DAVOUT, Duke of Auerstaedt, Prince of Eckmuehl, marshal of France, born at Annoux, in Burgundy; was fellow-student with Napoleon at the military school in Brienne; entered the army in 1788, served in the Revolutionary wars under Dumouriez and Desaix, and became general; served under Bonaparte in Egypt; distinguished himself at Austerlitz, Auerstaedt, Eckmuehl, and Wagram; was made governor of Hamburg; accompanied Napoleon to Moscow; returned to Hamburg, and defended it during a siege; was made Minister of War in 1815, and assisted Napoleon in his preparations for the final struggle at Waterloo; commanded the remains of the French army which capitulated under the walls of Paris; adhered to the Bourbon dynasty on its return, and was made a peer; was famous before all the generals of Napoleon for his rigour in discipline (1770-1823).

DAVY, SIR HUMPHRY, a great English chemist, born at Penzance; conceived early in life a passion for the science in which he made so many discoveries; made experiments on gases and the respiration of them, particularly nitrous oxide and carbonic acid; discovered the function of plants in decomposing the latter in the atmosphere, and the metallic bases of alkalies and earths; proved chlorine to be a simple substance and its affinity with iodine, which he discovered; invented the safety-lamp, his best-known achievement; he held appointments and lectured in connection with all these discoveries and their applications, and received knighthood and numerous other honours for his services; died at Geneva (1778-1829).

DAVY JONES’S LOCKER, the sailors’ familiar name for the sea as a place of safe-keeping, though why called of Davy Jones is uncertain.

DAVY-LAMP, a lamp encased in gauze wire which, while it admits oxygen to feed the flame, prevents communication between the flame and any combustible or explosive gas outside.

DAWKINS, WILLIAM BOYD, geologist and palaeontologist, born in Montgomeryshire; has written “Cave Hunting,” “Early Man in Britain,” &c.; b. 1838.

DAWSON, GEORGE, a popular lecturer, born in London; educated in Aberdeen and Glasgow; bred for the ministry by the Baptist body, and pastor of a Baptist church in Birmingham, but resigned the post for ministry in a freer atmosphere; took to lecturing on a purely secular platform, and was for thirty years the most popular lecturer of the day; no course of lectures in any institute was deemed complete if his name was not in the programme; did much to popularise the views of Carlyle and Emerson (1821-1876).

DAWSON, SIR JOHN WILLIAM, geologist and naturalist, born in Pictou, Nova Scotia; studied in Edinburgh; distinguished himself as a palaeontologist; published in 1872, “Story of the Earth and Man”; in 1877, “Origin of the World”; and recently, “Geology and History”; called in question the Darwinian theory as to the origin of species; b. 1820.

DAY, JOHN, an English dramatist, contemporary of Ben Jonson; author of the “Parliament of Bees,” a comedy in which all the characters are bees.