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Encyclopaedia Britannica’s 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 5, is a reference work that presents a series of concise, alphabetically ordered entries on a wide range of subjects. The opening pages move from a description of Dinard, a French seaside resort, to a detailed account of Dindigul in British India, then to biographical sketches of scholars such as Karl Wilhelm Dindorf and composers like Vincent d’Indy, followed by entries on towns, natural history and etymology. Each article supplies factual data, population figures, geographic location, historical notes and cultural highlights, exactly as the Britannica’s editorial standards required in the early twentieth century. The text therefore offers a snapshot of the encyclopedic style that characterized the era’s scholarly publishing, providing readers with a steady flow of factual information rather than a narrative storyline.

The voice is formal, objective and densely packed with proper nouns, dates and technical terminology, reflecting the Victorian‑Edwardian commitment to exhaustive scholarship. Its prose is compact, often employing long sentences and a measured, almost detached tone. Readers who appreciate meticulous historical and geographical detail, enjoy the rhythm of classic reference entries, or are interested in the intellectual climate of the late 1800s to early 1900s will find this slice of the Britannica rewarding. It appeals especially to researchers, students of the history of ideas, and anyone who relishes the disciplined clarity of a bygone era’s encyclopedic writing.

The opening · free to read

DINARD, a seaside town of north-western France, in the department of Ille-et-Vilaine. The town, which is the chief watering-place of Brittany, is situated on a rocky promontory at the mouth of the Rance opposite St Malo, which is about 1 m. distant. It is a favourite resort of English and Americans as well as of the French, its attractions being the beauty of its situation, the mildness of the climate and the good bathing. It has two casinos and numerous luxurious hotels and elegant villas. Together with the adjoining watering-place of St Enogat, Dinard has a population of 4882 (1906).

DINDIGUL, a town of British India, in the Madura district of Madras, 880 ft. above the sea, 40 m. from Madura by rail. Pop. (1901) 25,182. Dindigul has risen into importance as the centre of a trade in tobacco and manufacture of cigars, which are exported to England. There are two large European cigar factories here. The town has manufactures of silk, muslin and blankets, and an export trade in hides and cardamoms; and there is a large native Christian population, with two churches. The ancient fort, well preserved, stands on a rock rising 350 ft. above the town; this was formerly a position of great strategic importance, commanding passes into Madura from Coimbatore, and figured prominently in the military operations of the Mahrattas in the 17th and 18th centuries, and of Hyder Ali in 1755 seq., being thrice captured by the British (1767, 1783, 1790). After the two first captures it was restored to Hyder Ali under treaty; after the third it was ceded to the East India Company.

KARL WILHELM DINDORF (1802-1883), German classical scholar, was born at Leipzig on the 2nd of January 1802. From his earliest years he showed a strong taste for classical studies, and after completing F. Invernizi's edition of Aristophanes at an early age, and editing several grammarians and rhetoricians, was in 1828 appointed extraordinary professor of literary history in his native city. Disappointed at not obtaining the ordinary professorship when it became vacant in 1833, he resigned his post in the same year, and devoted himself entirely to study and literary work. His attention had at first been chiefly given to Athenaeus, whom he edited in 1827, and to the Greek dramatists, all of whom he edited separately and combined in his Poetae scenici Graeci (1830 and later editions). He also wrote a work on the metres of the Greek dramatic poets, and compiled special lexicons to Aeschylus and Sophocles. He edited Procopius for Niebuhr's Corpus of the Byzantine writers, and between 1846 and 1851 brought out at Oxford an important edition of Demosthenes; he also edited Lucian and Josephus for the Didot classics. His last important editorial labour was his Eusebius of Caesarea (1867-1871). Much of his attention was occupied by the republication of Stephanus's Thesaurus (Paris, 1831-1865), chiefly executed by him and his brother Ludwig, a work of prodigious labour and utility. His reputation suffered somewhat through the imposture practised upon him by the Greek Constantine Simonides, who succeeded in deceiving him by a fabricated fragment of the Greek historian Uranius. The book was printed, and a few copies had been circulated, when the forgery was discovered, just in time to prevent its being given to the world under the auspices of the university of Oxford. Shortly after the death of his brother, he lost all his property and his library by rash speculations. He died on the 1st of August 1883.

His brother LUDWIG (1805-1871) was born at Leipzig on the 3rd of January 1805, and died there on the 6th of September 1871. He never held any academical position, and led so secluded a life that many doubted his existence, and declared that he was a mere pseudonym. The important share which he took in the edition of the Thesaurus is nevertheless authenticated by his own signature to his contributions. He also published valuable editions of Polybius, Dio Cassius and other Greek historians.

