Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 06.djvu/27

* DEAD. 15 lished, chieliy by Budge (I'upijrus of A.iii, etc.). The best translation is that of Lepage Reuouf (London, 1890) ; those of Birch (London, lS(i7), Pierret (Paris, 1882), and Budge (London, 1898, cheaper edition 1901) are not critical. DEAD, Burning of the. See Cremation of THE Dead. DEAD, JiDCJiENT OF THE (in ancient Egypt). The Book of the Dead contains, in chapter 125, a picture representing the judgment which the defunct ill undergo in the Lower World, before Osiris and forty-two judges of monstrous form, before entering into the fields of the blessed. Anubis, the god of the dead, and Thout, the god of wisdom, examine the deceased by weighing his heart in the sacred 'balance of justice.' The famous "negative confession' enumerates forty- two capital sins, from which the deceased must be free, or. at least, must claim to be free. Should he fail to pass the ordeal, he is either handed over to lie deoured by the monster, half hippopotamus, half crocodile, which repre- sents the Egyptian Cerberus, or is thrown into the fiery lake. This judgment scene is fre- quentlj' represented. A very confused passage of Diodorus would seem to state that such a judgment was held on earth at the interment of the deceased, and that a well-founded accusation could deprive even a king of his sepulture. The underlying truth seems to be that a ceremony, imitating the judgment, with priests in the mask of gods, and with the reading of the negative confession and the following acquittal, may some- times have formed part of the funerary ritual. DEAD COLOR. In painting, any color that has no gloss, or reflecting quality. DEAD HEART, The. The title of a play by Vatts Phillips (1859), revised for Sir Henry Irving in 1889. DEAD-EETTER OFFICE. A division of the Post-office Department, under the control of the First Assistant Postmaster-General at Wash- ington, to which unclaimed or inideliverable let- ters and packages are sent from local post-offices. The official record for the year 1900 showed the receipt by this office of 7.530,158 pieces, of which 5,392,800 were letters. More than four millions of these letters and parcels were destroyed by the department, either because they did not contain the names of the sender or were of no value. L'pward of two hundred and fifty thousand let- ters, containing money, drafts, checks, notes, money orders, or postage stamps, to the value of about .91,150,000, were returned to their send- ers, and the department derived as revenue from dead mail matter, which could not be returned, nearly $15,000. During the year 8194 maga- zines, illustrated papers, picture cards and the like, which could not be returned to the owners, were distriliuted among the charitable institu- tions of the District of Columbia. DEADLY AG'ARIC. See Fungi, Edible AND PoTSONOrs. DEADLY NIGHTSHADE. See Bella- donna. DEAD NETTLE (Lniniinii). A genus of plants of the natural order Labiatse. "The name dead nettle — po]mlarly in some parts of Eng- land and Scotland, dee nettle — is also often extended to the genus Oaleopsis, very similar to Lamium galeopsis, and sometimes distinguished DEAD SEA. by botanists as hemp-nettle. Lamium purpu- reum, Lamium album, and Galeopsis tetrahit, are very connnon weeds. The first two are some- times boiled as pot-herbs in Sweden. The name is derived from the popular belief that the hairs of the dead nettle, particularly when the plant is dried, as in haymaking, cause irritation in the hands of persons handling them, which, ex- tending tlirough the system, occasionally termi- nates in death. They do not, however, seem to possess any poisonous property. Several of the species have become naturalized in various parts of the United States. DEAD RECKONING. The computation of the ship's position from her movements as re- corded in the log, and without having a recourse to astronomical observations. The chief elements from which the reckoning is made are: The j5oint of departure, i.e. the latitude and longitude sailed from, or last determined; the course or direction sailed in (ascertained by the com- pass) ; the rate of sailing, measured from time to time by the log (q.v. ) ; and the time elapsed. The various principles or methods followed in arriving at the reckoning from these data are known as plane sailing, middle-latitude sailing, etc. (See Sailings.) But the data themselves are liable to numerous uncertainties and errors, owing to currents, leeway (q.v.), fluctuations of the wind, changes in the declination of the com- pass, etc.; and therefore the results arrived at by the dead reckoning have to be corrected as often as is possible by observation of the heav- enly bodies. See Navigation ; Latitude and Longitude ; Compass. DEAD SEA (Heb. i/Sm, sea, or i/dm ham- melach, salt sea, Gk. ifd/aacrd. Tun a'/Cir, thalassa ton halon, salt sea, aatpalTlrts Xip'ii, asphaltitis lirnnc, asphalt lake, or "^oSojiItlq 'Al/ivr/, Hodomitis limnc, lake of Sodom, Lat. mare mortuum, Dead Sea, Ar. Bahr Luf, sea of Lot). An inland lake, on the southeastern borders of Palestine (Map: Palestine, C 4), in which the course of the Jordan terminates. It forms a part of the deepest chasm on the earth's surface and has no outlet. The Jordan Valley begins to sink below the level of the Mediterranean in the neighborhood of Lake Huleh. about 90 miles north of the Dead Sea. The Lake of Gennesaret is 080 feet below sea-level, and the Dead Sea about 1295 feet. On the east the high plateau of Moab rises 3100 feet above the Mediter- ranean, about 4400 feet above the Dead Sea; on the west the plateau of Juda>a rises about 2000 feet above the sea. The shores are abrupt, in many places precipitous; the formation is chiefly limestone, and there is no vegetation and but little animal life, save in a few places, as at Engedi, where there is water. The Dead Sea is fed mainly by the Jordan, which contributes 6.000,000 tons of Avater daily; a num- ber of smaller streams also empty into it. chiefly from the east. The most important are the Wady Zarka Ma'in (the stream of Callirrhoe), Wady Mo jib (Arnon. q.v.), Wadyed-Dera'a on the east; Wady Tufileh on the south; Wady-en- Nar (Kedron) on the west. The length of the Dead Sea is 47^4 miles, its greatest breadth 10 miles, its area 360 square miles. From the eastern shore a promontory called al-Lisan (the tongue) juts out into the lake and extends toward the north for about twelve miles. It is