DESCENT.

deriving the descent from the last purchaser instead of the person last actually seized, and by admitting lineal ancestors in default of lineal descendants and in preference to collateral heirs. The sixth canon has also been altered by admitting collateral relations of the half blood in default of relations of the whole blood in the same degree.

So far as they are applicable, these commonlaw rules of descent govern all common law, as distinguished from customary inheritances, including the descent of fee-tail estates. These are the result of legislation of the end of the thirteenth century, and, as they are expressly limited to heirs of the body, that is to lineal descendants only, the rules relating to collateral inheritance have no application to them. Even the canons governing lineal inheritances, however, may be varied by the form of the fee tail, as a fee tail special, which confines the inheritance to the issue of a certain wife, a fee tail male (which may be general or special) which limits descent to the male issue, etc.

So, too, while the common-law rules have to a great extent come to be applied to copyhold estates, whose qualities are largely determined by local custom, they have no application whatever to certain other classes of customary estates. Thus lands held by the custom of gavelkind (q.v.), which is the prevailing tenure in Kent, and which occurs elsewhere, are still governed by the old rule of socage tenure, and pass to the sons of the decedent equally, while in the case of lands held by the ancient tenure of boroughEnglish (q.v.) the common-law rule of primogeniture is reversed, and the inheritance passes to the youngest son. And it may be said, in general, that, in many manors and boroughs in England, the course of descent of certain lands may still be governed by local customs of great antiquity, which have successfully resisted the encroachments of the feudalized common-law doctrine.

In the United States there is much diversity in the law of inheritance. The course of descent is everywhere regulated by legislative enactment, and the statutes of the several States must be consulted by any one who desires to master its details. But there is a general and essential uniformity in the outlines of the law governing the matter throughout the nation.

In the first place, the law of the descent of real property has generally been kept distinct from that of the distribution of personal prop erty, and the heir from the personal representative. In the second place, the descent of real property is still confined to those who are of the blood of the decedent, excepting in a few States in which the wife and the husband have been placed in the line of inheritance. In the third place, the principle of priority according to the degree of consanguinity has been preserved, the relatives of one degree not being entitled to share in the inheritance if there is any representative of a higher degree living. In the fourth place, the rules in accordance with which the degree of consanguinity of collaterals is computed have generally in the United States been charged to those of the civil law, being the aggregate of both parties from the common ancestor.

On the other hand, as has been said before, the rule of primogeniture has been universally rejected in the United States, and, with it, the

VOL. VI.-11

feudal preference of the male over the female heir. All the children of the decedent, and all the relatives of equal degree, share alike, usually as tenants in common, without distinction of age or sex. Generally, also, the disability of the half blood has been wholly or partially removed, and half brothers and sisters permitted to share equally with those of full blood, or, as now in England, admitted immediately after the latter. In all States the father and mother, and in some States all lineal ancestors are admitted to the inheritance, usually immediately after lineal descendants and before the collaterals. The principle of representation has also been retained, but in general the descent is traced, not from the person last actually seized, as at common law, nor from the last purchaser, as under the present English statute, but from the person last entitled. The canons of descent, as given above from Blackstone, do not in terms exclude illegitimate children, but no principle of the common law is better established than the rule which denies the right of inheritance to a bastard; only persons born in lawful wedlock are within the legal limits of consanguinity, and no others are capable of lineal or collateral inheritance. This principle has been maintained in all its rigor in England, and has been generally observed in the inheritance laws of the United States, but with the following exceptions and modifications. In most of the States illegitimate children inherit from the mother equally with legitimate children, in one State (New York) only in case the mother has no legitimate issue, and in one (Kansas) from the father also, if his recognition of them is notorious. In many of the States the milder rule of the civil and canon laws, that the subsequent marriage of the parents legitimates previously born children, has been adopted.

