professor of philosophy at Kiel (1854), and of theology at Giessen (1864) and Berlin (1869). He died on the 4th of July 1894.
In 1851 he had published the Book of Enoch in Ethiopian (German, 1853), and at Kiel he completed the first part of the Ethiopic bible, Octateuchus Aethiopicus (1853–1855). In 1857 appeared his Grammatik der äthiopischen Sprache (2nd ed. by C. Bezold, 1899); in 1859 the Book of Jubilees; in 1861 and 1871 another part of the Ethiopic bible, Libri Regum; in 1865 his great Lexicon linguae aethiopicae; in 1866 his Chrestomathia aethiopica. Always a theologian at heart, however, he returned to theology in 1864. His Giessen lectures were published under the titles, Ursprung der alttestamentlichen Religion (1865) and Die Propheten des alten Bundes nach ihrer politischen Wirksamkeit (1868). In 1869 appeared his Commentar zum Hiob (4th ed. 1891) which stamped him as one of the foremost Old Testament exegetes. His renown as a theologian, however, was mainly founded by the series of commentaries, based on those of August Wilhelm Knobels’ Genesis (Leipzig, 1875; 6th ed. 1892; Eng. trans, by W. B. Stevenson, Edinburgh, 1897); Exodus und Leviticus, 1880, revised edition by V. Ryssel, 1897; Numeri, Deuteronomium und Josua, with a dissertation on the origin of the Hexateuch, 1886; Jesaja, 1890 (revised edition by Rudolf Kittel in 1898). In 1877 he published the Ascension of Isaiah in Ethiopian and Latin. He was also a contributor to D. Schenkel’s Bibellexikon, Brockhaus’s Conversationslexikon, and Herzog’s Realencyklopädie. His lectures on Old Testament theology, Vorlesungen über Theologie des Allen Testamentes, were published by Kittel in 1895.
See the articles in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie, and the Allgemeine deutsche Biographie; F. Lichtenberger, History of German Theology in the Nineteenth Century (1889); Wolf Baudissin, A. Dillmann (Leipzig, 1895).
DILLON, ARTHUR RICHARD (1721–1807), French archbishop, was the son of Arthur Dillon (1670–1733), an Irish gentleman who became general in the French service. He was born at St Germain, entered the priesthood and was successively curé of Elan near Mezières, vicar-general of Pontoise (1747), bishop of Evreux (1753) and archbishop of Toulouse (1758), archbishop of Narbonne in 1763, and in that capacity, president of the estates of Languedoc. He devoted himself much less to the spiritual direction of his diocese than to its temporal welfare, carrying out many works of public utility, bridges, canals, roads, harbours, &c.; had chairs of chemistry and of physics created at Montpellier and at Toulouse, and tried to reduce the poverty, especially in Narbonne. In 1787 and in 1788 he was a member of the Assembly of Notables called together by Louis XVI., and in 1788 presided over the assembly of the clergy. Having refused to accept the civil constitution of the clergy, Dillon had to leave Narbonne in 1790, then to emigrate to Coblenz in 1791. Soon afterwards he went to London, where he lived until his death in 1807, never accepting the Concordat, which had suppressed his archiepiscopal see.
See L. Audibret, Le Dernier Président des États du Languedoc, Mgr. Arthur Richard Dillon, archevêque de Narbonne (Bordeaux, 1868); L. de Lavergne, Les Assemblées provinciales sous Louis XVI (Paris, 1864).
