DISTILLED LIQUORS. water, through wood charcoal. A process which has been used experimentally consists in mixing the diluted spirit with petroleum and thoroughly agitating the mixture. The petroleum has the power of withdrawing the fusel oil from the mixture. Absolute or anhydrous alcohol cannot be obtained by distillation. (See ALCOHOL.) Rectified spirit of wine is the most concentrated alcohol producible by ordinary methods of distillation. The rectified spirit of the British Pharmacopeia has a specific gravity of 0.834 and contains 85.65 per cent. alcohol by weight. The alcohol of the United States Pharmacopeia has a specific gravity of 0.816 and contains 92.3 per cent. by weight. Proof spirit is a term applied to alcohol which conforms to the standard of the excise laws of the United States and England. English proof spirit has a specific gravity of 0.91984 and contains 49.24 per cent by weight. United States proof spirit has a specific gravity of 0.93437 and contains 42.7 per cent. by weight. Alcohol is lighter than water (as 793 to 1000), and thus the lighter the liquid, the purer it is. BEVERAGES MADE FROM RECTIFIED SPIRIT. Whisky, brandy, and rum are distilled liquors used directly as beverages. But much of the distilled liquor produced is in the form of silent spirit, and is used to fortify wines and to arrest fermentation in them at any desired stage, and in the manufacture of factitious beverages generally. There is a large class of alcoholic beverages which are made by mixing with alcohol or brandy various aromatic substances. These distilled spirits are discussed under LIQUEURS. BIBLIOGRAPHY. Brannt, Practical Treatise on the Raw Materials and the Distillation and the Rectification of Alcohol, and the Preparation of Alcoholic Liquors, Liqueurs, Cordials, and Bitters (Philadelphia, 1886); Gaber, Der praktische Destillateur und Spirituosen-Fabrikant (Vienna, 1901); Maercker, Handbuch der Spiritusfabrikation (Berlin, 1899), of which there is a French translation by Bosker and Warnery, entitled, Traité de la fabrication de l'alcohol (Lille, 1889); Roux, La fabrication de l'alcohol, in seven parts (Paris, 1883-90). See LIQUORS, FERMENTED AND DISTILLED, STATISTICS AND HISTORY OF; BRANDY; WHISKY. DISTILLED WATER. Water obtained by subjecting ordinary water, which contains more or less non-volatile matter in solution, to a process of evaporation and by condensing the vapors in a separate vessel. Evidently, distilled water can contain no fixed matter, although it may and usually does hold volatile organic matter in solution. Distilled water finds extensive use in the preparation of medicines and in the chemical laboratory, where the use of natural water would yield inaccurate results. Owing to the absence of mineral salts, distilled water has a flat and an insipid taste. To eliminate this, ordinary distilled water may be redistilled with a small amount of potassium permanganate. Distilled waters is also the name applied in the manufacture of perfumes to the water containing the volatile, odorous, and aromatic principles of plants and flowers that pass over on distillation, as lavender water, rose water, etc. DISTINGUISHED SERVICE ORDER. A military Order instituted in 1886 by Queen Victoria for the purpose of rewarding army and navy officers. Appointments to membership are 307 DISTRESS. made by the sovereign, the head of the organization, for gallant service in the field or on sea, specially mentioned in dispatches to the Government. Its members wear a gold cross, bearing on one side the imperial crown, and on the other the initials V. R. I. DISTORTION. See LIGHT, section on Lenses. DISTRESS (OF. destresser, destrecier, destroisser, from Lat. distringere, to pull asunder, from dis-, apart + stringere, to draw tight; connected with Lith. stregti, to freeze). An ancient creditor's remedy, common to all systems of primitive law, which consists in the seizure and detention by the creditor of his debtor's goods. It is one of the few survivals in our law of the practice of the personal enforcement of one's legal rights, without the intervention of the courts or the assistance of officers of justice. Originally applicable to a great variety of cases, it is now restricted to a limited number of situations, where its drastic character is mitigated by the relation of the parties to one another, and is strictly regulated by law. Blackstone describes distress as "the taking of a personal chattel out of the possession of the wrong-doer into the possession of the party injured, to procure a satisfaction for the wrong committed." Even in Blackstone's time, however, the scope of the remedy had been greatly narrowed, and he enumerates only two principal cases in which it was still available: (1) for non-payment of rent or other duties annexed to the tenure of land; and (2) in the case of cattle of a stranger trespassing and doing damage (damage feasant) on one's land. It is still employed in these cases in England and in many of the United States. It was a remedy of feudal law, inseparable from fealty to the lord, and incident to every service. It does not seem to be very popular, however, as a means of collecting rents, as it places the landlord in a better