It remains to be said that the law of descent of a given jurisdiction is immutable and not to be varied by any form of grant or conveyance. An estate may, indeed, be taken out of its operation by previous conveyance or by last will and testament, but if real property be left undisposed of it passes according to an iron law of inheritance and not otherwise, No limitation of an estate to a different class of heirs, no provision excluding an individual or a class of individuals, has any validity. To attempt to create a different line of descent from that established by law, as by granting lands to A and his male heirs only, or to B and his paternal line only, is to undertake the creation of a novel kind of estate, unknown to the law, and therefore not to be tolerated. Such a conveyance, if it creates an estate of inheritance at all, is at once subjected to the established rules of descent and the particular restrictions imposed by the donor disregarded. The only exception to this principle is the case of the fee-tail estate, referred to above, and that is only an apparent and not a real exception, the qualities of the various kinds of fees tail being as clearly defined as are those of the ordinary estate in fee simple. Consult: Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England; Williams, Principles of the Law of Real Property (17th (International) ed., London and Boston, 1894; 19th Eng. ed., 1901); Jenks, Modern Land Law (Oxford, 1899); Digby, An Introduction to the History of the Law of Real Property (5th ed., Oxford, 1899); Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law (2d ed., Cam

bridge and Boston, 1899); Washburn, Law of Real Property (6th ed., Boston, 1902). See DISTRIBU TION; EXECUTOR; HEIR; INHERITANCE; and the titles of the various kinds of estates, as FEE SIMPLE; FEE TAIL, etc.

DESCENT CAST. A doctrine of the ancient common law in England, whereby the right of entry of a person who had been disseized of lands was barred by the death of the adverse holder and the descent of the lands to the latter's heir. Entry upon lands was formerly by far the most convenient and expeditious method of recovering them from a disseizor, but so important in legal effect was the fact of actual possession by him, however wrongful, that he was invested with an inheritable title, and the passing of this title by descent operated as a limitation upon the right of entry of him who had been disseized. In the technical language of the common law, "a descent cast tolls (i.e. bars) entry." This effect of a descent cast might be avoided by the procedure known as making continual claim, which consisted in an annual demand for possession made by the claimant upon the disseizor. If such claim was made within a year and a day of the disseizor's death, the right of entry of the disseizee was saved. A descent cast had no effect upon the right of a claimant of lands to pursue his remedies by action, but only upon the summary process of entry. See ENTRY, RIGHT OF; DISSEIZIN; LIMITATION.

DESCHAMPS, dâ'shäN', EMILE DE SAINT AMAND (1791-1871). A French poet, born at Bourges. To forward the cause of romanticism, he founded with Victor Hugo La Muse Française (1824). To this journal he contributed verses and stories signed 'Un Jeune Moraliste.' Four years afterwards he collected and published Etudes françaises et étrangères (1828), consisting of poems and translations. The preface of this book, an enthusiastic defense of the Romantic School, won the approval of Goethe. His other works consist of translations, plays, poetry, and essays. He was one of the first to see and promote the spread of romanticism.

DESCHAMPS, EUSTACHE (called MOREL). A French poet of the fourteenth century. He was born at Vertus, studied law at Orléans, and was appointed bailli of Senlis by the Emperor Charles V. His life was that of a popular trouvère. His verse, like most of that of his time, is quite artificial, and possesses chiefly an historical value. One of his ballads is addressed to Chaucer. In addition to ballads and rondeaus, he wrote a Miroir de mariage in 13,000 lines, and De l'art de dicter.

DESCHANEL, dâ'sha'něl', EMILE AUGUSTE ETIENNE MARTIN (1819-1904). A French critic and author, born in Paris. He became professor of rhetoric at the Normal School there, and the contributor of numerous critical articles to the Revue des Deux Mondes. His essays on Catholicisme et socialisme (1850) brought him into difficulties with the Government; he was arrested and finally obliged to leave France. He took refuge in Belgium, where he met Victor Hugo. On his return to his native country. Deschanel became one of the editors of the Journal des Débats (1859). In 1881 he was made professor of modern literature in the Collège de France, and in the same year was elected a Senator. His works include: Les courtisanes

grecques (1859); Histoire de la conversation (1857); Etudes sur Aristophane (1867); Le romantisme des classiques (1882-86); Racine (1884).

DESCHANEL, PAUL EUGÈNE LOUIS (1856 -). A French statesman and author, born at Brussels. He was secretary to two ministers of France, and entered the administration as viceprefect in 1877. As an orator in the Chamber of Deputies, to which body he was first elected in 1885, he displayed great eloquence. From 1898 to 1902 he was president of the Chamber. 1899 he was elected to the French Academy. He wrote La question du Tonkin (1883); La politique française en Océanie (1884); Les intérêts français dans l'océan pacifique (1885); La décentralisation (1895); La question sociale (1898); Politique intérieure et etrangère (1906).

