Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VI.djvu/257

 DK ALIGHTS ward, as is done in the Polish game. The modern Egyptians, who use pieces similar to those used by their predecessors, play the game as it is generally played in Europe and America. By the Greeks the invention of draughts, as well as of dice and many other things, was poetically ascribed to Palamedes, one of the heroes of the expedition against Troy. In playing draughts, the board is placed with a double corner on the right hand of each player. Each player places his pieces on the three lines of squares nearest to him. In England the white squares are played upon; in Scotland and America the black squares are generally selected. The game is begun by each player moving alternately one of his men along the diagonal on which they are first placed, one square at a time to the right or the left. When two hostile pieces encounter each other, the one that has the move may take the other, if there be a vacant square of the color played upon behind it, by leaping over the other into that square. The piece leaped over is removed from the board. If several pieces should be exposed by having alternate open squares be- hind them, they may all be taken at once, and the taking piece placed on the square behind the last piece captured. When a piece has reached one of the four squares of the extreme opposite row, it becomes a king, and is crown- ed by placing one of the captured pieces upon it, or, as the men are now sometimes made, by turning it over and exposing a crown repre- sented on the other side. Kings can move backward as well as forward, though only one square at a time. The principal laws of the game are these : If a piece is touched, it must be moved, if a move be possible ; the player who has the move must take a piece which is exposed to capture ; if he neglects to take it, his adversary may remove from the board the piece with which the capture should have been made ; but a player has no right to decline to take under any circumstances. The first move of each game is to be taken by the players in turn ; if lots are drawn for the move, he who gains the choice may move first or require his adversary to move. In Polish draughts, a variety of the game played not only in Poland, but in other parts of the continent of Europe, and sometimes in England and America, the pieces are moved forward as in the English form of the game, but in taking they move like the kings of the English game, either backward or forward. The kings in the Polish game have the privilege of passing over several squares at one time, and even over the whole length of the diagonal when no pieces ob- struct the move. Polish draughts is some- times played with 40 pieces on a board divided into 100 squares. M. Mallet, a professor of mathematics, published a treatise on draughts at Paris in 1668. Another teacher of mathe- matics, William Paine, published at London in 1756 an " Introduction to the Game of Draughts." The best work on the subject is DKAWING 249 the " Guide to the Game of Draughts," by Joshua Sturges (London, 1800), of which an improved edition appeared in 1835, the whole of which, with additions, is comprised in the " Handbook of Games " which forms one of the volumes of "Bonn's Scientific Library" (London, 1850). DRIVE (Ger. Drau; Hung. Drdva ; anc. Dravus), a river of Austria, one of the prin- cipal tributaries of the Danube, rises from two sources in the E. portion of the Tyrol. In its upper part it is small and extremely rapid, with craggy and overhanging banks, but it be- comes navigable at Villach, and flows E. and S. E. with a slow current through a low and marshy country, through Carinthia and Styria, then along the S. border of Hungary, which it separates from Croatia and Slavonia, till it en- ters the Danube E. of Eszek, as a large and powerful stream, after a course of 360 m. Its navigation above Volkermarkt is obstructed by various falls and cataracts. The most im- portant of its numerous affluents is the Mur, the largest river in Styria. Lienz in Tyrol, Vil- lach, Marburg, Pettau, Warasdin, and Eszek are among the chief towns on its banks. Fish are plentiful in its waters, and some gold is washed from its sands. The valleys along its course are remarkable for their fertility. The Hungarian peasants descend this river on rafts of empty barrels after having disposed of their wine in the mountains of Carinthia. DRAVIDAS. See ETHNOLOGY, p. 758. DRAWING, the representation or delineation of objects, either as they appear to the eye, or as projected on assumed planes, or as designa- ted by conventional signs having a certain similarity to the appearance of the objects themselves. The painter, with free hand, draws or sketches objects in their visible and natural forms ; the mechanical or architectural draughtsman projects, according to certain es- tablished rules and principles, objects existing or designed ; while from the notes of the sur- veyor the topographical draughtsman plots the surface of a field or locality, with its natural and artificial objects represented somewhat as they would appear projected on a transparent plane above them, but with certain convention- alities to express more definitely certain fea- tures. Architectural and mechanical drawing is in general the delineation of objects by geo- metric or orthographic projection. Since the surfaces of all bodies may be considered to be composed of points, the first step is to repre- sent the position of a point in space, by refer- ring it to planes whose position is established. In general these planes are assumed at right angles to each other (fig. 1), and the points projected upon them make up the drawings of the plan, end and side elevation. Let a brick be held flatwise in the corner of a rec- tangular box, with its sides parallel to the various sides of the box ; if now from the sev- eral corners of the brick perpendiculars be let fall upon the adjacent sides, the points thus