Part 15

DUMBARTON, a royal, municipal and police burgh, seaport, and county town of Dumbartonshire, Scotland, situated on the river Leven, near its confluence with the Clyde, 15-1/2 m. W. by N. of Glasgow by the North British and Caledonian railways. Pop. (1891) 17,625, (1901) 19,985. The Alcluith ("hill of the Clyde") of the Britons, and Dunbreatan ("fort of the Britons") of the Celts, it was the capital of the district of Strathclyde. Here, too, the Romans had a naval station which they called Theodosia. Although thus a place of great antiquity, the history of the town practically centres in that of the successive fortresses on the Rock of Dumbarton, a twin peaked mount, 240 ft. high and a mile in circumference at the base. The fortress was often besieged and sometimes taken, the Picts seizing it in 736 and the Northmen in 870, but the most effectual surprise of all was that accomplished, in the interests of the young King James VI., by Thomas Crawford of Jordanhill on March 31, 1571. The castle was held by Queen Mary's adherents, and as it gave them free communication with France, its capture was deemed essential. Crawford decided to climb the highest point, concluding that, owing to its imagined security, it would be carelessly guarded. Favoured with a dark and foggy night the party of 150 men and a guide reached the first ledge of rock undiscovered. In scaling the second precipice one of the men was seized with an epileptic fit on the ladder. Crawford bound him to the ladder and then turned it over and was thus enabled to ascend to the summit. At this moment the alarm was given, but the sentinel and the sleepy soldiers were slain and the cannon turned on the garrison. Further resistance being useless, the castle was surrendered. During the governorship of Sir John Menteith, William Wallace was in 1305 imprisoned within its walls before he was removed to London. The higher of the two peaks is known as Wallace's seat, a tower, perhaps the one in which he was incarcerated, being named after him. On the portcullis gateway may still be seen rudely carved heads of Wallace and his betrayer, the latter with his finger in his mouth. Queen Mary, when a child, resided in the castle for a short time. It is an ugly barrack-like structure, defended by a few obsolete guns, although by the Union Treaty it is one of the four fortresses that must be maintained. The rock itself is basalt, with a tendency to columnar formation, and some parts of it have a magnetic quality.

The town arms are the elephant and castle, with the motto _Fortitudo et fidelitas_. Dumbarton was of old the capital of the earldom of Lennox, but was given up by Earl Maldwyn to Alexander II., by whom it was made a royal burgh in 1221 and declared to be free from all imposts and burgh taxes. Later sovereigns gave it other privileges, and the whole were finally confirmed by a charter of James VI. It had the right to levy customs and dues on all vessels on the Clyde between Loch Long and the Kelvin. "Offers dues" on foreign ships entering the Clyde were also exacted. In 1700 these rights were transferred to Glasgow by contract, but were afterwards vested in a special trust created by successive acts of parliament.

Most of the town lies on the left bank of the Leven, which almost converts the land here into a peninsula, but there is communication with the suburb of Bridgend on the right bank by a five-arched stone bridge, 300 ft. long. The public buildings include the Burgh Hall, the academy (with a graceful steeple), the county buildings, the Denny Memorial, a Literary and a Mechanics' institute, Masonic hall, two cottage hospitals, a fever hospital, a public library and the combination poorhouse. There are two public parks--Broad Meadow (20 acres), part of ground reclaimed in 1859, and Levengrove (32 acres), presented to the corporation in 1885 by Peter Denny and John McMillan, two ship-builders who helped lay the foundation of the town's present prosperity. The old parish kirkyard was closed in 1856, but a fine cemetery was constructed in its place outside the town. Dumbarton is controlled by a provost and a council. With Port-Glasgow, Renfrew, Rutherglen and Kilmarnock it unites in returning one member to parliament. The principal industry is shipbuilding. The old staple trade of the making of crown glass, begun in 1777, lapsed some 70 years afterwards when the glass duty was abolished. There are several great engineering works, besides iron and brass foundries, saw-mills, rope-yards and sail-making works. There are quays, docks and a harbour at the mouth of the Leven, and a pier for river steamers runs out from the Castle rock. The first steam navigation company was established in Dumbarton in 1815, when the "Duke of Wellington" (built in the town) plied between Dumbarton and Glasgow. But it was not till 1844, consequent on the use of iron for vessels, that shipbuilding became the leading industry.

