DANDELION 259 DANIELS and was master of villag^e patois. He died in 1725. Voltaire ranked him next after Moliere for low comedy. DANDELION, the common and well- known plant, Taraxacum Dens Leonis or officinale, belonging to the natural order Compositce. It yields a milky juice, which in the form of extract is used medicinally as a diuretic and alterative. It contains a bitter crystalline principle called taraxacine. Its root has been used to adulterate coffee in a similar way to chicory. It has a naked, hollow stalk, with a single bright yellow flower. The blanched leaves are used as a winter salad, and the roots are eaten as such by the French. The seed is furnished with a fine white pappus, by means of which it is carried far and wide by the wind. The leaves are lanceolate and sinuous, rising from a tap-root in the form of a rosette. DANDOLO (dan'do-16), a patrician family of Venice, which traced its origin to the Roman era. Its most illustrious member was: Dandolo, Enrico, Doge of Venice, to which high office he was chosen in 1192, when in his 87th year. He carried on the war with the Pisans and closed it by an advantageous peace. In 1201 the Crusaders applied to him for assistance, and on their promise to reduce the town of Zara, which had revolted, he agreed to help them. He accordingly undertook with them, in 1203, the siege of Con- stantinople, at which he greatly dis- tinguished himself, and was the first who leaped on shore. It is said that he had the offer of the imperial crovsm, and refused it. He was created despot of Rumania, and died 1205, at the age of 97. DANEBROG ("the Danish banner"), the name of the second in dignity of the Danish orders instituted by King Walde- mar in 1219. DANELAGH (dan'la), the portion of England allotted to the Danes by the Treaty of Wedmore in 878 A. D. It ex- tended from the E. coast to a line which ran from the Thames a little below Lon- don to Chester on the Dee. DANES. See Denmark. DANIEL, the prophet, a contemporary of Ezekiel; was born of a distinguished Hebrew family. In his youth, 605 B. c, he was carried captive to Babylon, and educated in the Babylonish court for the service of King Nebuchadnezzar. Thrown into the lions' den for conscientiously re- fusing to obey the king, he was miracu- lously preserved, and finally made prime- minister in the court of the Persian king Darius. He ranks with what are called the "greater prophets." The book of the Old Testament which bears his name is divided into a historical and a prohetic part. Modern criticism generally re- gards it as written during the opprpssion of the Jews under Antiochus, about 170 B. c. It is partly in Chaldee. DANIELL. MOSES GRANT, an Amer- ican educator, born in Boston in 1836. He graduated from Harvard in 1863 and entered the field of secondary education, in which he held a prominent part for over thirty years. He first served with the Everett School in Dorchester, and then for seventeen years was instructor of Latin in the Roxbury Latin School. For twelve years he was Headmaster of the Chauncy Hall School in Boston. His textbook, written with William C. Collier, is widely used in the early study of Latin. DANIELS, JOSEPHUS, an American public official, bom in 1862 in Washing- ton, N. C. He became, in 1880, editor of the "Advance," a newspaper of Wilson, JOSEPHUS DANIELS N. C. Although he studied law and was admitted to the bar he never practiced that profession, preferring newspaper work. In 1885 he became editor of the "State Chronicle" of Raleigh and in 1894 united this newspaper with another and published it as the "News and Observer." From 1887 to 1893 he was State printer.
