devil ray See manta ray devilfish See manta ray
Devils Island French Tie du Diable \ l el-due- l dyabl®\ Rocky islet off the Atlantic coast of French Guiana. The smallest of the three lies du Salut, it is a narrow strip of land 3,900 ft (1,200 m) long and 1,320 ft (400 m) wide. Part of a penal settlement since 1852, it housed the convicts’ leper colony until the islands were made a maximum-security area. It shared the notoriety for cruelty of the mainland French Guiana penal colony. Spies and political prisoners, including Alfred Dreyfus, were held there. The island’s use as a penal colony was phased out by the early 1950s.
Devils Tower National Monument National preserve, northeast¬ ern Wyoming, U.S. The first U.S. national monument, it was established in 1906 near the Belle Fourche River. It includes 1,347 acres (545 hect¬ ares) and features a natural rock tower, the remnant of a volcanic intru¬ sion now exposed by erosion. The tower has a flat top and is 865 ft (264 m) high.
Devolution, War of (1667-68) Conflict between France and Spain over possession of the Spanish Netherlands. Louis XIV began the war on the pretext that the custom of devolution, whereby daughters of a first mar¬ riage were preferred to sons of subsequent marriages regarding property inheritance, should apply to sovereign territories also. That would mean that his wife, Marie-Therese (1638-1683), should succeed her father, Philip IV, in the Spanish Netherlands. The French army advanced into Flanders in May 1667 and easily secured its objectives. A peace was reached at Aix-la-Chapelle, whereby France gave up Franche-Comte but retained conquered towns in Flanders.
Devon \'de-von\ Administrative (pop., 2001: 704,499), geographic, and historic county, southwestern England. It lies between Cornwall, Dorset, and Somerset, and it has coasts on the Bristol Channel and English Chan¬ nel. Exeter is its long-established county seat. Its area includes the moor¬ lands of Dartmoor, inhabited from prehistoric times and now a popular tourist area. Livestock-based agriculture is the main industry; Devonshire clotted cream is still produced.
Devonian \di-'vo-ne-3n\ Period Interval of geologic time from 417 to 354 million years ago; it was the fourth period of the Paleozoic Era. During the Devonian, a giant continent was situated in the Southern Hemi¬ sphere (see Gondwana), and other landmasses were located in the equa¬ torial regions. Siberia was separated from Europe by a broad ocean, and North America and Europe were joined. Many types of primitive marine and freshwater fish appeared and proliferated, and the period is sometimes referred to as the Age of Fishes. Ferns and primitive gymnosperms diver¬ sified and created the first forests.
Devrient, Wilhelmine Schroder- See Wilhelmine Schroder- Devrient
Devrient Vdov-re-'a", dev-'rent\ family German theatrical family. Lud¬ wig Devrient (1784-1832) was the greatest actor of the Romantic period in Germany. At the Dessau court theatre he developed his talent for char¬ acter parts. After his Berlin debut in The Robbers (1814), he played Fal- staff, Shylock, King Lear, and Richard III to great acclaim. His eldest
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
dew ► Dhaka I 539
nephew, Karl August Devrient (1797-1872), acted in Dresden, Karlsruhe, and principally Hannover (1839-72), where he was popular in plays by Shakespeare, Goethe, and Schiller. Karl’s brother Eduard (1801-77) began his career as an opera singer, then worked as an actor and stage director in Dresden (1844-52) and Karlsruhe (1852-70), where he directed German classics and made new translations of Shakespeare’s plays. Karl’s other brother, Emil (1803-72), made his stage debut in 1821 and acted with the Dresden court theatre (1831-68); his greatest successes were as Hamlet and as Goethe’s Tasso. Eduard’s son Otto (1838-94) acted in various companies, then became a director in Karlsruhe and other Ger¬ man cities. In Weimar he produced his own version of Goethe’s Faust (1876); he also wrote several tragedies. Karl’s son Max (1857-1929) made his debut in Dresden in 1878 and in 1882 joined the famed Vienna Burgtheater.
dew Deposit of water droplets formed at night by the condensation of water vapour from the air onto the surfaces of exposed objects. Dew forms on clear nights, when exposed surfaces lose heat by radiation and are thus usually colder than the air. The cold surface cools the air in its vicinity, and, if the air is humid enough, it may cool below its dew point, the tem¬ perature at which water vapour condenses out of the air onto the surface. See also frost.