DUMBARTONSHIRE, a western county of Scotland, bounded N. by Perthshire, E. by Stirlingshire, S.E. by Lanarkshire, S. by the Clyde and its estuary, and W. by Loch Long and Argyllshire. There is also a detached portion, comprising the parish of Kirkintilloch and part of that of Cumbernauld enclosed between the shires of Stirling and Lanark. This formerly formed part of Stirlingshire, but was annexed in the 14th century when the earl of Wigtown, to whom it belonged, became heritable sheriff of Dumbartonshire. Dumbartonshire has an area of 170,762 acres or 267 sq. m. The north-west and west are mountainous, the chief summits being Ben Vorlich (3092 ft.), Ben Vane (3004), Doune Hill (2409), Beinn Chaorach (2338), Beinn a Mhanaich (2328), Beinn Eich (2302), Cruach ant Suthein (2244), Ben Reoch (2168), Beinn Tharsuinn (2149), Beinn Dubh (2018), Balcnock (2092) and Tullich Hill (2075). In the south are the Kilpatrick Hills, their highest points being Duncomb and Fynloch (each 1313 ft.). The Clyde, the Kelvin and the Leven are the only rivers of importance. The Leven flows out of Loch Lomond at Balloch and joins the Clyde at Dumbarton after a serpentine course of about 7 m. Most of the other streams are among the mountains, whence they find their way to Loch Lomond, the principal being the Inveruglas, Douglas, Luss, Finlas and Fruin. Nearly all afford good sport to the angler. Of the inland lakes by far the largest and most magnificent is Loch Lomond (q.v.). The boundary between the shires of Dumbarton and Stirling follows an imaginary line through the lake from the mouth of Endrick Water to a point opposite the isle of Vow, giving about two-thirds of the loch to the former county. Loch Sloy on the side of Ben Vorlich is a long, narrow lake, 812 ft. above the sea amid wild scenery. From its name the Macfarlanes took their slogan or war-cry. The shores of the Gareloch, a salt-water inlet 6-1/2 m. long and 1 m. wide, are studded with houses of those whose business lies in Glasgow. Garelochhead has grown into a favourite summer resort; Clynder is famed for its honey. The more important salt-water inlet, Loch Long, is 17 m. in length and varies in width from 2 m. at its mouth to about 1/2 a mile in its upper reach. It is the dumping-place for the dredgers which are constantly at work preserving the tide-way of the Clyde from Dumbarton to the Broomielaw--its use for this purpose being a standing grievance to anglers. The scenery on both shores is very beautiful. Only a mile separates Garelochhead from Loch Long, and at Arrochar the distance from Tarbet on Loch Lomond is barely 1-3/4 m. Nearly all the glens are situated in the Highland part of the shire, the principal being Glen Sloy, Glen Douglas, Glen Luss and Glen Fruin. The last is memorable as the scene of the bloody conflict in 1603 between the Macgregors and the Colquhouns, in which the latter were almost exterminated. It was this savage encounter that led to the proscription of the Macgregors, including the famous Rob Roy.