DILLON, JOHN (1851– ), Irish nationalist politician, was the son of John Blake Dillon (1816–1866), who sat in parliament for Tipperary, and was one of the leaders of “Young Ireland.” John Dillon was educated at the Roman Catholic university of Dublin, and afterwards studied medicine. He entered parliament in 1880 as member for Tipperary, and was at first an ardent supporter of C. S. Parnell. In August he delivered a speech on the Land League at Kildare which was characterized as “wicked and cowardly” by W. E. Forster; he advocated boycotting, and was arrested in May 1881 under the Coercion Act, and again after two months of freedom in October. In 1883 he resigned his seat for reasons of health, but was returned unopposed in 1885 for East Mayo, which he continued to represent. He was one of the prime movers in the famous “plan of campaign,” which provided that the tenant should pay his rent to the National League instead of the landlord, and in case of eviction be supported by the general fund. Mr Dillon was compelled by the court of queen’s bench on the 14th of December 1886 to find securities for good behaviour, but two days later he was arrested while receiving rents on Lord Clanricarde’s estates. In this instance the jury disagreed, but in June 1888 under the provisions of the new Criminal Law Procedure Bill he was condemned to six months’ imprisonment. He was, however, released in September, and in the spring of 1889 sailed for Australia and New Zealand, where he collected funds for the Nationalist party. On his return to Ireland he was again arrested, but, being allowed bail, sailed to America, and failed to appear at the trial. He returned to Ireland by way of Boulogne, where he and Mr W. O’Brien held long and indecisive conferences with Parnell. They surrendered to the police in February, and on their release from Galway gaol in July declared their opposition to Parnell. After the expulsion of Mr T. M. Healy and others from the Irish National Federation, Mr Dillon became the chairman (February 1896). His early friendship with Mr O’Brien gave place to considerable hostility, but the various sections of the party were ostensibly reconciled in 1900 under the leadership of Mr Redmond. In the autumn of 1896 he arranged a convention of the Irish race, which included 2000 delegates from various parts of the world. In 1897 Mr Dillon opposed in the House the Address to Queen Victoria on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee, on the ground that her reign had not been a blessing to Ireland, and he showed the same uncompromising attitude in 1901 when a grant to Lord Roberts was under discussion, accusing him of “systematized inhumanity.” He was suspended on the 20th of March for violent language addressed to Mr Chamberlain. He married in 1895 Elizabeth (d. 1907), daughter of Lord justice J. C. Mathew.
DILUVIUM (Lat. for “deluge,” from diluere, to wash away), a term in geology for superficial deposits formed by flood-like operations of water, and so contrasted with alluvium (q.v.) or alluvial deposits formed by slow and steady aqueous agencies. The term was formerly given to the “boulder clay” deposits, supposed to have been caused by the Noachian deluge.
DIME (from the Lat. decima, a tenth, through the O. Fr. disme), the tenth part, the tithe paid as church dues, or as tribute to a temporal power. In this sense it is obsolete, but is found in Wycliffe’s translation of the Bible—“He gave him dymes of alle thingis” (Gen. xiv. 20). A dime is a silver coin of the United States, in value 10 cents (English equivalent about 5d.) or one-tenth of a dollar; hence “dime-novel,” a cheap sensational novel, a “penny dreadful”; also “dime-museum.”
DIMENSION (from Lat. dimensio, a measuring), in geometry, a magnitude measured in a specified direction, i.e. length, breadth and thickness; thus a line has only length and is said to be of one dimension, a surface has length and breadth, and has two dimensions, a solid has length, breadth and thickness, and has three dimensions. This concept is extended to algebra: since a line, surface and solid are represented by linear, quadratic and cubic equations, and are of one, two and three dimensions; a biquadratic equation has its highest terms of four dimensions, and, in general, an equation in any number of variables which has the greatest sum of the indices of any term equal to n is said to have n dimensions. The “fourth dimension” is a type of non-Euclidean geometry, in which it is conceived that a “solid” has one dimension more than the solids of experience. For the dimensions of units see Units, Dimensions of.
DIMITY, derived from the Gr. δίμιτος “double thread,” through the Ital. dimito, “a kind of course linzie-wolzie” (Florio, 1611); a cloth commonly employed for bed upholstery and curtains, and usually white, though sometimes a pattern is printed on it in colours. It is stout in texture, and woven in raised patterns.
DINAJPUR, a town (with a population in 1901 of 13,430) and district of British India, in the Rajshahi division of Eastern Bengal and Assam. The earthquake of the 12th of June 1897 caused serious damage to most of the public buildings of the town. There is a railway station and a government high school. The district comprises an area of 3946 sq. m. It is traversed in every direction by a network of channels and water courses. Along the banks of the Kulik river, the undulating ridges and long lines of
