DAGGER, a weapon which, in relation to its comparatively short blade, may be considered a diminutive of the sword. Specially designed to inflict wounds by the act of stabbing, the dagger is sharp at the point, but it is equally adapted for cutting purposes with its keen edge. Al savage races have highly valued the dagger in some modifications of its simplest type; while at certain periods it has been included among the military weapons of civilized nations, and, in our own time, is well known as the dirk. Early in the 14th century a dagger straight in the blade, and called a misericorde— either because the sight of it caused the vanquished to cry out for mercy, or from its use in mercifully ending the sufferings of the hopelessly wounded—became a companion weapon to the sword among the knights of Europe; and, accordingly, from about 1330 till the end of the succeeding century, in many knightly effigies it is often represented as attached on the right side by a cord or a chain to the sword-belt. The misericorde varied in size, the length of the blade sometimes causing it to appear almost like a second sword, while at other times the blade and the hilt were nearly of equal length. This weapon and its sheath were often elaborately adorned. It was customary to secure it from accidental loss by a guard-chain fastened to a mamelliere of the breast-armour, of which chain the other end was secured to the hilt of the weapon by a ring either fixed on the apex of the pommel or travelling along the grip. Occasionally the misericorde was fixed to the body-armour by a staple; or, more rarely, it was connected with a gypciere or pouch. A similar weapon, with a longer blade than the ordinary misericorde, was habitually worn by civilians, including judges, during the Middle Ages; ...such weapons bore the name of anlace or basilarde. By nobles and knights the misericorde was worn when they had exchanged their armour for the costume of peace. It is recorded, besides, that when they appeared at a tournament, and on some other occasions, ladies at that time wore daggers depending, with their gyp-cieres, from their girdles. Thus, writing of the year 1348, Knighton speaks of certain ladies who were present at jousts as “habentes cultellos, quos daggerios vulgariter dicunt, in powchiis desuper impositis.” A sword having a blade much shorter than the principal knightly weapon of the same class, and distinguished as an estoc, which, like the civilian anlace or basilarde, may be considered to be a variety of the dagger, occasionally formed a part of the equipment of the mediaeval man-at-anns; and it is the scabbard of such a weapon that hangs as a characteristic memorial above the tomb and the effigy of the Black Prince in Canterbury Cathedral. Much ingenuity and skill have been lavished on the adornment of daggers, and in rendering the blades more capable of inflicting severe wounds. Daggers also were sometimes made to poison as well as wound. Some Italian daggers, of stiletto type, have the blade made to expand laterally, by the action of delicate and powerful springs. Others, like the cris of the Malays, have wavy blades.
DAGHESTAN, a government in Asiatic Russia, on the eastern slopes of the Caucasus, bounded by Circassia, Grusia or Georgia, and the Caspian. As its name implies, it is of a very rugged and mountainous character, with the exception of a narrow strip along the sea-coast. It is watered by the tributaries of the Sulakand other streams that find their way to the Caspian. The district is geologically of great interest, and its strata have been investigated by Abich in his Sur la structure et la geologie du Daghestan, 1862. Lead, iron, and sulphur are worked to some extent The chief town is Derbent. See Caucasus, vol. v. p. 254.
DAGON, a national god of the Philistines, spoken of in Judg. xvi. 23; 1 Sam. v. 2; 1 Chron. x. 10; 1 Macc. x. 83. The name is derived from Dag, a fish, with the suffix of endearment,—the older etymology from Dagan, corn, suggested by Philo Byblius, being generally regarded as untenable. The principal temples of the god were at Ashdod (1 Sam. v. 1), and Gaza ( Judg. xvi. 1, 23), and the former existed until the time of the Maccabees, when it was destroyed (148 b.c.) by Jonathan, the brother of Judas (1 Macc. x. 84). Dagon was a fish-god of the male gender, as the form of the name indicates, the corresponding female deity being Atargatis. From 1 Sam. v. 4. it appears that his image was composed of the head and hands of a man and the tail of a fish. The words “the stump of” at the close of the verso are an interpolation of the translators; the original reads “only Dagon (i.e., the fish) was left.” Selden and Niebuhr identify the Philistine Dagon with the Dagon (Ώδάκωv) of the Babylonian mythology; but Rawlinson considers it “extremely doubtful” whether the two had any connection (Rawlinson’s Herodotus, 3d ed. i. 614). The fish was worshipped as the symbol of fertility, both on account of its own fecundity and as representing water, the life-giving and fertilizing element.
