up the valley of the Don. Two miles S.W. is the urban district of Balby-with-Hexthorpe (pop. 6781); and 7 m. S. is that of Tickhill, where there are remains of a Norman castle. Wheatley (3579) lies 2 m. N.E. The borough of Doncaster is under a mayor, six aldermen and eighteen councillors. Area, 1695 acres.
History.—There was a Roman station here, and numerous remains of the Roman period have been found. In the reign of Edward the Confessor, Doncaster, as a berewic of the manor of Hexthorp, belonged to Earl Tostig; but before 1086 it had been granted to Robert, earl of Mortain, whose successor William was attainted for treason in the time of Henry I. The overlordship then fell to the crown, and the families of Frossard, Mauley and Salvin successively held the manor as underlords. Doncaster was evidently a borough held of the crown for a fee farm rent before 1194, when Richard I. granted and confirmed to the burgesses their soke and town to hold by the ancient rent and by twenty-five marks yearly. The town was incorporated in 1467 by Edward IV., who granted a gild merchant and appointed that the town should be governed by a mayor and two serjeants-at-mace elected every year by the burgesses. Henry VII., while confirming this charter in 1505, granted further that the burgesses should hold their town and soke with all the manors in the soke on payment of a fee farm. He also by another charter in 1508 confirmed letters patent granted by Peter de Mauley in 1341, by which the latter renounced to the inhabitants of Doncaster all the manorial claims which he had upon them, with the “pernicious customs” which his ancestors claimed from bakers, brewers, butchers, fishers and wind-fallen trees. In 1623 Ralph Salvin tried to regain the manor of Doncaster from the mayor and burgesses, who, fearing that the case would go against them, agreed to pay about £3000, in return for which he gave up his claim to all the manors in the soke. Charles II. in 1664 gave the town a new charter, granting that it should be governed by a mayor, twelve aldermen and twenty-four capital burgesses, but since this was not enrolled and was therefore of no effect the burgesses obtained another charter from James II. in 1684 by which the town was governed until the Municipal Corporation Act. In 1200 a fair at Doncaster on the vigil and day of St James the Apostle was confirmed to Robert de Turnham, who held the manor in right of his wife, with the addition of an extra day, for which he had to give the king two palfreys worth 100 s. each. By the charter of 1194 the burgesses received licence to hold a fair on the vigil, feast and morrow of the Annunciation, and this with the fair on St James’s day was confirmed to them by Henry VII. in 1505. The fairs and markets are still held under these charters.
See Victoria County History, Yorkshire; Edward Miller, The History and Antiquities of Doncaster (1828–1831); Calendar to the Records of the Borough of Doncaster, published by the Corporation.
DON COSSACKS, TERRITORY OF THE (Russ. Donskaya Oblast), a government of S.E. Russia, bounded W. by the governments of Voronezh, Kharkov and Ekaterinoslav, S.W. by the Sea of Azov, S. by the governments of Kuban and Stavropol, and E. by those of Astrakhan and Saratov. Area, 63,532 sq. m. Pop. 1,010,135 in 1867, 2,585,920 in 1897 and 3,125,400 (estimate) in 1906. It belongs almost entirely to the region of the South Russian steppes, but in the N., W. and S.W. presents more the aspects of elevated plains gapped with ravine-like river-courses, while in the S.E., towards the Manych depression, it passes over into the arid Aral-Caspian steppes (e.g. Zadonsk Steppe), dotted over with salt lakes. Geologically the region is made up of Carboniferous limestones, clay slates and sandstones, containing anthracite and coal; of Cretaceous marls, chalk, sandstone and greensands—chalk cliffs, in fact, accompany the Don for 200 m.; and of Miocene limestones and clays. The surface, especially W. of the Don, is the fertile black earth, intermingled here and there, especially in the Zadonsk Steppe, with clay impregnated with salt. The government is drained by the Don and its tributaries, of which the Donets, Chir and Mius enter from the right and the Khoper and Medvyeditsa from the left. The Don is navigable throughout the government, and at Kalach is connected by a railway, 45 m. long, with Tsaritsyn on the Volga, routes by which an enormous amount of heavy merchandise is transported. The climate is continental and dry, the average temperatures being—year 43° Fahr., January 13°, July 72° at Uryupina (in 50° 48´ N.; alt. 92 ft.); and year 48°, January 21°, July 73° at Taganrog. The annual rainfall at the same two places is 13.4 and 17.4 in. respectively. Forests cover only 2% of the area.
