Desdemona
des-de-mo'na, the heroine of Shakespeare's tragedy, Othello. She is the daughter of Brabantio, a Venetian senator. Desdemona listens while Othello, the Moor, recounts his many adventures to her father. Her admiration is won; then her love. She weds the Moor against her father's wishes. Othello is led by Iago to believe his wife unfaithful, and in a fit of rage he smothers her. Desdemona's character is well drawn. She is innocent, modest, and ingenuous. Incapable of any base suspicion herself, she is slow to realize that she may be suspected.
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Deseada
or DÉSIRADE, one of the Leeward Islands, belonging to France, in the Caribbean Sea, about 10 miles long and hardly 5 broad. The soil is in some places black and good, in others sandy and unproductive.
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Deseret
the name first adopted by the Mormons for what is now Utah. See MORMONS: UTAH.
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Desert Land Act
a statute of the United States providing that any citizen may file on a tract of desert land not exceeding 640 acres, in any one of several arid Western states, declaring his intent to irrigate. If within three years he expend three dollars per acre in securing water rights and constructing waterworks, a patent is issued for the land. Any number of individuals may associate, file joint declarations, and make joint expenditure to bring water from a distant point. See Irrigation
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Desertas
a group of three rocky islets in the Atlantic Ocean, to the S. E. of Madeira, visited at certain seasons of the year by fishermen and herdsmen.
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Desiccation
the evaporation or drying off of the aqueous portion of bodies. It is practiced with fruit, meat , milk, vegetable extracts, and many other matters. It is usually done by a current of heated dry air, and as such may be considered as distinguished from evaporators, so called, to which furnace heat or steam heat is applied.
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Desman
an insectivorous mammal of the shrew family. It is 7 inches in length, tail, 8 inches; the feet are webbed, and the flattened tail is covered with scales; the nose is lengthened into a flexible proboscis. It is found in southeastern Russia, making borrows in river banks, beginning under water , and ascending above the level of the highest floods. The food consists of small fishes , frogs, leeches, and larvæ of aquatic insects. The Mygale M Pyrenaica is not much more than half the size of the Russian species; it is found in France . DESMIDIACEÆ, a family of confervoid algæ, consisting entirely of microscopic flexible organisms inhabiting in fresh water, scarcely a specimen of which can be found that does not con- Sometimes they tain some of them. adhere in large quantities to aquatic plants, forming green films investing these; at others they rest as a thick coating at the bottom of water, or lie intermingled with confervæ , etc. The most distinctive feature in their appearance is the bilateral symmetry, indicative of the tendency to divide into two valves or segments. Many of the gen- 22-Vol. III-Cyc 334. era have the power of fixing themselves to external objects, and possess a feeble power of locomotion. Reproduction is effected by (1) cell-division, where each pustule divides into two; (2) by zoöspores; (3) by by conjugation. There are 22 genera. five tribes, containing
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Desmodium
a genus of papilionaceous plants, sub-tribe Hedysareæ. The leaves have generally three leaflets; more rarely they are simple. The flowers are in racemes or panicles; the legumes jointed, each joint one-seeded. About 100 species are known, chiefly from South America or from India. D. gyrans, an Indian species, is the moving-plant, so called from the rotatory movement of the leaflets. It is sometimes cultivated in greenhouses. D. diffusum is a fodder-plant.
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Desmology
that branch of anatomy which treats of the ligaments and sinews.
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Desmoulins
BENOIT CAMILLE (dä-mölan), a French revolutionist; born in Guise, Picardy, March 2, 1760. He was among the most notable of the pamphleteers and orators who urged the of revomultitude forward in the path lution. He, along with others, prepared the plan for the taking of the Bastille (July, 1789), was one of the founders of the club of Cordeliers, and the promoter of the assembly in the Champ de Mars. In 1793 he gave his vote for the death of the king. Having become closely connected with Danton and the party of opposition to Robespierre, and inveighing against the reign of blood and terror, he was arrested on the order of the latter on March 30, 1794, tried on April 2, and executed on the 5th.
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Desna
a river in Russia, which rises in the government of, and about 50 miles E. of the town of Smolensk, flows through the governments of Orel and Tchernigov till it joins the Dnieper near Kiev. It navigable nearly throughout.
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Despenser
HUGH LE (de-spen' ser), an English jurist; born about 1210. He was justiciar of England in 1261 and during the war of the barons with Henry III. joined the former. He was killed at Evesham, Dec. 4, 1265.
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Despenser
HUGH LE, an English courtier, grandson of the preceding; born about 1262. He distinguished himself as a soldier and diplomat in the service of Edward II. and became Earl of Winchester in 1322. His tyranny as the royal favorite led to a revolt of the barons and his own downfall. He was beheaded in 1326.
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Despenser
HUGH LE, an English courtier, son of the preceding; born about 1290. He deserted the baronial party for that of Edward II., and became a royal favorite. He and his father were involved in the misfortunes following the flight of King Edward from London. He was beheaded in November, 1326. DESPOBLADO (dāz-pō-blädō) (desert), a treeless, uninhabited plateau, nearly 10,000 feet above the sea, on the Bolivian and Argentine frontier, N. E. of Antofagasta.
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Despoto Dagh
a mountain chain of European Turkey, extending from 30 miles to the E. of the Balkan to the bank of the Maritza.
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Dessalines
2026 Editor's Note: This page uses language about other peoples, religions, or nationalities that was commonplace when the book was published and is offensive by today's standards. The text has been left exactly as it was printed, rather than cut or softened, so that the historical record — including how ordinary such language once was — is preserved. (Ed: ET 2026-07-22) (dā-sa-len), an emperor of Haiti; born in Africa in 1758. He was a slave in 1791, when the insurrection of the blacks occurred in that island, but was set free along with the other slaves in St. Domingo in 1794. After the deportation of Toussaint L'Ouverture, and the subsequent evacuation of the island by the French, Dessalines was appointed governor-general for life with absolute power; and the year following (1804) was declared emperor with the title of Jacques I. His rule was savage and oppressive, and both the troops and the people entered into a conspiracy against him, and, Oct. 17, 1806, he was slain by one of his soldiers.
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