of 4712° F., varies from 38° in January to 58° in July, but in the valleys the heat in midsummer is often oppressive. The prevailing winds are from the west and south-west, but easterly winds are frequent in the spring. Frosts are seldom severe, and, except on the mountains, snow never lies long. The arable lands extend chiefly along the Clyde and the Leven, and are composed of rich black loam, gravelly soil and clay. From the proximity to Glasgow and other large towns the farmers have the double advantage of good manure and a ready market for all kinds of stock and produce, and under this stimulus high farming and dairying on a considerable scale prosper. Black-faced sheep and Highland cattle are pastured on the hilly lands and Cheviots and Ayrshires on the low grounds. Oats and wheat are the principal cereals, but barley and potatoes in abundance, and turnips and beans are also grown.
Other Industries.—Turkey-red dyeing has long been the distinctive industry of the county. The water of the Leven being not only constant but also singularly soft and pure, dyers and bleachers have constructed works at many places in the Vale of Leven. Bleaching has been carried on since the early part of the 18th century, and cotton-printing at Levenfield dates from 1768. The establishments at Alexandria, Bonhill, Jamestown, Renton and other towns for all the processes connected with the bleaching, dyeing and printing of cottons, calicoes and other cloths, besides yarns, are conducted on the largest scale. At Milton the first power-loom mill was erected. The engineering works and shipbuilding yards at Clydebank are famous, and at Dumbarton there are others almost equally busy. The extensive Singer sewing-machine works are at Kilbowie, and the Clyde Trust barge-building shops are at Dalmuir. There are distilleries and breweries at Duntocher, Bowling, Dumbarton, Milngavie (pronounced Milguy) and other towns. In fact the Vale of Leven and the riverside towns east of Dumbarton form a veritable hive of industry. In the detached portion, Kirkintilloch and Cumbernauld are seats of great activity in the mining of coal and ironstone, and there are besides chemical works and saw-mills in the former town. There is some fishing at Helensburgh and along the Gareloch.
The populous districts of the county are served almost wholly by the North British railway. From Helensburgh to Inverarnan the Highland railway runs through scenery of the most diversified and romantic character. The Caledonian railway has access to Balloch from Glasgow, and its system also traverses the detached portion. Portions of the Forth and Clyde Canal, which connects with the Clyde at Bowling, and was opened for traffic in 1775, pass through the shire. There is regular steamer communication between Glasgow and the towns and villages on the coast, and on Loch Lomond steamers call at several points between Balloch and Ardlui.
Population and Government.—The population of Dumbartonshire in 1891 was 98,014 and in 1901 113,865, of whom 3101 spoke both Gaelic and English and 14 Gaelic only. The principal towns, with populations in 1901, are—Alexandria (8007), Bonhill (3333), Clydebank (21,591), Dumbarton (19,985), Duntocher (2122), Helensburgh (8554), Jamestown (2080), Kirkintilloch (11,681), Milngavie (3481), New Kilpatrick or Bearsden (2705) and Renton (5067). The county returns one member to parliament. Dumbarton, the county town, is the only royal burgh, and belongs to the Kilmarnock group of parliamentary burghs. The municipal and police burghs are Clydebank, Cove and Kilcreggan, Dumbarton, Helensburgh, Kirkintilloch and Milngavie. Dumbartonshire forms a sheriffdom with the counties of Stirling and Clackmannan, and there is a resident sheriff-substitute at Dumbarton, who sits also at Kirkintilloch. The shire is under school-board jurisdiction, but there are several voluntary schools, besides St Peter’s Roman Catholic College in New Kilpatrick. Science, art and technical classes are subsidized out of the whole of the county “residue” and, if necessary, out of part of the burgh “residue” also. Agricultural lectures and the travelling expenses and fees of county students at Glasgow Technical College are also paid for from the same source.