In

DESCHUTES, dâ'shoot' (Fr., the falls). A river rising in the Cascade range and flowing north by east through Crook and Wasco counties, Oregon, to the Columbia River (Map: Oregon, D 5). It is about 320 miles long, and for 140 miles of its course it cuts into the great lava bed of the Northwest. The river has made a canyon, ranging from 1000 to 2500 feet in depth and exposing on its sides at least 130 layers of lava one above another.

DES CLOIZEAUX, dâ klwäʼzo', ALFRED LOUIS OLIVIER LEGRAND (1817-97). A French mineralogist, born at Beauvais (Oise). After scientific study and travel he was appointed assistant instructor in the Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, and subsequently lecturer at the Ecole Normale. He was elected in 1869 to the Academy of Sciences. In 1876 he became professor of mineralogy at the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle. He made important investigations in regard to the optical properties of crystals, particularly with a view to establishing a basis for a crystallographic system and discovered the triclinic potash feldspar known as microclin (KAI Si,O,) and the circular polarization of cinnabar. He published Leçons de cristallographie (1861); a Manuel de minéralogie (vol. i., 1862; vol. ii., part i., 1874); and Nouvelles recherches sur les propriétés optiques des cristaux (1867).

DESCLOT, dě-sklō (DESCLOS, DES CLOT, ESCLOT, SCLOT), BERNAT. A Catalan historian in the latter half of the thirteenth century. He wrote a Llibre del rey En Pere, the oldest important composition in the Catalonian language. While as an historical narrative it is skillful and reliable, its chief interest is linguistic. The original text was first published and edited by Buchon under the title, Chroniques étrangères relatives aux expéditions françaises pendant le treizième siècle (Paris, 1841).

DESCRIPTIVE GEOMETRY. ETRY; MONGE.

See GEOM

DES'DEMOʻNA. The young wife of Othello in Shakespeare's tragedy of the latter title, smothered by her jealous husband at the instigation of Iago. This is said to be the first character impersonated by an actress on the English stage.

DESDÉN CON EL DESDÉN, dãsʼdân kôn ěl das'dân, EL (Sp., Disdain with Disdain). A play by Moreto, produced about the middle of the seventeenth century. It was translated into English by Westland Marston (1864), from the German version of Schreyvogel.

DESDICHADO. DESDICHADO, děs'di-chä'do (Sp., unfortunate). In Scott's novel Ivanhoe, the device adopted by the hero in the Ashby tournament.

DE SEN ECTU’TE (Lat., On Old Age), or CATO MAJOR. A popular essay by Cicero, applying the principles of philosophy to the endurance of the ills incident to old age. It was composed in B.C. 45 or 44, and is dedicated to Atticus. Scipio and Lælius are represented as meeting at the home of the elder Cato, in B.C. 150, and admiring the manner in which he bears his age.

DESERET, děz'ĕr-ět, STATE OF. The name given by the Mormons in 1849 to their settlement in the present State of Utah, deseret being a word taken from the Book of Mormon and meaning 'land of the honey-bee.' In September, 1850, Congress created the Territory of Utah, and the old name gradually fell into disuse. See UTAH; MORMONS.

DESERONTO, děz'ĕr-on'tô. A town of Hastings County, Ontario, Can., the best harbor on the Bay of Quinte, an inlet of Lake Ontario, 130 miles east of Toronto (Map: Ontario, F 3). The Bay of Quinte Railway connects it with the Grand Trunk, the Canadian Pacific and the Central Ontario railroads. It has large lumber mills, car works, chemical works, and other manufacturing industries, and is lighted by gas. The United States is represented by a consular agent. The beautiful Foresters' Island Park is near Deseronto. Population, in 1891, 3338; in 1901, 3527.

