DERELICT (from Lat. derelinquere, to forsake), in law, property thrown away or abandoned by the owner in such a manner as to indicate that he intends to make no further claim to it. The word is used more particularly with respect to property abandoned at sea (see [Wreck]), but it is also applied in other senses; for example, land gained from the sea by receding of the water is termed dereliction. Land gained gradually and slowly by dereliction belongs to the owner of the adjoining land, but in the case of sudden or considerable dereliction the land belongs to the Crown. This technical use of the term “dereliction” is to be distinguished from the more general modern sense, dereliction or abandonment of duty, which implies a culpable failure or neglect in moral or legal obligation.
DERENBOURG, JOSEPH (1811-1895), Franco-German orientalist. He was a considerable force in the educational revival of Jewish education in France. He made great contributions to the knowledge of Saadia, and planned a complete edition of Saadia’s works in Arabic and French. A large part of this work appeared during his lifetime. He also wrote an Essai sur l’histoire et la géographie de la Palestine (Paris, 1867). This was an original contribution to the history of the Jews and Judaism in the time of Christ, and has been much used by later writers on the subject (e.g. by Schürer). He also published in collaboration with his son Hartwig, Opuscules et traités d’Abou-’l-Walîd (with translation, 1880); Deux Versions hébraïques du livre de Kalilâh et Dimnah (1881), and a Latin translation of the same story under the title Joannis de Capua directorium vitae humanae (1889); Commentaire de Maimonide sur la Mischnah Seder Tohorot (Berlin, 1886-1891); and a second edition of S. de Sacy’s Séances de Hariri. He died on the 29th of July 1895, at Ems.
His son, Hartwig Derenbourg (1844-1908), was born in Paris on the 17th of June 1844. He was educated at Göttingen and Leipzig. Subsequently he studied Arabic at the École des Langues Orientales. In 1879 he was appointed professor of Arabic, and in 1886 professor of Mahommedan Religion, at the École des Hautes Études in Paris. He collaborated with his father in the great edition of Saadia and the edition of Abu-’l-Walîd, and also produced a number of important editions of other Arabic writers. Among these are Le Dîwân de Nâbiqa Dhobyānï; Le Livre de Sîbawaihi (2 vols., Paris, 1881-1889); Chrestomathie élémentaire de l’arabe littéral (in collaboration with Spiro, 1885; 2nd ed., 1892); Ousâma ibn Mounkidh, un émir syrien (1889); Ousâma ibn Mounkidh, préface du livre du bâton (with trans., 1887); Al-Fákhrî (1895); Oumâra du Gémen (1897), a catalogue of Arabic MSS. in the Escorial (vol. i., 1884).
DERG, LOUGH, a lake of Ireland, on the boundary of the counties Galway, Clare and Tipperary. It is an expansion of the Shannon, being the lowest lake on that river, and is 23 m. long and generally from 1 to 3 m. broad. It lies where the Shannon leaves the central plain of Ireland and flows between the hills which border the plain. While the northerly shores of the lake, therefore, are flat, the southern are steep and picturesque, being backed by the Slieve Aughty, Slieve Bernagh and Arra Mountains. Ruined churches and fortresses are numerous on the eastern shore, and on Iniscaltra Island are a round tower and remains of five churches.
Another Lough Derg, near Pettigo in Donegal, though small, is famous as the traditional scene of St Patrick’s purgatory. In the middle ages its pilgrimages had a European reputation, and they are still observed annually by many of the Irish from June 1 to August 15. The hospice, chapels, &c., are on Station Island, and there is a ruined monastery on Saints’ Island.
DERHAM, WILLIAM (1657-1735), English divine, was born at Stoulton, near Worcester, on the 26th of November 1657. He was educated at Blockley, in his native county, and at Trinity College, Oxford. In 1682 he became vicar of Wargrave, in Berkshire; and in 1689 he was preferred to the living of Upminster, in Essex. In 1696 he published his Artificial Clockmaker, which went through several editions. The best known of his subsequent works are Physico-Theology, published in 1713; Astro-Theology, 1714; and Christo-Theology, 1730. The first two of these books were teleological arguments for the being and attributes of God, and were used by Paley nearly a century later. In 1702 Derham was elected fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1716 was made a canon of Windsor. He was Boyle lecturer in 1711-1712. His last work, entitled A Defence of the Church’s Right in Leasehold Estates, appeared in 1731. He died on the 5th of April 1735. Besides the works published in his own name, Derham, who was keenly interested in natural history, contributed a variety of papers to the Transactions of the Royal Society, revised the Miscellanea Curiosa, edited the correspondence of John Ray and Eleazar Albin’s Natural History, and published some of the MSS. of Robert Hooke, the natural philosopher.