dalberg or Dalburg near Kreuznach in the Rhine Province. In the 14th century the original house of Dalberg became extinct in the male line, the fiefs passing to Johann Gerhard, chamberlain of the see of Worms, who married the heiress of his cousin, Anton of Dalberg, about 1330. His own family was of great antiquity, his ancestors having been hereditary ministerials of the bishop of Worms since the time of Ekbert the chamberlain, who founded in 1119 the Augustinian monastery of Frankenthal and died in 1132. By the close of the 15th century the Dalberg family had grown to be of such importance that, in 1494, the German King Maximilian I. granted them the honour of being the first to receive knighthood at the coronation; this part of the ceremonies being opened by the herald asking in a loud voice “Is no Dalberg present?” (Ist kein Dalberg da?). This picturesque privilege the family enjoyed till the end of the Holy Roman Empire. The elder line of the family of Dalberg-Dalberg became extinct in 1848, the younger, that of Dalberg-Herrnsheim, in 1833. The male line of the Dalbergs is now represented only by the family of Hessloch, descended from Gerhard of Dalberg (c. 1239), which in 1809 succeeded to the title and estates in Moravia and Bohemia of the extinct counts of Ostein.

The following are the most noteworthy members of the family:

1. (1445–1503), chamberlain and afterwards bishop of Worms, son of Wolfgang von Dalberg. He studied at Erfurt and in Italy, where he took his degree of doctor utriusque juris at Ferrara and devoted himself more especially to the study of Greek. Returning to Germany, he became privy councillor to the elector palatine Philip, whom he assisted in bringing the university of Heidelberg to the height of its fame. He was instrumental in founding the first chair of Greek, which was filled by his friend Rudolph Agricola, and he also established the university library and a college for students of civil law. He was an ardent humanist, was president of the Sodalitas Celtica founded by the poet (q.v.), and corresponded with many of the leading scholars of his day, to whom he showed himself a veritable Maecenas. He was employed also on various diplomatic missions by the emperor and the elector.

2. (1744–1817), archbishop-elector of Mainz, arch-chancellor of the Holy Roman Empire, and afterwards primate of the Confederation of the Rhine and grand-duke of Frankfort. He was the son of Franz Heinrich, administrator of Worms, one of the chief counsellors of the elector of Mainz. Karl had devoted himself to the study of canon law, and entered the church; and, having been appointed in 1772 governor of Erfurt, he won further advancement by his successful administration; in 1787 he was elected coadjutor of Mainz and of Worms, and in 1788 of Constance; in 1802 he became archbishop-elector of Mainz and arch-chancellor of the Empire. As statesman Dalberg was distinguished by his “patriotic” attitude, whether in ecclesiastical matters, in which he leaned to the Febronian view of a German national church, or in his efforts to galvanize the atrophied machinery of the Empire into some sort of effective central government of Germany. Failing in this, he turned to the rising star of Napoleon, believing that he had found in “the truly great man, the mighty genius which governs the fate of the world,” the only force strong enough to save Germany from dissolution. By the peace of Lunéville, accordingly, though he had to surrender Worms and Constance, he received Regensburg, Aschaffenburg and Wetzlar. On the dissolution of the Empire in 1806 he formally resigned the office of arch-chancellor in a letter to the emperor Francis, and was appointed by Napoleon prince primate of the Confederation of the Rhine. In 1810, after the peace of Vienna (Schönbrunn), the grand-duchy of Frankfort was created for his benefit out of his