DON, anciently Tanais, a river of European Russia, which ranks immediately after the Volga and the Dnieper. It rises in the Ivan lake, a small basin in the government of Tula, which also sends a portion of its waters to the Volga by means of the Shat, a tributary of the Upa; its course has a general southern direction through the governments of Riasan, Tamboff, Orloff, Voronesh, and the Country of the Don Cossacks; its total length, inclusive of its various windings, is 1325 miles; and its drainage area is calculated at 170,000 square miles. The Ivan lake lying 586 feet above the level of the sea, the average fall in the river is about 5∣ inches to the mile. In the upper division of its course, which may be regarded as extending to th® confluence of the Voronesh, the Don flows for the most part through a low-lying and fertile country, though in the government of Riasan its banks are rocky and steep, and in some places become even precipitous. The strata which it traverses belongs to the Devonian formation. In the middle division, or from the mouth of the Voronesh to the point when it makes its nearest approach to the Volga, it cuts its way to the S.E., for the most part through Cretaceous rocks, which in many places rise on either side in steep and elevated banks, and at intervals encroach on the channel. After passing Kachalinskaya it turns to the S.W., and maintains this direction till it falls into the Sea of Azoff, the first part of this division being still in the Cretaceous formation, but the latter part lying in an Upper Tertiary district. A short distance below the town of Rostoff it breaks up into several channels, of which the largest and most southern retains the name of the river, while the others are known respectively as the Mertvi Donetz, the Mokraya ...

DON COSSACK COUNTRY (in Russian, Donskago Voiska Zemlya, the Land of the Don Army), the south-west portion of European Russia, situated in the basin of the Don, and bounded in part by the Sea of Azoff. Its area, according to the military survey, is 59,650 square miles, or 135,761 square versts, but according to Schweizer 62,574 square miles, or 142,401 square versts. The most of the surface consists of an irregular steppe broken in some places by undulating elevations or conical hills, and traversed by the channels and ravines of the numerous tributaries and sub-tributaries of the principal river. The district to the north is especially flat, forming in fact, as is shown by the characteristics of its flora, a part of the great Aralo-Caspian depression. Cretaceous formations appear throughout the whole “country,” Tertiary and Carboniferous formations especially to the south of the Donetz. Coal and anthracite are found in considerable abundance in several places, and iron ore occurs near the Miuss, the Donetz, and the Khoper. Limestone, chalk, and slate are common; and salt is obtained from various lakes. The upper soil is in general black earth, the subsoil usually clay. Agriculture is still in a backward state owing to the military prejudices of the Cossacks; but the virgin fertility of the ground, and the proximity of such seaports as Taganrog and Rostoff conduce greatly to its development. Wheat is the most generally cultivated cereal, but rye is pretty largely grown in the northern and millet in the southern districts. Flax and hemp have been introduced, and maize is sown in the gardens. Stock-rearing is extensively prosecuted: in 1860 there were about 373,000 horses, 991,000 cattle, and 2,242,000 sheep. The horses show a mixture of various Asiatic strains, those ...

DON JUAN, a legendary personage whose story, originating in Spain, has found currency in various poetic and dramatic forms throughout most of the countries of Europe. The character has a certain historic basis in so far as it is localized at Seville in the time of Peter the Cruel, or, according to another version, of Charles V. Don Juan, who belonged to the illustrious Tenorio family, lived a life of unbridled licentiousness. In an attempt to abduct Giralda, daughter of the governor of Seville, he was encountered by her father, whom he subsequently killed in a duel. In mocking defiance of the spirit world, in whose existence his sensuality had destroyed all faith, he visited the tomb of the murdered man in the vault of San Francesco and challenged his statue to follow him to supper. The invitation was accepted; the animated statue appeared at table among the guests, and carried the blaspheming sceptic to hell. In a few later dramatic versions of the story some features are introduced belonging, to another personage of the same name, Don Juan of Marana, who, having sold himself to the devil, passed the greater part of his life in debauchery and crime. His mother, however, had provided that masses should be said for his salvation, and, being converted through the influence of these, he ended his days in a monastery, where he subjected himself to the severest penance....

DONAGHADEE, a market town of Ireland, in county Down, situated near the mouth of Belfast Lough on the Irish channel, is the nearest port in Ireland to Great Britain, being 21⅜ miles S.W. of Port Patrick in Wigtownshire. It consists of two principal streets, and possesses a harbour which admits vessels of 16 feet in draught. On the north-east side of the town there is a rath 70 feet high, in which a powder magazine has been built. The town is frequented for sea-bathing in the summer months. Population (1871), 2226.