_Geology._--Like the other counties along the eastern border of the Highlands, Dumbartonshire is divided geologically into two areas, the boundary between the two being defined by a line extending from Rossdhu on Loch Lomond south-west by Row and Roseneath to Kilcreggan. The mountainous region lying to the north of this line is composed of rocks belonging to the metamorphic series of the Eastern Highlands and representing several of the groups met with in the adjoining counties of Perth and Argyll. Immediately to the north of the Highland border the Aberfoyle slates and grits appear, repeated by isoclinal folds trending north-east and south-west and dipping towards the north-west. These are followed by a great development of the Ben Ledi grits and schists--the representatives of the Beinn Bheula grits and ablite schists of Argyllshire, which, by means of rapid plication, spread over the high grounds northwards to beyond the head of Loch Lomond. Along the line of section between Luss and Ardlui important evidence is obtained of the gradual increase of metamorphism as we proceed northwards from the Highland border. The original clastic characters of the strata are obscured and the rocks between Arrochar and Inverarnan in Glen Falloch merge into quartz-biotite gneisses and albite schists. In the extreme north between Ardlui and the head of Glen Fyne in Argyllshire there is a large development of plutonic rocks piercing the Highland schists and producing marked contact metamorphism. These range from acid to ultrabasic types and include granite, augite-diorite, picrite and serpentine. On the hill-slopes to the west of Ardlui and Inverarnan the diorite appears, while farther west, between the watershed and Glen Fyne, there is a large mass of granite. Boulders of plutonic rocks from this area have been widely distributed by the ice during the glacial period. Immediately to the south of the Highland border line there is a belt of Upper Old Red Sandstone strata which stretches from the shores of Loch Lomond westwards by Helensburgh and Roseneath Castle to Kilcreggan. These sandstones and conglomerates are succeeded by the sandstones, shales, clays and cementstones at the base of the Carboniferous formation which occupy a narrow strip between Loch Lomond and Gareloch and are cut off by a fault along their south-east margin. East of this dislocation there is a belt of Lower Old Red Sandstone strata extending from the mouth of the Endrick Water south-westwards by Balloch to the shore of the Clyde west of Cardross, which is bounded on either side by the upper division of that system. Still farther east beyond Dumbarton the Upper Old Red Sandstone is again surmounted by the representatives of the Cementstone group, which are followed by the lavas, tuffs and agglomerates of the Kirkpatrick Hills, intercalated in the Calciferous Sandstone series. Here the terraced features of the volcanic plateau, produced by the denudation of the successive flows is well displayed. Eastwards by Kilpatrick and Bearsden to the margin of the county near Maryhill the rocks of Calciferous Sandstone age are followed in normal order by the Carboniferous Limestone series; the Hurlet Limestone and Hurlet Coal of the lower limestone group being prominently developed. In the detached portion of the county between Kirkintilloch and Cumbernauld there is an important coalfield embracing the seams in the middle or coal-bearing group of the Carboniferous Limestone series. In this county there are several striking examples of the east and west dolerite dykes which are probably of late Carboniferous age. These traverse the Highland schists between Loch Long and Loch Lomond, the Old Red Sandstone area between Alexandria and the Blane Valley, and the Carboniferous tract near Cumbernauld. The ice which radiated from the Dumbartonshire Highlands moved south-east and east towards the central plain of Carboniferous rocks. Hence the boulder clay of the lowland districts is abundantly charged with boulders of schistose grit, slate, gneiss and granite derived from areas lying far to the north-west. Along the shores of the Clyde the broad terraced features indicate the limits of successive raised beaches.

_Climate and Agriculture._--There is excessive rainfall in the Highlands, averaging 53 in. at Helensburgh up to nearly 70 in. in the north. The temperature, with an average for the year of 47-1/2 deg. F., varies from 38 deg. in January to 58 deg. in July, but in the valleys the heat in midsummer is often oppressive. The prevailing winds are from the west and south-west, but easterly winds are frequent in the spring. Frosts are seldom severe, and, except on the mountains, snow never lies long. The arable lands extend chiefly along the Clyde and the Leven, and are composed of rich black loam, gravelly soil and clay. From the proximity to Glasgow and other large towns the farmers have the double advantage of good manure and a ready market for all kinds of stock and produce, and under this stimulus high farming and dairying on a considerable scale prosper. Black-faced sheep and Highland cattle are pastured on the hilly lands and Cheviots and Ayrshires on the low grounds. Oats and wheat are the principal cereals, but barley and potatoes in abundance, and turnips and beans are also grown.

_Other Industries_.--Turkey-red dyeing has long been the distinctive industry of the county. The water of the Leven being not only constant but also singularly soft and pure, dyers and bleachers have constructed works at many places in the Vale of Leven. Bleaching has been carried on since the early part of the 18th century, and cotton-printing at Levenfield dates from 1768. The establishments at Alexandria, Bonhill, Jamestown, Renton and other towns for all the processes connected with the bleaching, dyeing and printing of cottons, calicoes and other cloths, besides yarns, are conducted on the largest scale. At Milton the first power-loom mill was erected. The engineering works and shipbuilding yards at Clydebank are famous, and at Dumbarton there are others almost equally busy. The extensive Singer sewing-machine works are at Kilbowie, and the Clyde Trust barge-building shops are at Dalmuir. There are distilleries and breweries at Duntocher, Bowling, Dumbarton, Milngavie (pronounced _Milguy_) and other towns. In fact the Vale of Leven and the riverside towns east of Dumbarton form a veritable hive of industry. In the detached portion, Kirkintilloch and Cumbernauld are seats of great activity in the mining of coal and ironstone, and there are besides chemical works and saw-mills in the former town. There is some fishing at Helensburgh and along the Gareloch.