DESERT (Fr. désert, Lat. desertum, from deserere, to abandon, from de, from + serere, to bind). A region which supports little plant and animal life. As thus defined, the term includes all barren areas, whether their barrenness is caused by intense cold, lack of soil, or by insufficient moisture. Greenland, southern Patagonia, and the Arctic and Antarctic lands in general are deserts, determined as to character by their situation in high latitudes. In common usage, however, the term is limited to the great continental wastes, lying within the tropical and temperate zones, which are scantily watered by rains. The most extensive of these arid deserts are found in Asia, Africa, and Australia; they are much less prominent areally in North and South America, and in Europe they scarcely occur. The Sahara Desert is a part of an arid belt that reaches from the Atlantic coast across the northern limb of Africa to the Red Sea, and is continued through Arabia, Persia, Turkestan, Sungaria, and Mongolia, almost to the Pacific shores of Asia. The eastern extension of this belt, which is wider than the central portion, is known as the Desert of Gobi. In South Africa the Kalahari Desert occupies a large

area between the Zambezi River on the north and

the Orange and Limpopo rivers on the south. The arid regions of Australia are situated in the central part of the continent, and are of vast extent. The Atacama Desert, in northern Chile, and the Colorado Desert, in California, are of comparatively limited area, but they furnish perhaps the best illustrations of regions in America having an arid climate.

The arid deserts vary greatly in surface conformation, and often they are far from having the monotonous character which popular imagination has ascribed to them. The Sahara Desert

DESERTION.

consists essentially of a series of elevated plains rising in terraces to altitudes of several thousand feet. Within its compass there are sandy stretches with the surface formed by the winds into shifting dunes, and great areas underlain by stratified rocks, where the surface is strewn with boulders and has been deeply eroded by the rivers that existed in past ages. Oases are found at intervals in deserts wherever there are natural springs or mountains of sufficient height to cause precipitation. The date-palm and other foodplants may flourish here, while in the less favored regions the plant life is limited to representatives of the more hardy families, such as cacti and artemisia. The dryness of the desert climate and the scanty vegetation give rise to rocksculpturing in columnar, tabular, and fantastic forms. Violent wind - storms, accompanied by whirlwinds, cloudless skies, extraordinary heat by day and rapid fall of the temperature at night, and an annual rainfall that varies from a few inches to an immeasurably small amount, are characteristic meteorological features.

The small rainfall, upon which the aridity of deserts depends, is due to the following causes: Prevalence of dry winds; isolation by mountain barriers along the borders; great distance from areas of evaporation, or oceans. The Sahara is an illustration of a desert caused by dry winds. In the northern part the prevailing winds blow from the northeast, and rain falls only in winter, when cyclonic storms from the Atlantic pass over the region. The moist winds that have their source in the Gulf of Guinea bring rain to the southern Sahara, but in small amounts only, as their temperature-and consequently their capacity for holding moisture-is increased before they reach far into the interior. A similar condition prevails in the Desert of Atacama, where the prevailing winds are from the south. When mountain ranges occupy the borders of a region the winds are deprived of their moisture before they pass beyond the interior slopes. Thus the Kalahari Desert receives a very small rainfall from the east winds, which bring an abundance to the region lying between the South African highlands and the Indian Ocean. In America the arid region of Nevada, Utah, and Arizona is shut in from the Pacific Ocean by mountains. Finally, desert conditions may prevail in regions situated at great distances from oceans, owing to the gradual precipitation of moisture as the winds travel inland. Consult Neumayr, Erdgeschichte (Leipzig, 1895), and Walther, Das Gesetz der Wüstenbildung in Gegenwart und Vorzeit (Berlin, 1900).

DESERTED VILLAGE, THE. A poem, partly descriptive and partly declamatory, by Goldwhat tritely about the sadness of the growing smith (1770), in which the poet moralizes someluxury and the depopulation of pastoral retreats.

See AUBURN.

DESERTION. A military offense consisting in abandoning the service with the intention of not returning to it. To prove this offense it is necessary to show absence without leave and the intention not to return. The maximum penalty for desertion in time of war is death. In time of peace it is dishonorable discharge and confinement at hard labor for five years. The United States Government pays a reward of $50 for the arrest, securing, and delivery of a deserter, and

In the British Army desertion is a common offense, although in the majority of instances the soldier deserts to join another regiment immediately, in which case should he confess, or be discovered, he is tried by a district court-martial on the charge of fraudulent enlistment. Former ly the charge was 'desertion and fraudulent enlistment,' and up to 1879 the rule was to brand a deserter by tattooing him with the letter D, or B. C. (bad character). The punishment for a first offense is usually from three months' to two years' imprisonment in a military prison, and for succeeding offenses not more than five years may be inflicted. In Germany and Continental Europe generally, desertion in time of peace is difficult, and consequently infrequent, owing to the compulsory service system which prevails. Desertion in time of war is treated by all countries alike, death being the usual punishment. Desertion from the naval services of European nations is also treated with varying terms of imprisonment, or the death penalty, according to the nature and circumstances of the offense.