position than the other creditors. In several of the New England States distress has given place to an attachment on mesne profits. In New York and several other States it has been expressly abolished by statute, and in North Carolina it is held to be inconsistent with the spirit of the laws and not to exist in that State. The law of Louisiana permits the landlord to follow his tenant's goods for fifteen days after removal from the premises. In general, in English and American law, the right to distrain is not limited to the goods of the debtor himself, but extends to any goods in his possession, whether belonging to him or not. But certain articles, as beasts of the plow, implements of trade, and any article at the time in personal use or occupation, have always been privileged from distress. So, also, where the owner, not being the debtor, is compelled by he does it for commercial purposes; as, in the necessity to place his goods on the land, or where first instance, the goods of a traveler at an inn, or, in the second, goods deposited in a warehouse on storage. Formerly the remedy of distress was limited to the seizure and detainer of the goods until the claim sought to be enforced was paid, the distrainor having no right to sell the goods, and the debtor, if he claimed the distress to be illegal, having recourse to an action of replevin (q.v.), for their recovery. Now, however, by statute goods taken under distress may often be sold after due advertisement at public auction and the claim of the distrainor satisfied out of the proceeds. In such a jurisdiction, the character of the remedy by distress has been completely changed from a species of legal duress to a variety of attachment or execution. See LANDLORD AND TENANT; RENT. Consult: Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England; Maine, Ancient Law (New York, 1872); Lectures on the Early History of Institutions (6th ed., London, 1898); Gilbert, Treatise on the Law of Distresses and Replevins (1st ed., London, 1757); Bullen, Practical Treatise on the Law of Distress for Rent (London, 1842); and the authorities referred to under LANDLORD AND TENANT. D'ISTRIA, de'strê-ȧ, DORA. See DORA D'ISTRIA. DISTRIBUTION (Lat. distributio, from distribucre, to distribute, from dis-, apart + tribuere, to give, from tribus, tribe). The department of political economy devoted to the consideration of the rewards which are allotted to the several factors in production. It is a familiar axiom of political economy that land, labor, and capital are united in the production of goods, and that to each is accorded a share of the product. Distribution studies the laws which govern the recompense of the several factors, and thus includes the law of rent, the law of wages, and the law of interest and profits. It is assumed that the three factors are in possession of three different sets of persons, although this is not essential to the formulation of laws. The union in one person of two of the factors would give to him a mixed reward, the components of which would be governed by different laws. There has been a tendency in recent years to draw more sharply than formerly the line between interest and profits, to distinguish between the owner of capital, who receives interest, and the employer of capital, who receives profits. This distinction is of increasing importance in the modern world, which, with its extension of credit, permits so large a share of the world's business to be carried on by borrowed capital, and places opportunities at the disposal of energetic and enterprising men which did not exist before. The area of discussion thus outlined represents the most controverted field in economic writing. It has assumed prominence especially through the attacks of the socialists, whose contention is that the distributive process is radically at fault, and thoroughly inequitable. It is interesting to observe that as the discussion of exchange gave place in Adam Smith's writings to that of production, so later, in the writings of Malthus, Ricardo, and Mill, distribution became the leading element in economic discussion. The interest shifted somewhat from questions affecting the increase of the aggregate product to the consideration of the laws governing the distribution of the product. Consult the works of Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Cairnes, Marshall, Jevons, Walker, Clark, and Patten. See POLITICAL ECONOMY; INTEREST; PROFIT; and RENT. DISTRIBUTION. In its most general sense in the law, the division of a surplus fund among those legally entitled to share therein. It applies equally to the division of a trust fund among the cestuis que trust, of the surplus assets of a bankrupt or insolvent among the creditors, of partnership property after payment of debts among the co-partners, and of the surplus in the hands of an administrator of an intestate among those entitled, as next of kin or otherwise, to share it among them. Distribution usually refers to the last of these, and the statutes which have been enacted in Great Britain and in the United States to regulate the distribution of an intestate's personal estate are known as statutes of distribution. The matter is one wholly of