The populous districts of the county are served almost wholly by the North British railway. From Helensburgh to Inverarnan the Highland railway runs through scenery of the most diversified and romantic character. The Caledonian railway has access to Balloch from Glasgow, and its system also traverses the detached portion. Portions of the Forth and Clyde Canal, which connects with the Clyde at Bowling, and was opened for traffic in 1775, pass through the shire. There is regular steamer communication between Glasgow and the towns and villages on the coast, and on Loch Lomond steamers call at several points between Balloch and Ardlui.

_Population and Government._--The population of Dumbartonshire in 1891 was 98,014 and in 1901 113,865, of whom 3101 spoke both Gaelic and English and 14 Gaelic only. The principal towns, with populations in 1901, are--Alexandria (8007), Bonhill (3333), Clydebank (21,591), Dumbarton (19,985), Duntocher (2122), Helensburgh (8554), Jamestown (2080), Kirkintilloch (11,681), Milngavie (3481), New Kilpatrick or Bearsden (2705) and Renton (5067). The county returns one member to parliament. Dumbarton, the county town, is the only royal burgh, and belongs to the Kilmarnock group of parliamentary burghs. The municipal and police burghs are Clydebank, Cove and Kilcreggan, Dumbarton, Helensburgh, Kirkintilloch and Milngavie. Dumbartonshire forms a sheriffdom with the counties of Stirling and Clackmannan, and there is a resident sheriff-substitute at Dumbarton, who sits also at Kirkintilloch. The shire is under school-board jurisdiction, but there are several voluntary schools, besides St Peter's Roman Catholic College in New Kilpatrick. Science, art and technical classes are subsidized out of the whole of the county "residue" and, if necessary, out of part of the burgh "residue" also. Agricultural lectures and the travelling expenses and fees of county students at Glasgow Technical College are also paid for from the same source.

_History._--The country is rich in antiquities connected with the aborigines and also with the Romans. The Caledonians and Picts have left their traces in rude forts and tumuli, but of greater interest are remains in several places of the wall of Antoninus, built from the Forth to the Clyde, and running along the north of the detached portion of the shire and through the south-eastern corner of the county to Kilpatrick. Other Roman relics have been found at Duntocher, Cumbernauld and elsewhere. The shire forms part of the old Scottish territory of Lennox (_Levenachs_, "fields of the Leven"), which embraced the Vale of the Leven and the basin of Loch Lomond, or all modern Dumbartonshire, most of Stirling and parts of the shires of Renfrew and Perth. It gave the title of the earldom created in 1174 by William the Lion and of the dukedom conferred by Charles II. on his natural son, Charles, duke of Richmond and Lennox. In 1702 the Lennox estates were sold to the marquis of Montrose. The captive Wallace was conveyed in chains to Dumbarton Castle, whence he was taken to his death in London. Robert Bruce is said to have mustered his forces at Dullatur prior to the battle of Bannockburn, and died at Cardross Castle in 1329. The Covenanters in their flight from the bloody field of Kilsyth, where in 1645 Montrose had defeated them with great slaughter, made their way through the southern districts. When the Forth and Clyde Canal was being excavated swords, pistols, and other weapons dropped by the fugitives were found at Dullatur, together with skeletons of men and horses. In the Highland country the clans of Macgregor and Macfarlane made their home in the fastnesses, whence they descended in raids upon the cattle, the goods and sometimes the persons of their Lowland neighbours.

See J. Irving, _History of Dumbartonshire_ (Dumbarton, 1860); _Book of Dumbartonshire_ (Edinburgh, 1879); Sir W. Fraser, _Chiefs of Colquhoun_ (Edinburgh, 1869); _The Lennox_ (Edinburgh, 1874); D. Macleod, _Castle and Town of Dumbarton_ (Dumbarton, 1877); _Dumbarton_ (Dumbarton, 1884); _Dumbarton: Ancient and Modern_ (Glasgow, 1893); _Ancient Records of Dumbarton_ (Dumbarton, 1896); J. Glen, _History of Dumbarton_ (Dumbarton, 1876).