דגון, _corn_, from דגן, or דג, _a fish_, god of the Philistines. It is the opinion of some that Dagon was represented like a woman, with the lower parts of a fish, like a triton or syren. Scripture shows clearly that the statue of Dagon was human, at least, the upper part of it, 1 Sam. v, 4, 5. A temple of Dagon at Gaza was pulled down by Samson, Judges xvi, 23, &c. In another, at Ashdod, the Philistines deposited the ark of God, 1 Sam. v, 1–3. A city in Judah was called Beth-Dagon; that is, the house, or temple, of Dagon, Joshua xv, 41; and another on the frontiers of Asher, Joshua xix, 27.
DAGUERRE, Louis Jacques Mandé (1789-1851), a French painter and physicist, was born at Cormeilles, in the department of Seine-et-Oise, and died July 12, 1851, at Petit-Brie-sur-Marne, near Paris. He was at first occupied as an inland revenue officer, but soon betook himself to scene-painting for the opera, in which he ere long surpassed his predecessors Bibiena and Munich, and his teacher Degoti, more especially in his remarkable power of representing light and shade. Among the most admired of his productions were the Chapel of Glenthorn, at the Ambigu, and the Rising of the Sun in “Les Mexicains.” He assisted M. Prevost in the execution of panoramic views of Rome, Naples, London, Jerusalem, and Athens, and subsequently (July 11, 1822), in conjunction with Bouton, he opened at Paris the Diorama (δίς, double; ῏ραμα , view'), an exhibition of pictorial views, the effect of which was heightened by changes in the light thrown upon them. As an example of these may be instanced the Midnight Mass at the Church of Saint-Étienne du Mont An establishment similar to that at Paris was opened by Daguerre in the Regent’s Park, London. On the 3d March 1839 the Diorama, together with the work on which Daguerre was then engaged, the Interior of Sainte-Marie-Majeure, was destroyed by fire. This reverse of fortune was soon, however, more than compensated for by the distinction he achieved as the inventor of the daguerreotype photographic process. Nicéphore Niepce, who since 1814 had been seeking a means of obtaining permanent pictures by the action of sunlight, learned in 1826 that Daguerre was similarly occupied. In the following year he communicated to Daguerre particulars of his method of fixing the images produced in the camera lucida by making use of metallic plates ...coated with a composition of asphalt and oil of lavender; this where acted on by the light remained undissolved when the plate was plunged into a mixture of petroleum and oil of lavender, and the development of the image was effected by the action of acids and other chemical reagents on the exposed surface of the plate. The two investigators laboured together in the production of their “heliographic pictures” from 1829 until the death of Niepce, July 3, 1833. Daguerre, continuing his experiments, discovered eventually the process connected with his name. This, as he described it, consists of five operations :—the polishing of the silver plate; the coating of the plate with iodide of silver by submitting it for about 20 minutes to the action of iodine vapour; the projection of the image of the object upon the golden-coloured iodized surface; the development of the latent image by means of the vapour of mercury; and, lastly, the fixing of the picture by immersing the plate in a solution of sodium “hyposulphite” (sodium thiosulphate). On January 9, 1839, at a meeting of the Academy of Sciences, Arago dwelt on the importance of the discovery of the daguerreotype; and, in consequence of the representations made by him and Gay Lussac to the French Government, Daguerre was on the 15th of June appointed an officer of the Legion of Honour. On the same day a bill was presented to the Chambers, according to the provisions of which Daguerre and the heir of Niepce were to receive annuities of 6000 and 4000 francs respectively, on the condition that their process should be made known to the Academy. The bill having been approved at the meetings of the two Chambers on the 9th of July and the 2d of August, Daguerre’s process, together with his system of transparent and opaque painting, was published by the Government, and soon became generally known. The first great improvement upon it, due to Mr Towson of Devonport, was the use of enlarged lenses, with which Mr Draper of New York was the first to secure portraits from the life. Then followed Mr Goddard’s introduction, in 1840, of bromine for increasing the sensitiveness of the plates, and Fizeau’s method of strengthening the lights and shades by the application of chloride of gold in the fixing operation. Previous to the time of Daguerre both Wedgwood and Sir H. Davy had attempted, but in vain, to prevent the unshaded portions of pictures taken by means of the solar rays from becoming coloured by exposure to diffused light; this result Daguerre secured by the use of sodium thiosulphate, and thus became the chief pioneer of the modern art of photography.
Daguerre’s Historique et description des procédés du Daguerréotype et du Diorama (Paris, 1839), passed through several editions, and was translated into English. Besides this he wrote an octavo work, entitled Nouveau moyen de préparer la couche sensible des plaques destinies á, recevoir les images photographiques (Paris, 1844).