statute regulation at the present time. Formerly the personal estate of one dying intestate passed at once into the hands of the bishop of the diocese, and the disposition made of it was determined by the ecclesiastical law, administered by the so-called 'ordinary court' of the diocese. There seems originally to have been no provision for the payment of the debts of the decedent, and the bulk of the estate, after deducting some small provision for the widow and children, was devoted to the purposes of the Church (in pios usus). It was, however, as early as 1285, provided by statute (St. Westminster II. e 19) that the ordinary should pay the intestate's debts just as an executor was bound to do, and in 1357 it was further enacted (31 Edw. III. st. 1, c. 11) that the ordinary should commit the administration of the intestate's goods to his next and most lawful friends. The jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts over the administration of decedent's estates, whether testate or intestate, continued in England till 1857, when it was transferred by act of Parliament to the newly created Court of Probate. It is now vested in the Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice, instituted by the Judicature Act of 1873. In the United States separate courts of this character, known variously as surrogates' courts, probate courts, ordinary courts, and orphans' courts, have existed from the earliest period for the exercise of this jurisdiction. The administration of decedents' estates includes (1) the payment of funeral expenses, of the costs of administration, and of the decedent's debts; (2) in the case of an executor, the payment of the legacies given by the will; (3) in the case of either an executor or administrator, the distribution of the surplus, if any, among those entitled thereto under the statutes of distribution. and The feudal law of land, which confined the descent of real estate to a certain person or class of persons, taking as heir of the intestate, had no application to the transmission of the personal estate. That was from the beginning distributed on a more rational and humane plan, due, in large part, at least, to the mild influence of the canon, or ecclesiastical, law. It has been noticed that in the earliest period the right of the widow and children to share reasonably (partes rationabiles) in the decedent's estate was recognized. much less rigid classification of those who stand The same principles prevail to-day. There is a in the order of distribution than is the case in the law of the descent of land, and there is nothing resembling the feudal preference of the male to the female, of the elder to the younger, of the whole to the half blood. In England the matter is regulated by the statutes 22 and 23 Car. II., c. 10 and 1 Jac. II., c. 17, known as the Statutes of Distribution, and the order of distribution provided for by them follows closely that of the DISTRIBUTION. 309 DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS. LIMITS OF DISPERSION: THE SEA AS A BARRIER. Each kind of animal must have had a point of origin, whence it spread as it increased. Theoretically, the expansion of a species would proceed equally in all directions, but actually this expansion has encountered barriers and restrictions that have confined and shaped habitats within certain areas, in some instances extremely wide, in others surprisingly narrow. What constitutes these barriers and restrictions? depends in each case on the physical surroundings as related to the needs and abilities of the animal in question. It is plain that a species of fish that originated in or somehow became restricted to an inland water-Lake Baikal, for That early law to which reference has been made. Similar statutes have been enacted in all of the United States, but these, though governed by the same principles and alike in their general outlines, vary considerably in detail. In general it may be said that if a man die, leaving a wife and children, one-third of the personal estate goes to the wife and the remaining two-thirds to the children. If there be a wife and no children, the wife takes one-half, the other half going to the next of kin of the deceased. If there be children and no wife, the children take the whole estate to the exclusion of other kindred. In England and in many of our States the position of a surviving husband is better than that of a surviving widow. The old common-law rule, that the hus-example-could never spread beyond its shores band is solely entitled to the personal estate upon the death of the wife, has been generally abrogated in the United States where there are also surviving children, and in many of the States his position has been completely assimilated to that of the wife. For a more detailed and exact statement of the order of distribution of intestate's estates, the reader is referred to the statutes of the several States. See the articles on ADMINISTRATION; DESCENT; EXECUTOR; and the authorities there referred to; and also Stimson's American Statute Law, vol. i. (Boston, 1886). CONDITIONS CONTROLLING HABITAT AND RANGE. Some animals are fitted to dwell wholly upon land, others in water. The aquatic animals