History.—The country is rich in antiquities connected with the aborigines and also with the Romans. The Caledonians and Picts have left their traces in rude forts and tumuli, but of greater interest are remains in several places of the wall of Antoninus, built from the Forth to the Clyde, and running along the north of the detached portion of the shire and through the south-eastern corner of the county to Kilpatrick. Other Roman relics have been found at Duntocher, Cumbernauld and elsewhere. The shire forms part of the old Scottish territory of Lennox (Levenachs, “fields of the Leven”), which embraced the Vale of the Leven and the basin of Loch Lomond, or all modern Dumbartonshire, most of Stirling and parts of the shires of Renfrew and Perth. It gave the title of the earldom created in 1174 by William the Lion and of the dukedom conferred by Charles II. on his natural son, Charles, duke of Richmond and Lennox. In 1702 the Lennox estates were sold to the marquis of Montrose. The captive Wallace was conveyed in chains to Dumbarton Castle, whence he was taken to his death in London. Robert Bruce is said to have mustered his forces at Dullatur prior to the battle of Bannockburn, and died at Cardross Castle in 1329. The Covenanters in their flight from the bloody field of Kilsyth, where in 1645 Montrose had defeated them with great slaughter, made their way through the southern districts. When the Forth and Clyde Canal was being excavated swords, pistols, and other weapons dropped by the fugitives were found at Dullatur, together with skeletons of men and horses. In the Highland country the clans of Macgregor and Macfarlane made their home in the fastnesses, whence they descended in raids upon the cattle, the goods and sometimes the persons of their Lowland neighbours.
See J. Irving, History of Dumbartonshire (Dumbarton, 1860); Book of Dumbartonshire (Edinburgh, 1879); Sir W. Fraser, Chiefs of Colquhoun (Edinburgh, 1869); The Lennox (Edinburgh, 1874); D. Macleod, Castle and Town of Dumbarton (Dumbarton, 1877); Dumbarton (Dumbarton, 1884); Dumbarton: Ancient and Modern (Glasgow, 1893); Ancient Records of Dumbarton (Dumbarton, 1896); J. Glen, History of Dumbarton (Dumbarton, 1876).
DUMB WAITER,[1] a small oblong or circular table to hold reserve plates, knives and forks, and other necessaries for a meal. This piece of furniture originated in England towards the end of the 18th century, and some exceedingly elegant examples were designed by Sheraton and his school. They were usually circular, with three diminishing tiers, sometimes surrounded by a continuous or interrupted pierced gallery in wood or brass. The smaller varieties are now much used in England for the display of small silver objects in drawing-rooms.
DUM-DUM, a town and cantonment in British India at the head of an administrative subdivision in the district of the Twenty-four Parganas, in the presidency division of Bengal, with a station on the Eastern Bengal railway, 412 m. N.E. of Calcutta. It was the headquarters of the Bengal artillery from 1783 to 1853, when they were transferred to Meerut as a more central station; and its possession of a cannon foundry and a percussion-cap factory procured for it the name of the Woolwich of India. The barracks—still occupied by small detachments—are brick-built and commodious; and among the other buildings are St Stephen’s Protestant church, a Roman Catholic chapel, a European and native hospital, a large bazaar and an English school. The population in 1901 of North Dum-Dum was 9916, and of South Dum-Dum 10,904. It was at Dum-Dum that the treaty of 1757 was signed by which the nawab of Bengal ratified the privileges of the English, allowed Calcutta to be fortified, and bestowed freedom of trade. On the 7th of December 1908 a serious explosion occurred by accident at the Dum-Dum arsenal, resulting in death or serious injury to about 50 native workmen.
At the Dum-Dum foundry the hollow-nosed “Dum-Dum” (Mark IV.) bullets were manufactured, the supposed use of which by the British during the Boer War caused considerable comment in 1899. Their peculiarity consisted in their expanding on
- ↑ The term “dumb,” strictly meaning mute or destitute of speech (see Deaf and Dumb), is applied in this and other analogous cases (e.g. dumb-bell, dumb-barge) as connoting the absence of some normal capacity in the term with which it is associated.
