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 DAVIS 711 acknowledgments of insurance companies and merchants. During and after his connection with the coast survey, he was appointed on several commissions to examine the harbors of Boston, New York, Charleston, &c. These in- vestigations led him to the study of the laws of tidal action, the results of which are given in his " Memoir upon the Geological Action of the Tidal and other Currents of the Ocean " ("Memoirs of the American Academy," new series, vol. iv.), and the " Law of Deposit of the Flood Tide" ("Smithsonian Contribu- tions," vol. iii.). The " American Nautical Al- manac " owes its foundation directly to his ef- forts. He was appointed the first superinten- dent of the work in 1849, and continued at the head of this establishment till 'the autumn of 1856, when he was ordered to naval service in the Pacific, as commander of the sloop of war St. Mary's. After the breaking out of the civil war he was assigned to the Mississippi squad- ron, of which he was appointed flag officer, May 9, 1862, and on the llth repulsed an attack by the confederate flotilla. He in turn attack- ed the latter, June 6, opposite Memphis, cap- turing or destroying all but one vessel ; this ac- tion was immediately followed by the surrender of Memphis. He then joined Farragut, and was engaged in various operations near Vicks- burg and in the Yazoo river. He was made lieutenant in 1834, commander in 1854, captain in 1861, commodore in 1862, and rear admiral in 1863. In 1862 he was appointed chief of the bureau of navigation ; in 1865-"T he was super- intendent of the naval observatory at Washing- ton, and in 1867-'9 commander of the South Atlantic squadron, after which he resumed his scientific duties at Washington. Besides arti- cles on astronomy and geodesy, he has pub- lished a translation of G-auss's Theoria Motus Corporum Cmleztium (Boston, 1858). DAVIS, Edwin Hamilton, an American physi- cian and archaeologist, born in Ross co., Ohio, Jan. 22, 1811. From 1829 to 1833, while a student of Kenyon college, Ohio, he explored the mounds of that vicinity, and read a paper on the subject before the philomath esian so- ciety, afterward enlarged and read at the com- mencement of 1833. The suggestions of Dan- iel Webster, then making a tour of the West, stimulated him to continue these researches. Their results during 15 years are embodied in " Monuments of the Mississippi Valley," which forms vol. i. of the " Smithsonian Contribu- tions to Knowledge." He received his medical degree at Cincinnati in 1837, after which he practised in Chillicothe until 1850, when he was called to fill the chair of materia med- ica and therapeutics in the New York medical college. He is the author of a "Report on the Statistics of Calculous Diseases in Ohio " (1850), and has been an occasional contributor to some of the scientific and medical journals. DAVIS, Henry, an American clergyman, born at East Hampton, N. Y., Sept. 15, 1770, died at Clinton, March 7, 1852. He graduated at Yale college in 1796, became tutor succes- sively at Williams and Yale colleges, and in 1806 professor of Greek at Union college. In 1809 he was chosen president of Middlebury college, Vermont, and in 1817 accepted the presidency of Hamilton college, New York, hav- ing in the year preceding declined the presi- dency of Yale college. He continued at the head of Hamilton college till 1833, and was meanwhile active in establishing the theologi- cal seminary at Auburn, and the American board of commissioners for foreign missions. In 1829 and 1830 no students were graduated at the college because of a dispute between the president and the trustees upon a case of dis- cipline. After his resignation in 1833 he pub- lished a "Narrative of the Embarrassments and Decline of Hamilton College." He also published several sermons. DAVIS, Henry Winter, an American politician, born in Annapolis, Md., in 1817, died in Balti- more, Dec. 30, 1865. He graduated at Ken- yon college in 1837, studied law at the univer- sity of Virginia, and settled in practice at Alex- andria, Va., but in 1850 removed to Baltimore. He was elected to congress from Maryland as a democrat in 1855, and was reflected the two following terms. In 1859 he ended a long con- test for the speakership resulting from a tie by voting for Mr. Pennington, the republican can- didate for speaker ; whereupon the legislature of Maryland passed a resolution that he had misrepresented the state and forfeited the con- fidence of her people. After the opening of the civil war, when Maryland seemed about to join the seceding states, he opposed this pur- pose, and its prevention was due in no small measure to his efforts. In 1863 he was re- elected to congress, and was made chairman of the committee on foreign affairs. Being a southerner and representing a slave state, his advocacy of emancipation and suffrage for the blacks made him one of the most conspicuous civilians during the war. In 1852 he published "The War of Ormuzd and Ahriman in the Nineteenth Century." A volume of his speeches was published in 1867. DAVIS, Jefferson, an American soldier and statesman, born June 3, 1808, in that part of Christian co., Ky., which now forms Todd county. Soon after his birth his father re- moved to Mississippi, and settled near Wood- ville, Wilkinson county. Jefferson Davis re- ceived an academical education, and was sent to Transylvania college, Ky., which he left in 1824, having been appointed by President Monroe a cadet in the military academy at West Point, where he graduated in 1828. He remained in the army seven years, and served as an infantry and staff" officer on the N. W. frontier in the Black Hawk war of 1831-'2, and in March, 1833, was made first lieutenant of dragoons, in which capacity he was em- ployed in 1834 in various expeditions against the Comanches, Pawnees, and other hostile Indian tribes. He resigned his commission