In

The

In the United States Navy, absence without leave, with a manifest intention not to return, is always regarded as desertion. Absence without leave, with the probability that the person does not intend to desert, is at first regarded as straggling, and at the expiration of ten days, if still absent, as desertion. either case the commanding officer decides the point of intention and causes the person's name to be entered in the ship's log book and marked on the paymaster's books as a deserter. Commanding officers are authorized to offer a reward not exceeding $20 for the recovery of a deserter, and one not exceeding $10 for the recovery of a straggler. In addition to the reward, there are paid such expenses attending their lodgment, subsistence, and traveling as have been fairly incurred. Any reward paid for the apprehension and necessary expenses of a straggler is charged to his account. wages due a deserter are forfeited to the United States; if in debt to the Government at the time of his desertion, his effects are sold and the proceeds applied to liquidate it. The letter 'R' marked against a person's name on the ship's books signifies desertion, and no application for its removal is entertained unless the department is furnished with sufficient evidence that there was no intention to desert. Commanding officers of vessels at any United States naval station are not allowed to receive on board stragglers or deserters from other vessels, unless ordered so to do by the Bureau of Navigation, which has charge of the recruiting of the navy. In case of shipwreck or any other circumstance, except capture by an enemy, whereby any person be longing to a vessel in the navy becomes unavoidably separated from his command, it is his duty to proceed at once to the nearest ship, squadron, or station, and report himself to the officer in command. Should he not do so he is regarded as a deserter, and no claim for wages is allowed unless he can prove that he was prevented by circumstances beyond his control. The punishment of death,

or such other punishment as a court-matial may adjudge, can be inflicted on any person in the naval service who in time of war deserts or entices others to desert. In the merchant service absence without leave for forty-eight hours is regarded as conclusive evidence of desertion.

DESERTION. As applied to marital relations, the willful withdrawal of one of the married parties from the other, or the voluntary refusal of one to renew a suspended cohabitation without justification either in the non-consent of the other party or the wrongful conduct of that party. In most of the States in this country desertion, when willful and accompanied by lack of support on the part of the husband, is made by law a cause of divorce. The statutes of the several States define what may be considered desertion in each, and usually declare the length of time after which desertion will be deemed a good cause for divorce. This time varies from one year to five. It has been ruled that the intentional abandoning for the statutory period by a husband of the matrimonial companionship and intercourse would suffice to base a petition for divorce upon, even though during that time he had regularly contributed toward the support of the wife. A distinction must be made between desertion and mere absence; the former word always implies the non-assent of the person left and the violation by the deserter of some legal or moral duty. In cases of simple absence from the State the common law presumes the death of the person after the lapse of seven years, and in some States a shorter period than this is fixed by statute. Such absence may, like desertion, usually be made a ground for suit for divorce; but if the full could not, under any circumstances, be made the period of absence has elapsed, a second marriage cause of a prosecution for bigamy. In England under the present law the wife may demand a decree of judicial separation, coupled with an order for alimony, on account of willful desertion by the husband for two years without cause.

Consult the authorities referred to under HusBAND AND WIFE. See ABANDONMENT; COHABITATION; CONJUGAL RIGHTS; DIVORCE; HUSBAND AND WIFE.

DESERT VEGETATION. Plants whose natural habitats are in deserts. They form one of the three great climatic groups of xerophytes, and show the typical xerophytic adaptations, which need but brief statement here. Most of the adaptations secure reduced transpiratione.g. many plants show reduced leaves-or the leaves may even be wholly absent, as in some cacti; the deciduous habit is pronounced and reaches its highest expression in annuals, where the whole plant, so to speak, is shed during the dry season; anatomical structures, such as thick cuticles, coats of hair and also wax, protected stomata, etc., are highly developed. Adaptations which secure increased absorption are often found-e.g. root systems are highly developed― and absorptive hairs sometimes occur. Possibly the most characteristic of all desert adaptations are storage organs; succulent leaves and stems are particularly common, and there are many plants with fleshy underground stems (bulbs, tubers, etc.). The conditions that determine the nature of the vegetation are largely associated with the small amount of atmospheric moisture