DONALDSON, John William, a philologist and biblical critic, born 1812, died February 10, 1861. He was educated at the London university and at Trinity College, Cambridge, of which college he was afterwards elected a fellow. He graduated in the year 1834, being placed in the second class of the mathematical tripos, and second in the classical tripos, when G. J. Kennedy was senior, and W. Forsyth, the author of Hortensius, third classic. After his degree he devoted himself with unremitting energy to classical philology, and the New Cratylus, which appeared five years later, is not only a work of wonderful erudition for so young a man, but forms a landmark in the history of philology in England. In 1841 he was elected to the head-mastership of King Edward’s school at Bury St Edmunds, a position which he held for over ten years. On resigning this post he returned to Cambridge, where his time was divided between literary work and private tuition. At the time of his death, which was accelerated by over-study, he was engaged in the preparation of a Greek lexicon....

DONATELLO (1386-1466), the diminutive of Donato, was the son of Niccolo Bardi, and was born in Florence in 1386. In the struggle between the rival parties of the Albizzi and the Medici, the father took part with the former, and was involved in their ruin. He must have been a man of considerable property, judging from the decree by which his houses are confiscated. His son Donatello found protection and shelter and the means of early training from the Martelli family, and to this connection must be ascribed Donatello’s introduction to the great Cosmo de’ Medici, pater patrice, who during the life-long relation between himself and the artist, did everything to efface, by kindness towards the son, the recollection of the sufferings which the house of Medici had inflicted on the father. He learned the goldsmith’s trade under the father of the renowned Lorenzo Ghiberti, and the goldsmith’s trade then included all kinds of bronze creations. At the age of seventeen he set out for Rome with his friend Brunellesco. At Rome the two young men maintained themselves by working as goldsmiths during the first half of the week, devoting the second half to the study of the ancient monuments, and to making excavations in search of lost works of art. The Romans, we are told, believed them to be treasure-seekers. The Romans of Donatello’s time still reflected the feelings with which their forefathers, nearly three centuries before, had wondered when the agents of Henry of Blois, bishop of Winchester, dug up and carried away from their city similar artistic treasures. On their return to Florence, rich in artistic knowledge and treasures, the careers commenced in which Brunellesco was destined to hang above the Florence cathedral the dome of the Pantheon, and Donatello to impart to ...

DONATI, Giovanni Battista, professor of astronomy at the Royal Institution of Florence, was born at Pisa, December 16, 1826, and died at Florence, September 20, 1873. In 1852 he became an assistant at the Florentine observatory, of which in 1864 he was appointed director. On June 2, 1858, he discovered the comet which bears his name (see vol. ii. p. 815). Other comets were discovered by him on June 3, 1855, November 10,1857, and July 23 and September 9,1864. He made numerous spectroscopic observations of comets and the solar disc, aud in 1862 published diagrams of three or four lines in the spectra of fifteen stars. The new observatory on the hill of Arcetri, near Florence, was erected under his superintendence, and was directed by him. At the time of his death Donati had just returned from Vienna, where he was the representative of Italy in the international meteorological congress.

DONATISTS, a powerful sect which formed itself in the Christian church of northern Africa in the beginning of the 4th century. In its doctrine it sprang from the same roots, and in its history it had in many things the same character, as the earlier Novatians. The predisposing causes of the Donatist schism were the belief, early introduced into the African church, that the validity of all sacerdotal acts depended upon the personal character of the agent, and the question, arising out of that belief, as to the eligibility for sacerdotal office of the traditores, or those who had delivered up their copies of the Scriptures under the compulsion of the Diocletian persecution; the exciting cause was the election of a successor to Mensurius, bishop of Carthage, who died in 311. Mensurius had held moderate views as to the quaestio υexata of the treatment of the traditores, and accordingly a strong fanatical party had formed itself in Carthage in opposition to him, headed by a wealthy and therefore influential widow named Lucilla, and countenanced by Secundus of Tigisis, primate of Numidia. There were thus two parties each anxious to secure the succession to the vacant see. The friends of the late bishop fixed their choice on Caecilian, the archdeacon, and secured his election and his consecration by Felix, the bishop of Aptungis, before the other party were ready for action. It had been customary, though probably it was not essential, that the Numidian bishops should be present at the election and consecration of the bishop of Carthage; Caecilian’s party had not waited for them, knowing them to be in sympathy with their opponents. Soon after Caecilian’s consecration, however, Secundus and seventy of the Numidian bishops arrived at Carthage, and steps were at once taken to ...