Nearly one-half of the population are Cossacks, the other ethnological groups being (1897) 27,234 Armenians, 2255 Greeks, 1267 Albanians, 16,000 Jews and some 30,000 Kalmuck Tatars, who are Lamaists in religion. Nearly all the rest of the people, except the Jews and about 3000 Mahommedans, belong to the Orthodox Eastern Church. The Cossacks own nearly 30,000,000 acres of land. The government is well provided with schools, especially on the Cossack territory. Agriculture is the principal occupation, but the crops vary very greatly from year to year, owing to deficiency of rain. Vines are cultivated on a large scale, and tobacco is grown in the south. Cattle-breeding is important, and there are fine breeds of horses and large flocks of sheep. Productive fisheries are carried on at the mouth of the Don. Nearly 13,000 persons are engaged in coal-mining; the coalfields form part of the vast Donets coal basin (10,420 sq. m., with a total output of nearly 13,000,000 tons annually). Some iron ore, gypsum, salt and limestone are also produced. The principal branches of manufacturing industry are flour-milling, potteries, ironworks and tobacco factories. The exports consist chiefly of cereals, cattle, horses, sheep, wine, fish and hides. The government is under the administration of the ministry of war, and is divided into nine districts—Donets (chief town, Kamenskaya with 23,576 inhabitants in 1897), First Don district (Konstantinovskaya, 8800), Second Don district (Nizhne-Chirskaya, 15,196), Rostov (Rostov-on-Don, 119,889), Salsky (Velikoknyazheskaya), Taganrog (Taganrog, 58,928 in 1900), Ust-medvyeditsa (Ust-medvyeditsa, 16,000), Khoper (Uryupina, 9600), Cherkasky (Novo-cherkassk, 52,005). The capital of the government is Novo-cherkassk. Many of the Cossack stanitsas (villages) are very populous. (P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)
DONEGAL, a county in the extreme north-west of Ireland, in the province of Ulster, bounded N. and W. by the Atlantic Ocean, E. by Lough Foyle and the counties Londonderry and Tyrone, and S. by Donegal Bay and the counties Fermanagh and Leitrim. The area is 1,197,153 acres, or about 1871 sq. m., the county being the largest in Ireland after Cork and Mayo. This portion of the country possesses little natural wealth; its physical characteristics are against easy communications, and although its northern coast affords one or two good natural harbours, there is no commercial inducement to take advantage of them. The fine scenery and other natural attractions of Donegal thus remained practically unknown until late in the 19th century, but an effort was then made by Lord George Hill to introduce wealth from without into the county, and to develop its resources in this, almost the only possible direction. The county possesses a large extent of sea-coast indented by numerous inlets. Ballyshannon harbour, the most southern of these, is small, and has a bar at its mouth, as has Donegal harbour farther north. Killybegs harbour is well sheltered, and capable of receiving large vessels. These, with Bruckles or M’Swiney’s Bay, and Teelin harbour, suitable for small vessels, are arms of the fine inlet of Donegal Bay. The western shore is beautified by the indentations of Loughros Beg, Gweebarra, Trawenagh and Inishfree Bays. On the north is Sheephaven, within which is Dunfanaghy Bay, where the largest ships may lie in safety, as they may also in Mulroy Bay and Lough Swilly farther east. Lough Foyle, which divides Donegal from Londonderry, is a noble sheet of water, but is shallow and in part dry at ebb tide, contracted at its entrance, and encumbered with shoals. A few miles west of Malin Head, the most northerly point of the mainland of Ireland, the varied and extensive Lough Swilly runs far into the interior. From these two loughs much land has been reclaimed. Numerous islands and rocks stud the coast. The largest island is North Aran, about 15 m. in circumference, with a lofty hill in its centre, and a gradual declivity down to the sea. On the northern coast are Tory Island, and, farther east, Inishtrahull, the ultima Thule of Ireland. The inhabitants of these islands obtain a precarious
