DAWLISH, a watering-place in the Ashburton parliamentary division of Devonshire, England, on the English Channel, near the outflow of the Exe, 12 m. S. of Exeter by the Great Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 4003. It lies on a cove sheltered by two projecting headlands. A small stream which flows through the town is lined on both sides by pleasure-grounds. Dawlish owes its prosperity to the visitors attracted, in spring and early summer, by the warm climate and excellent bathing. An annual pleasure fair is held on Easter Monday, and a regatta in August or September. Until its sale in the 19th century, the site of Dawlish belonged to Exeter cathedral, having been given to the chapter by Leofric, bishop of Exeter, in 1050.
DAWN (the 16th-century form of the earlier “dawing” or “dawning,” from an old verb “daw,” O. Eng. dagian, to become day; cf. Dutch dagen, and Ger. tagen), the time when
light appears (daws) in the sky in the morning. The dawn
colours appear in the reverse order of the sunset colours and
are due to the same cause. When the sun is lowest in both cases
the colour is deep red; this gradually changes through orange to
gold and brilliant yellow as the sun approaches the horizon.
These colours follow each other in order of refrangibility, reproducing
all the colours of the spectrum in order except the blue
rays which are scattered in the sky. The colours of the dawn
are purer and colder than the sunset colours since there is less
dust and moisture in the atmosphere and less consequent sifting
of light rays.
DAWSON, GEORGE (1821–1876), English nonconformist divine, was born in London on the 24th of February 1821, and
was educated at Marischal College, Aberdeen, and at the university
of Glasgow. In 1843 he accepted the pastorate of the
Baptist church at Rickmansworth, and in 1844 a similar charge
at Mount Zion, Birmingham, where he attracted large congregations
by his eloquence and his unconventional views. Desiring
freedom from any definite creed, he left the Baptist church and
became minister of the “Church of the Saviour,” a building
erected for him by his supporters. Here he exercised a stimulating
and varied ministry for nearly thirty years, gathering round
him a congregation of all types and especially of such as found the
dogmas of the age distasteful. He had much sympathy with the
Unitarian position, but was not himself a Unitarian. Indeed he
had no fixed standpoint, and discussed truths and principles
from various aspects. His sermons, though not particularly
speculative, were unconventional and quickening. He was the
friend of Carlyle and Emerson, and did much to popularize
their teachings, his influence being conspicuous, especially in
his demand for a high ethical standard in everyday life and his
insistence on the Christianization of citizenship. He was warmly
supported by Dr R. W. Dale, and by J. T. Bunce, editor of
The Birmingham Daily Post. Both Dawson and Dale were disqualified
as ministers from seats on the town council, but both
served on the Birmingham school board. Dawson also lectured
on English literature at the Midland Institute and helped to
found the Shakespeare Memorial library in Birmingham. He
died suddenly at King’s Norton on the 30th of November 1876.
Four volumes of Sermons, two of Prayers and two of Biographical Lectures were published after his death.
See Life by H. W. Crosskey (1876) and an article by R. W. Dale in The Nineteenth Century (August 1877).
DAWSON, SIR JOHN WILLIAM (1820–1899), Canadian
geologist, was born at Pictou, Nova Scotia, on the 30th of
October 1820. Of Scottish descent, he went to Edinburgh to
complete his education, and graduated at the university in 1842,
having gained a knowledge of geology and natural history from
Robert Jameson. On his return to Nova Scotia in 1842 he
accompanied Sir Charles Lyell on his first visit to that territory.
Subsequently he was appointed to the post of superintendent of
education (1850–1853); at the same time he entered zealously
into the geology of the country, making a special study of the
fossil forests of the coal-measures. From these strata, in
company with Lyell (during his second visit) in 1852, he obtained
the first remains of an “air-breathing reptile” named Dendrerpeton.
He also described the fossil plants of the Silurian,
Devonian and Carboniferous rocks of Canada for the Geological
Survey of that country (1871–1873). From 1855 to 1893 he
was professor of geology and principal of M‘Gill University,
Montreal, an institution which under his influence attained a
high reputation. He was elected F.R.S. in 1862. When the
Royal Society of Canada was constituted he was the first to
occupy the presidential chair, and he also acted as president of
the British Association at its meeting at Birmingham in 1886,
and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Sir William Dawson’s name is especially associated with the
Eozoon canadense, which in 1864 he described as an organism
having the structure of a foraminifer. It was found in the
Laurentian rocks, regarded as the oldest known geological
system. His views on the subject were contested at the time,
and have since been disproved, the so-called organism being now
regarded as a mineral structure. He was created C.M.G. in 1881,
and was knighted in 1884. In his books on geological subjects he
maintained a distinctly theological attitude, declining to admit
the descent or evolution of man from brute ancestors, and holding
that the human species only made its appearance on this earth
within quite recent times. Besides many memoirs in the
Transactions of learned societies, he published
Acadian Geology: The geological structure, organic remains and mineral resources of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island (1855; ed. 3, 1878); Air-breathers of the Coal Period (1863); The Story of the Earth and Man (1873; ed. 6, 1880);
The Dawn of Life (1875); Fossil Men and their Modern Representatives (1880); Geological History of Plants (1888); The Canadian Ice Age (1894). He died on the 20th of November 1899.
His son, George Mercer Dawson (1849–1901), was born at Pictou on the 1st of August 1849, and received his education at M‘Gill University and the Royal School of Mines, London, where he had a brilliant career. In 1873 he was appointed geologist and naturalist to the North American boundary commission, and two years later he joined the staff of the geological survey of Canada, of which he became assistant director in 1883, and director in 1895. He was in charge of the Canadian government’s Yukon expedition in 1887, and his name is permanently written in Dawson City, of gold-bearing fame. As one of the Bering Sea Commissioners he spent the summer of 1891 investigating the facts of the seal fisheries on the northern coasts of Asia and America. For his services there, and at the subsequent arbitration in Paris, he was made a C.M.G. He was elected F.R.S. in 1891, and in the same year was awarded the Bigsby medal by the Geological Society of London. He was president of the Royal Society of Canada in 1893. He died on the 2nd of March 1901. He was the author of many scientific papers and reports, especially on the surface geology and glacial phenomena of the northern and western parts of Canada.
DAWSON CITY, or Dawson, the capital of the Yukon territory, Canada, on the right bank of the Yukon river, and in the middle of the Klondyke gold region, of which it is the distributing centre. It is situated in beautiful mountainous country, 1400 ft. above the sea, and 1500 m. from the mouth of the Yukon river. It is reached by a fleet of river steamers, and has telegraphic communication. Founded in 1896, its population soon reached over 20,000 at the height of the gold rush; in 1901 it was officially returned as 9142, and is now not more than 5000. The temperature varies from 90° F. in summer to 50° below zero in winter. It possesses three opera-houses and numerous hotels, and is a typical mining town, though even at first there was much less lawlessness than is usually the case in such cities.
DAX, a town of south-western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Landes, 92 m. S.S.W. of Bordeaux, on the Southern railway between that city and Bayonne. Pop. (1906) 8585. The town lies on the left bank of the Adour, a stone bridge uniting it to its suburb of Le Sablar on the right bank. It has remains of ancient Gallo-Roman fortifications, now converted into a promenade. The most remarkable building in the town is the church of Notre-Dame, once a cathedral; it was rebuilt from 1656 to 1719, but still preserves a sacristy, a porch and a fine sculptured doorway of the 13th century. The
