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In India. The Minar, built in the i3th century, is a pillar 238 feet high, 47 feet through at the bottom and 9 feet at the top. It has a winding staircase, wreathed with inscriptions from Koran. Modern Delhi is noted for its broad streets, the chief of which is Silver Street. It has a large wheat-trade, and its bazars are famous for gold and silver-work, precious stones, shawls and other articles of luxury.
Delhi was the capital of the Afghan and, afterward, of the Mogul empire. It was taken by the British army in 1803, and on the coronation of George V, in Dec., 1911, the capital of India was changed from Calcutta to Delhi. Population, about 200,000, more than half of whom are Hindus.
De Long, George Washington, American explorer, was born at New York, Aug. 22, 1844. After graduating at the United States Naval Academy in 1865, he set out on a voyage to Greenland in 1873. He wished very much to engage in Arctic exploration, and in 1877 his wish was fulfilled. James Gordon Bennett bought and elaborately fitted out the Jeannette. It was placed under the authority and protection of the United States Navy, and, with De Long in command, sailed from San Francisco on July 8, 1879, through Bering Strait, in search of the north pole. On June 13, 1881, the Jeannette sank, crushed by ice. De Long, with some of the party, perished on the banks of the Lena, in Siberia, in October of that year.
Delos (de'los), an island in the Grecian archipelago, is the smallest of the Cyclades, covering little more than one square mile. According to the old Greek story, it first was a floating island, but was fixed to the bottom by Zeus, in order that it might become a safe-resting-place for the goddess Leto in giving birth to Apollo and Artemis. Delos very early had a great festival of Apollo, attended by Greeks from many nations. The Confederacy of Delos, with Athens at its head, which was formed in 477 B. C., was so called because its deputies met at the temple of Apollo in Delos, and it kept its treasure there. After 146 B. C., when Corinth fell, Delos became a center of business. Its traffic was so great that it is said 10,000 slaves changed hands in a single day. It was noted also for its palm-trees, besides its brass and brazen vessels. Delos was laid waste in the Mithradatic war (87 B. C.), and never recovered.
Delphi (del'fi), an old Greek town in Pho-cis, celebrated chiefly for its famous oracle of Apollo. From the Delphian nobles were at first taken the chief magistrates and the priests of the temple, while the Pythia, or priestess who delivered the oracle, at first always a young maiden, but afterwards a woman not younger than 50, was usually chosen from some family of poor country-
people. In the center of the temple was a small opening in the ground, out of which arose an intoxicating vapor. The Pythia, having breathed this, sat down upon the tripod or three-legged stool, which was placed over the aperture in the ground, and then delivered the oracle. The oracle was either given at first in verse or else handed over to a poet employed for that purpose. As the Delphic oracle became more and more celebrated, Delphi grew into a town of great wealth, famous not only in Greece but among neighboring nations. Here the Pythian games were held, and it was one of the two places of meeting of the Amphictyonic Council. The fourth temple—the first to be built of stone—was destroyed by fire in 548 B. C., and during the next century the fifth and last was built by the Amphictyons at a cost of 300 talents or $575,000. It was faced with Parian marble and adorned with statues by the greatest living Greek sculptors. In 480 B. C., Xerxes sent a part of his army to plunder the temple; but as they climbed the rugged path that led to the shrine, a peal of thunder broke overhead and two huge crags, tumbling from the heights, crushed many of the Persians to death, while their comrades, struck with terror, turned and fled. It was, however, plundered afterward, and by Nero and by Constantine among others. In the time of Pliny there were 3,000 statues in Delphi, and within the temple for a long time stood a golden statue of Apollo.
Delta (del'td) is a deposit formed at the mouth of a river from soil and other matter carried down in the stream or rolled forward upon the river bed. The name was first given to the tract of land thus formed by the Nile, which is in the shape of a triangle and resembles the Greek letter delta (A). More or less sediment is carried down by all rivers; but the forming of a delta depends upon there being no currents at the mouth of the river to sweep the sediment out to sea.
Deluge (meaning flood). By the' deluge is usually meant the flood of Noah, the account of which is given in Genesis vi-ix. Stories of a great flood, agreeing more or less with the narrative given in the Bible, are common to most races. The Hindu story represents the god Vishnu as warning the prince Satyavarata of the coming of the flood, and furnishing him with a large vessel in which he and seven others, with their wives, were saved. The Chaldean Noah is called Xisuthrus, who sails in a ship guided by a steersman. The flood is seven days at its height, and Xisuthrus sends out first a raven, then a dove and lastly a swallow.
De Mille (de-mil'}, James, Canadian novelist, was born at St. John, New Brunswick, in 1837, and died at Halifax, Nova
