DOGRA, a race of Hill Rajputs in India, inhabiting Kashmir and the adjacent valleys of the Himalayas. They form the ruling race in Kashmir. “Dogra” is the name given to the country round Jammu, and is said to be derived from a word meaning the “two lakes,” as the original home of the Dogra people was situated between the lakes of Siroensar and Mansar. There are numerous castes in the Dogra country, and the Hindu, Mahommedan and Sikh religions are represented. All, whether Hindus or Mahommedans, whether high-born Rajputs of the Maharaja’s caste or low-born menials, are known as Dogras. At the time of the first Sikh War the Dogras had a great reputation as soldiers, which they have worthily maintained in the ranks of the Indian native army. They are classed as fighting men with the Sikh and Punjabi Mahommedan. They distinguished themselves in the Hunza Nagar Expedition and the affair at Chilas in 1891, and in the Tirah campaign of 1897-98.
DOGS, ISLE OF, a district of London, England, on the north bank of the Thames, which surrounds it on three sides. It falls within the metropolitan borough of Poplar. It is occupied by docks, riverside works and poor houses. The origin of the name is not known. The suggestion that it is corrupted from the Isle of Docks falls to the ground on the question of chronology; another, that there were royal kennels here, is improbable, though they were situated at Deptford in the 17th century. (See [Poplar].)
DOG-TOOTH (the French dent-de-scie), in architecture, an ornament found in the mouldings of medieval work of the commencement of the 12th century, which is thought to have been introduced by the Crusaders from the East. The earliest example is found in the hall at Rabbath-Ammon in Moab (c. a.d. 614) built by the Sassanians, where it decorates the arch moulding of the blind arcades and the string courses. In the apse of the church at Murano, near Venice, it is similarly employed. In the 12th and 13th centuries it was further elaborated with carving, losing therefore its primitive form, but constituting a most beautiful decorative feature. In Elgin cathedral the dog-tooth ornament in the archivolt becomes a four-lobed leaf, and in Stone church, Kent, a much more enriched type of flower. The term has been supposed to originate in a resemblance to the dog-tooth violet, but the original idea of a projecting tooth is a sufficient explanation.
DOGWOOD (i.e. wood of the dog-tree; referred by the New English Dictionary to “dog,” apparently as indicating inferiority; but by others connected with “dag,” “dagger,” and by Prior with A.S. dolc, a brooch-pin), the name applied to plants of the genus Cornus, of the natural order Cornaceae. The common dogwood, prick-wood, skewer-wood, cornel or dogberry, C. sanguinea, is a shrub reaching a height of 8 or 9 ft., common in hedges, thickets and plantations in Great Britain. Its branches are dark red; the leaves egg-shaped, pointed, about 2 in. long by 1½ broad, and turning red in autumn; the flowers are dull white, in terminal clusters. The berries are small, of a black-purple, bitter and one-seeded, and contain a considerable percentage of oil, which in some places is employed for lamps, and in the manufacture of soap. The wood is white and very hard, and like that of other species of the genus is used for making ladder-spokes, wheel-work, skewers, forks and other implements, and gunpowder charcoal. The red berries of the dwarf species, C. suecica, of the Scottish Highlands, are eaten, and are reputed to be tonic in properties. C. mas, the Cornelian cherry, a native of Europe and Northern Asia, bears a pulpy and edible fruit, which when unripe contains much tannin. It is a good garden plant, as is also the North American species C. florida, one of the commonest trees of the deciduous forests of the middle and southern states. Professor C. S. Sargent (Silva of North America) describes it as “one of the most beautiful of the small trees of the American forests, which it enlivens in early spring with the whiteness of its floral leaves and in autumn with the splendour of its foliage and the brilliancy of its fruit. No tree is more desirable in the garden or park in regions where the summer’s sun is sufficiently hot to ensure the production of its flowers through the perfect development of the branchlets.” The Jamaica dogwood, the root-bark of which is poisonous, is the species Piscidia Erythrina, of the natural order Leguminosae.
DOL, a town of north-western France, in the department of Ille-et-Vilaine, 36 m. N. of Rennes on the Western railway. Pop. (1906) 3543. Dol is situated to the south-west of the rich agricultural district known as the marsh of Dol, where market-gardening is especially flourishing. The streets are still rendered picturesque by houses of the 14th and 15th centuries, which form deep arcades by the projection of their upper storeys: and, high above all, rises the grey granite of the cathedral, mainly of the 13th century, which in the middle ages ranked as the metropolitan church of all Brittany, and still keeps fresh the name of Bishop St Samson, who, having fled, as the legend tells, from the Saxon invaders of England, selected this spot as the site of his monastery. To the architect it is interesting for the English character of its design, and to the antiquarian, for its stained-glass windows of the 13th century, and for the finely sculptured tomb of Bishop Thomas James (d. 1504). About 1½ m. from the town is the pierre de Champ Dolent, a menhir some 30 ft. in height; not far off stands the great granite rock of Mont Dol, over 200 ft. in height, surmounted by the statue and chapel of Notre-Dame de l’Espérance. Dol has trade in grain, vegetables and fruit, tobacco is cultivated in the neighbourhood and there are salt-marshes. Tanning and leather-currying are carried on in the town. The town was unsuccessfully besieged by William the Conqueror, taken by Henry II. in 1164 and by Guy de Thouars in 1204. In 1793 it witnessed the defeat of the republican forces by the Vendeans who had taken refuge within its walls. The bishopric established in the 6th century was suppressed in 1790.