Dewar \ , d(y)ii-9r\ / Sir James (b. Sept. 20,1842, Kincardine-on-Forth, Scot.—d. March 27, 1923, London, Eng.) British chemist and physicist. In 1891 he built a machine for producing liquid oxygen in quantity. His Dewar flask for storing liquefied gases—a double-walled flask has insu¬ lating vacuum between the inner and outer walls—became essential in low-temperature scientific work; its principle is used in the Thermos bottle. Dewar was the first to liquefy and solidify hydrogen, and his 1905 discovery that cooled charcoal can help create high vacuums was useful in atomic physics.
dewberry Any blackberry (genus Rubus ) that is so lacking in woody fibre in the stems that it trails along the ground. In the eastern and south¬ ern U.S., several trailing native species of Rubus, especially R. flagellaris, R. baileyanus, R. hispidus, R. enslenii, and R. trivialis , produce excellent fruits. Some varieties, especially Lucretia, are cultivated.
Dewey, George (b. Dec. 26, 1837, Montpelier, Vt., U.S.—d. Jan. 16, 1917, Washington, D.C.) U.S. naval commander. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1858 and served with Union naval forces in the American Civil War. In 1897 he com¬ manded the U.S. Asiatic Squadron.
In the Spanish-American War he sailed from Hong Kong to the Phil¬ ippines to defeat the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Mania Bay (1898); he opened fire with the command, “You may fire when you are ready, Grid- ley.” His victory, with no loss of U.S. ships, led to U.S. acquisition of the Philippines. In 1899 Congress cre¬ ated for him the rank of admiral of the navy.
Dewey, John (b. Oct. 20, 1859,
Burlington, Vt., U.S.—d. June 1,
1952, New York, N.Y.) U.S. philosopher and educator who was one of the founders of pragmatism, a pioneer in functional psychology, and a leader of the Progressive movement in U.S. education. He received a Ph.D. (1884) from Johns Hopkins University and taught 10 years at the Uni¬ versity of Michigan before moving to the University of Chicago. Influ¬ enced by G. Stanley Hall and William James, he developed an instrumentalist theory of knowledge that conceived of ideas as tools for the solution of problems encountered in the environment. Believing the experimental methods of modern science provided the most promising approach to social and ethical problems, he applied this view to studies of democracy and liberalism. He asserted that democracy provided citi¬ zens with the opportunity for maximum experimentation and personal growth. His writings on education, notably The School and Society (1899) and The Child and the Curriculum (1902), emphasized the interests of the child and the use of the classroom to cultivate the interplay between thought and experience. At Chicago he created laboratory schools to test
his theories. His work in psychology focused on the total organism in its efforts to adjust to the environment. In 1904 Dewey joined the Columbia University faculty. In 1925 he published his magnum opus. Experience and Nature.
Dewey, Melvil(le Louis Kossuth) (b. Dec. 10, 1851, Adams Cen¬ ter, N.Y., U.S.—d. Dec. 26, 1931, Lake Placid, Fla.) U.S. librarian. He graduated from Amherst College in 1874, whereupon he became acting librarian there. In 1876 he published A Classification and Subject Index for Cataloguing and Arranging the Books and Pamphlets of a Library, in which he outlined the Dewey Decimal Cassification system. He was one of the founders of the American Library Association and of Library Jour¬ nal (both 1876). He set up the School of Library Economy, the first U.S. institution for training librarians. He also reorganized the N.Y. State Library (1889-1906) and established the system of traveling libraries and picture collections. A cofounder of the Spelling Reform Assn., he respelled his own name.