D'INDY, PAUL-MARIE-THÉODORE-VINCENT (1851- ), French musical composer, was born in Paris, on the 27th of March 1851. He studied composition and the organ at the Paris Conservatoire under César Franck, and obtained the grand prize offered by the city of Paris in 1885 with Le Chant de la Cloche, a dramatic legend after Schiller. His principal works, beside the above, are the symphonic trilogy Wallenstein, the symphonic works entitled Saugefleurie, La Forêt enchantée, Istar, Symphonie sur un air montagnard français; overture to Anthony and Cleopatra; Ste Marie Magdeleine, a cantata; Attendez-moi sous l'orme, a one-act opera; Fervaal, a musical drama in three acts. Vincent d'Indy is perhaps the most prominent among the disciples of César Franck. Imbued with very high aims, he was always guided by a lofty ideal, and few musicians have attained so complete a mastery over the art of instrumentation. His music, however, lacks simplicity, and can never become popular in the widest sense. His opera Fervaal, which is styled "action musicale", is constructed upon the system of Leit-motifs. Its legendary subject recalls both Parsifal and Tristan, and the music is also suggestive of Wagnerian influence. D'Indy can scarcely be considered so typical a representative of modern French music as his juniors Alfred Bruneau, the composer of Le Rêve, L'Attaque du moulin, Messidor, or Gustave Charpentier, the author of Louise, who chose subjects of modern life for their operatic works.

DINEIR, a small town in Asia Minor, built amidst the ruins of Celaenae-Apamea, near the sources of the Maeander (Menderes). It is the terminus of the Smyrna-Aidin-Dineir railway. Pop. 1400. (See APAMEA.)

DINGELSTEDT, FRANZ VON (1814-1881), German poet and dramatist, was born at Halsdorf, in Hesse Cassel, on the 30th of June 1814. Having studied at the university of Marburg, he became in 1836 a master at the Lyceum in Cassel, from which he was transferred to Fulda in 1838. In 1839 he produced a novel, Unter der Erde, which obtained considerable success, and in 1841 published the book by which he is best remembered, the Lieder eines kosmopolitischen Nachtwächters. These poems, animated as they are by a spirit of bitter opposition to everything that savours of despotism, were an effective contribution to the political poetry of the day. The popularity of this book determined Dingelstedt to take up a literary career, and in 1841 he obtained an appointment on the staff of the Augsburger allgemeine Zeitung. In 1843, however, the satirist of German princes accepted, to the general surprise, the appointment of private librarian to the king of Württemberg, and in the same year he married the celebrated Bohemian opera singer, Jenny Lutzer. In 1845 he published a volume of poems, some of which, treating of modern life, possessed great literary rather than strictly poetical merit. A subsequent collection, published in 1852, attracted little attention. The success of his tragedy Das Haus der Barneveldt (1850) obtained for him the position of intendant at the court theatre at Munich, where he soon became the centre of literary society. He incurred, however, the animosity of the Jesuit clique at the court, and in 1856 was suddenly dismissed on the most frivolous charges. A similar position was offered to him at Weimar through the influence of Liszt, and he remained there until 1867. His administration was most successful, and he especially distinguished himself by presenting all Shakespeare's historical plays upon the stage in an unbroken cycle. In 1867 he became director of the court opera house in Vienna, and in 1872 of the Hofburgtheater, a position he held until his death on the 15th of May 1881. Among his other works may be noticed an autobiographical sketch of his Munich career, entitled Münchener Bilderbogen (1879), Die Amazone, an art novel of considerable merit (1869), translations of several of Shakespeare's comedies, and several writings dealing with questions of practical dramaturgy. He was ennobled in 1867 by the king of Bavaria and in 1876 was created Freiherr by the emperor of Austria.

Dingelstedt's Sämtliche Werke appeared in 12 vols. (1877-1878), but this edition is far from complete. On his life see, besides the autobiography mentioned above, J. Rodenberg, Heimaterinnerungen an F. Dingelstedt (Berlin, 1882), and by the same author, F. Dingelstedt, Blätter aus seinem Nachlass (2 vols., 1891). Also an essay by A. Stern in Zur Literatur der Gegenwart (Leipzig, 1880).