are, further, divisible into those of salt and those of fresh waters. The former have the oceans of the world open to them, yet few, if any, range through all seas; furthermore, the inhabitants of the surface of the sea differ from those of its bottom or deeper parts. Similarly, animals able to mount into the air and to fly abroad with apparent freedom, are rarely cosmopolitan, and whole groups of these, as well as innumerable species and individuals, reside only within limited areas or along narrow lines of migratory travel. Fresh-water forms are likely to be restricted to separate lakes and river systems. Of the terrestrial animals none are now cosmopolitan, except those which have been carried by man to all parts of the world. (The introduced fauna of a region must always be distinguished from its indigenous fauna.) On the contrary, each of the present grand divisions of the earth has a characteristic fauna of its own, and often a whole family, order, or even subclass, belongs to one continent alone. Coincident with these restrictions and diversities, likenesses between widely separated lands are manifest; and representatives of a single group may be found in regions far distant from one another. To set forth these facts, to endeavor to account for them, and to develop their significance, is the province of zoogeography. save by accidental transplantation; while an able sea-going fish may wander indefinitely, so far as mere room is concerned. Among land animals space for expansion, then, is of prime importance. Here the firmest bounds are set by the sea. Any considerable breadth of water, and especially of salt water, is uncrossable except by rare and extraordinary accident; and even then a pregnant female or a pair must be landed on the further shore in order to start a colony, which must, furthermore, find favorable surroundings in order to survive in the new locality. This accounts for the fact that mammals and terrestrial reptiles and amphibians are absent from oceanic islands. Continuity of land, then, and when species are found in regions now is necessary to the spread of a terrestrial species; widely separated, as Europe and North America, formerly connected by lands now submerged. it can usually be shown that such regions were Conversely, the characteristics of the present fauna of such comparable regions assist the geologist to determine when the connection was finally broken. INSULAR FAUNAS. The faunas of most islands near continents date back to the time when these islands were a part of the adjacent mainland, or were separated from it only by narrow straits. The explanation of the broad and conspicuous disparity that exists between the faunas of such large islands as Australia and Madagascar, and those of Asia and Africa, respectively, is accounted for by the evidently very ancient date at which they became dissevered. "It is evident," remark Flower and Lydekker, "that Australia has been isolated from the Asiatic Continent from some very remote geological epoch, at which period it is probable that monotremes and marsupials were the dominant if not the sole representatives of the mammalia then existing. Consequently Australia has never been able to receive an influx of the Eutherian orders, which have probably swept away all the marsupials except the small American opossums from the rest of the globe. Again, the large island of Madagascar, which has a fauna of an African type, but still very markedly different from that of the mainland, may be considered to have been connected with the latter at a time when the Eutheria had become the dominant forms, but has been separated for a sufficiently long period to have enabled a large number of its species and genera to have become distinct from those of the adjacent continent. Similarly there is evidence to show that South America was probably cut off for a considerable period from the northern half of the American Continent, in consequence of which its lowly organized fauna of Edentates were enabled to attain such a remarkable development in the later geological periods. Consult Wallace, Island Life (New York, 1902). See ISOLATION. "The above instances [and their converse, exemplified by the identity of insular and continental faunas where a land union is known to have existed lately] are sufficient to show how largely the present distribution of mammalian life is bound up with the past history of our globe. We must, however, not omit to mention another very important agency of past times which has likewise had great influence on the present distribution of the various faunas of the Northern Hemisphere. This is the so-called Glacial Epoch, which took place immediately before the establishment of the present state of things, and appears to have been the cause of the extinction of many of the larger mammalian types which formerly inhabited Europe." But while many species have had a far wider distribution in past ages than now (and in a general way a widely distributed form may be regarded as an old form), many species seem never to have expanded much, some being limited to a short stretch of coast, or a single rivervalley, or to a certain mountain or island. DESERTS, MOUNTAINS, ETC., AS