DUMB WAITER,[1] a small oblong or circular table to hold reserve plates, knives and forks, and other necessaries for a meal. This piece of furniture originated in England towards the end of the 18th century, and some exceedingly elegant examples were designed by Sheraton and his school. They were usually circular, with three diminishing tiers, sometimes surrounded by a continuous or interrupted pierced gallery in wood or brass. The smaller varieties are now much used in England for the display of small silver objects in drawing-rooms.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] The term "dumb," strictly meaning mute or destitute of speech (see DEAF AND DUMB), is applied in this and other analogous cases (e.g. dumb-bell, dumb-barge) as connoting the absence of some normal capacity in the term with which it is associated.

DUM-DUM, a town and cantonment in British India at the head of an administrative subdivision in the district of the Twenty-four Parganas, in the presidency division of Bengal, with a station on the Eastern Bengal railway, 4-1/2 m. N.E. of Calcutta. It was the headquarters of the Bengal artillery from 1783 to 1853, when they were transferred to Meerut as a more central station; and its possession of a cannon foundry and a percussion-cap factory procured for it the name of the Woolwich of India. The barracks--still occupied by small detachments--are brick-built and commodious; and among the other buildings are St Stephen's Protestant church, a Roman Catholic chapel, a European and native hospital, a large bazaar and an English school. The population in 1901 of North Dum-Dum was 9916, and of South Dum-Dum 10,904. It was at Dum-Dum that the treaty of 1757 was signed by which the nawab of Bengal ratified the privileges of the English, allowed Calcutta to be fortified, and bestowed freedom of trade. On the 7th of December 1908 a serious explosion occurred by accident at the Dum-Dum arsenal, resulting in death or serious injury to about 50 native workmen.

At the Dum-Dum foundry the hollow-nosed "Dum-Dum" (Mark IV.) bullets were manufactured, the supposed use of which by the British during the Boer War caused considerable comment in 1899. Their peculiarity consisted in their expanding on impact and thus creating an ugly wound, and they had been adopted in Indian frontier fighting owing to the failure of the usual type of bullets to stop the rushes of fanatical tribesmen. They were not, in fact, used during the Boer War. Other and improvised forms of expanding bullet were used in India and the Sudan, the commonest methods of securing expansion being to file down the point until the lead core was exposed and to make longitudinal slits in the nickel envelope. All these forms of bullet have come to be described colloquially, and even in diplomatic correspondence, as "dum-dum bullets," and their alleged use by Russian troops in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 formed the subject of a protest on the part of the Japanese government. The proposals made at the second Hague Conference to forbid the use of these bullets by international agreement were agreed to by all the powers except Great Britain and the United States.

DUMESNIL, MARIE FRANCOISE (1713-1803), French actress, whose real name was Marchand, was born in Paris on the 2nd of January 1713. She began her stage career in the provinces, whence she was summoned in 1737 to make her _debut_ at the Comedie Francaise as Clytemnestre in _Iphigenie en Tauride_. She at once came into the front rank, playing Cleopatre, Phedre, Athalie and Hermione with great effect, and when she created Merope (1743) Voltaire says that she kept the audience in tears for three successive acts. She retired from the stage in 1776, but lived until the 20th of February 1803. Her rival, Clairon, having spoken ill of her, she authorized the publication of a _Memoire de Marie Francoise Dumesnil, en reponse aux memoires d'Hippolyte Clairon_ (1800).

DUMFRIES (Gaelic, "the fort in the copse"), a royal and parliamentary burgh and capital of the county, Dumfriesshire, Scotland. It lies on the left bank of the Nith, about 8 m. from the Solway Firth and 81 m. S.E. of Glasgow by the Glasgow & South-Western railway. Pop. (1891) 16,675; (1901) 17,079. Dumfries is beautifully situated and is one of the handsomest county towns in Scotland. The churches and chapels of the Presbyterian and other communions are, many of them, fine buildings. St Michael's (1746), a stately pile, was the church which Robert Burns attended, and in its churchyard he was buried, his remains being transferred in 1815 to the magnificent mausoleum erected in the south-east corner, where also lie his wife, Jean Armour, and several members of his family. The Gothic church of Greyfriars (1866-1867) occupies the site partly of a Franciscan monastery and partly of the old castle of the town. On the site of St Mary's (1837-1839), also Gothic, stood the small chapel raised by Christiana, sister of Robert Bruce, to the memory of her husband, Sir Christopher Seton, who had been executed on the spot by Edward I. St Andrew's (1811-1813), in the Romanesque style, is a Roman Catholic church, which also serves as the pro-cathedral of the diocese of Galloway.