DINGHY, or DINGEY (from the Hindu d[=e]ng[=i] a small boat, the diminutive of denga, a sloop or coasting vessel), a boat of greatly varying size and shape, used on the rivers of India; the term is applied also, in certain districts, to a larger boat used for coasting purposes. The name was adopted by the merchantmen trading with India, and is now generally used to designate the small extra boat kept for general purposes on a man-of-war or merchant vessel, and also, on the Thames, for small pleasure boats built for one or two pairs of sculls.

DINGLE, a seaport and market town of county Kerry, Ireland, in the west parliamentary division, the terminus of the Tralee and Dingle railway. Pop. (1901) 1786. This may be considered the most westerly town in the United Kingdom unless Knightstown at Valencia Island be excepted; it lies on the south side of the northernmost of the great promontories which protrude into the Atlantic on the south-western coast of Ireland, on the fine natural harbour of Dingle Bay, in a wild hilly district abundant in relics of antiquity. The town, which is the centre of a considerable fishing industry, especially in mackerel, was in the 16th century of no little importance as a seaport; it had also a noted manufacture of linen. It was incorporated by Queen Elizabeth, and returned two members to the Irish parliament until the Union.

DINGO, a name applied apparently by Europeans to the warrigal, or native Australian dog, the Canis dingo of J. F. Blumenbach. The dingo is a stoutly-built, rather short-legged, sandy-coloured dog, intermediate in size between a jackal and a wolf, and measuring about 51 in. in total length, of which the tail takes up about eleven. In general appearance it is very like some of the pariah dogs of India and Egypt; and, except on distributional grounds, there is no reason for regarding it as specifically distinct from such breeds. Dingos, which are found both wild and tame, interbreed freely with European dogs introduced into the country, and it may be that the large amount of black on the back of many specimens may be the result of crossing of this nature.

The main point of interest connected with the dingo relates to its origin; that is to say, whether it is a member of the indigenous Australian fauna (among which it is the only large placental mammal), or whether it has been introduced into the country by man. There seems to be no doubt that fossilized remains of the dingo occur intermingled with those of the extinct Australian mammals, such as giant kangaroos, giant wombats and the still more gigantic Diprotodon. And since remains of man have apparently not yet been detected in these deposits, it has been thought by some naturalists that the dingo must be an indigenous species. This was the opinion of Sir Frederick McCoy, by whom the deposits in question were regarded as probably of Pliocene age. A similar view is adopted by D. Ogilvy in a Catalogue of Australian Mammals, published at Sydney in 1892; the writer going however one step further and expressing the belief that the dingo is the ancestor of all domesticated dogs. The latter contention cannot for a moment be sustained; and there are also strong arguments against the indigenous origin of the dingo. That the animal now occurs in a wild state is no argument whatever as to its being indigenous, seeing that a domesticated breed introduced by man into a new country abounding in game would almost certainly revert to the wild state. The apparent absence of human remains in the beds yielding dingo teeth and bones (which are almost certainly not older than the Pleistocene) is of only negative value, and liable to be upset by new discoveries. Then, again (as has been pointed out by R. I. Pocock in the first part of the Kennel Encyclopaedia, 1907), the absence of any really wild species of the typical group of the genus Canis between Burma and Siam on the one hand and Australia on the other is a very strong argument against the dingo being indigenous, seeing that, whether brought by man or having travelled thither of its own accord, the dingo must have reached its present habitat by way of the Austro-Malay archipelago. If it had followed that route in the course of nature, it is inconceivable that it would not still be found on some portions of the route. On the supposition that the dingo was introduced by man, we have now fairly decisive evidence that the native Australian, in place of being (as formerly supposed) a member of the negro stock, is a low type of Caucasian allied to the Veddahs of Ceylon and the Toalas of Celebes. Consequently the Australian natives must be presumed to have reached the island-continent by way of Malaya; and if this be admitted, nothing is more likely than that they should have been accompanied by pariah dogs of the Indian type. Confirmation of this is afforded by the occurrence in the mountains of Java of a pariah-like dog which has reverted to an almost completely wild condition; and likewise by the fact that the old voyagers met with dogs more or less similar to the dingo in New Guinea, New Zealand and the Solomon and certain other of the smaller Pacific islands. On the whole, then, the most probable explanation of the case is that the dingo is an introduced species closely allied to the Indian pariah dog. Whether the latter represents a truly wild type now extinct, cannot be determined. If so, all pariahs should be classed with the Australian warrigal under the name of Canis dingo. If, on the other hand, pariahs, and consequently the dingo, cannot be separated specifically from the domesticated dogs of western Europe, then the dingo should be designated Canis familiaris dingo. (R. L.*)

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