BARRIERS. Other barriers than the sea, therefore, have been effective in impeding the spread of crescent varieties. species, and groups. Most prominent among these is a desert region. The Sahara cuts off almost completely the fauna of Europe from that of Africa; and the continuation of the arid treeless area northeastward across Asia divides the northern Asiatic animals from the southern in a most emphatic way. Similarly, the fauna of North America stops and that of the southern continent begins where the plains and tablelands of Arizona and northern Mexico interpose a waterless, scantily planted space of semi-desert and sterile hills, uninviting to either set of animals as a whole, yet invaded by both. Long and lofty mountain ranges stand next in importance, probably, as physical barriers, but this is more marked in the warmer than in the cooler parts of the world, since animals accustomed to the torrid conditions of tropical plains cannot or will not endure the cold and lack of customary food encountered even on the passes, and so do not cross over the highlands. The mountains of North America seem to make less difference with the distribution of our animals, as between the Atlantic and Pacific slopes, than does the central-plains area; and that of Europe has been little affected by the presence of mountains. The Atlas range is more marked as a boundary, but that is because of the neighboring desert; and similarly the great CentralAsian ranges are part of the lofty, cold, and arid region which as a whole forms probably the most effective inland barrier in the world. Deep and broad rivers or straits of the sea may interrupt the spread of many species. The Hudson seems never to have been crossed by the opossum, which could neither get over nor around it. The Mississippi put an end to the eastward progress of the jaguar along the Gulf region, and much smaller rivers might stop many other creatures, such as monkeys (which are unable to swim); yet none would prove a barrier to flying or amphibious animals, and many serve to extend hundreds of miles the range of aquatic and semi-aquatic ones. Frequently, however, neither these nor various other barriers' that might be mentioned seem to have prevented the growth of species which nevertheless are scant in numbers and extremely restricted in area of range. The blaubok (q.v.) of South Africa was unknown beyond a single valley, and has almost become extinct. This is a sharp example of many puzzling cases where probably the restraining influence has been competition. Each locality supplies food, water, and shelter for only a certain quota of animals. The ablest and bestfitted in each class for that region will get the most out of it and will increase and spread. The struggle for existence' is everywhere a real daily fight for space and subsistence, and the weakest will gradually succumb or become prisoners within areas so peculiarly favorable to them that there they are able to hold their own. powerful and gregarious cattle long ago forced the sheep to keep to the mountain pastures. Active enemies must also be considered, certain animals not being able to exist in the same territory. A river infested with crocodiles might forever prove uncrossable for small quadrupeds that otherwise might soon pass over it. faunal distinctions between forest and prairie, mountain and plain, diurnal and nocturnal methods, are effects of enmity as well as of competition. The The CLIMATE AND ALTITUDE AS FACTORS. Of climate as a determinant in geographical distribution, perhaps too much has been made in the past. Climate, within its extremes, seems influential upon animal life mainly as cold or prevailing drought affects the higher forms of vegetation (see DISTRIBUTION OF PLANTS), and consequently the food of herbivorous and insectivorous animals. Such species as can take a varied fare, and can by migration, storage of food, or hibernation, escape or provide against storm and scarcity, defy climatic bounds. The big cats and bears range from torrid jungles to snowy mountaintops and subarctic latitudes. Transplanted species frequently flourish in climates the opposite of that to which they are native. In a general way, nevertheless, similar animals are found in similar climates, and within the larger regions lesser faunal divisions often conform closely to isothermal belts, a fact more noticeable in North America than anywhere else. Here, too, comes in the so-called 'vertical' distribution of life observable in high mountains, where various altitudes exhibit an animal and plant life identical with or similar to that of northern latitudes, where a corresponding average of temperature prevails. Thus mountain ranges lying north and south carry far toward the equator along their cool ridges species which exist near sea-level only in high latitudes. Our bighorn, once numerous along the Rockies south to New Mexico, is an example of this feature; and the guanaco of Patagonia, following the Andes north to the equator in Ecuador, is another. Terrestrial life is everywhere most plentiful near sea-level and in warm regions, and becomes more scanty as the poles are approached or mountains are ascended. Mountain-tops, however, frequently |