DRAPER, JOHN WILLIAM (1811-1882), American scientist, was born at St Helen’s, near Liverpool, on the 5th of May 1811. He studied at Woodhouse Grove, at the University of London, and, after removing to America in 1832, at the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania in 1835-1836. In 1837 he was elected professor of chemistry in the University of the City of New York, and was a professor in its school of medicine in 1840-1850, president of that school in 1850-1873, and professor of chemistry until 1881. He died at Hastings, New York, on the 4th of January 1882. He made important researches in photo-chemistry, made portrait photography possible by his improvements (1839) on Daguerre’s process, and published a Text-book on Chemistry (1846), Text-book on Natural Philosophy (1847), Text-book on Physiology (1866), and Scientific Memoirs (1878) on radiant energy. He is well known also as the author of The History of the Intellectual Development of Europe (1862), applying the methods of physical science to history, a History of the American Civil War (3 vols., 1867-1870), and a History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874).
His son, Henry Draper (1837-1882), graduated at the University of New York in 1858, became professor of natural science there in 1860, and was professor of physiology (in the medical school) and dean of the faculty in 1866-1873. He succeeded his father as professor of chemistry, but only for a year, dying in New York on the 20th of November 1882. Henry Draper’s most important contributions to science were made in spectroscopy; he ruled metal gratings in 1869-1870, made valuable spectrum photographs after 1871, and proved the presence of oxygen in the sun in a monograph of 1877. Edward C. Pickering carried on his study of stellar spectra with the funds of the Henry Draper Memorial at Harvard, endowed by his widow (née Mary Anna Palmer).
See accounts by George F. Barker in Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Science, vols. 2 and 3 (Washington, 1886, 1888).
DRAPER, one who deals in cloth or textiles generally. The Fr. drap, cloth, from which drapier and Eng. “draper” are derived, is of obscure origin. It is possible that the Low Lat. drappus or trappus (the last form giving the Eng. “trappings”) may be connected with words such as “drub,” Ger. treffen, beat; the original sense would be fulled cloth. “Drab,” dull, pale, brown, is also connected, its first meaning being a cloth of a natural undyed colour. The Drapers’ Company is one of the great livery companies of the city of London. The fraternity is of very early origin. Henry Fitz-Alwyn (d. 1212?), the first mayor of London, is said to have been a draper. The first charter was granted in 1364. The Drapers’ Gild was one of the numerous subdivisions of the clothing trade, and appeared to have been confined to the retailing of woollen cloths, the linen-drapers forming in the 15th century a separate fraternity, which disappeared or was merged in the greater company. It is usual for drapers to combine the sale of “drapery,” i.e. of textiles generally, with that of millinery, hosiery, &c. In Wills v. Adams (reported in The Times, London, Nov. 20, 1908), the term “drapery” in a restrictive covenant was held not to include all goods that a draper might sell, such as furs or fur-lined goods.
DRAUGHT (from the common Teutonic word “to draw”; cf. Ger. Tracht, load; the pronunciation led to the variant form “draft,” now confined to certain specific meanings), the act or action of drawing, extending, pulling, &c. It is thus applied to animals used for drawing vehicles or loads, “draught oxen,” &c., to the quantity of fish taken by one “drag” of a net, to a quantity of liquid taken or “drawn in” to the mouth, and to a current of air in a chimney, a room or other confined space. In furnaces the “draught” is “natural” when not increased artificially, or “forced” when increased by mechanical methods (see [Boiler]). The water a ship “draws,” or her “draught,” is the depth to which she sinks in the water as measured from her keel. The word was formerly used of a “move” in chess or similar games, and is thus, in the plural, the general English name of the game known also as “checkers” (see [Draughts]). The spelling “draft” is generally employed in the following usages. It is a common term for a written order “drawn on” a banker or other holder of funds for the payment of money to a third person; thus a cheque (q.v.) is a draft. A special form of draft is a “banker’s draft,” an instruction by one bank to another bank, or to a branch of the bank making the instruction, to pay a sum of money to the order of a certain specified person. Other meanings of “draft” are an outline, plan or sketch, or a preliminary drawing up of an instrument, measure, document, &c., which, after alteration and amendment, will be embodied in a final or formal shape; an allowance made by merchants or importers to those who sell by retail, to make up a loss incurred in weighing or measuring; and a detachment or body of troops “drawn off” for a specific purpose, usually a reinforcement from the depot or reserve units to those abroad or in the field. For the use of the term “draft” or “draught” in masonry and architecture see [Drafted Masonry].
DRAUGHTS (from A.S. dragan, to draw), a game played with pieces (or “men”) called draughtsmen on a board marked in squares of two alternate colours. The game is called Checkers in America, and is known to the French as Les Dames and to the Germans as Damenspiel. Though the game is not mentioned in the Complete Gamester, nor the Académie de jeux, and is styled a “modern invention” by Strutt, yet a somewhat similar game was known to the Egyptians, some of the pieces used having been found in tombs at least as old as 1600 b.c., and part of Anect Hat-Shepsa’s board and some of her men are to be seen in the Egyptian gallery of the British Museum. An Egyptian vase also shows a lion and an antelope playing at draughts, with five men each, the lion making the winning move and seizing the bag or purse that contains the stakes. Plato ascribes the invention of the game of πεσσοί, or draughts, to Thoth, the Egyptian Hermes Trismegistus, and Homer represents Penelope’s suitors as playing it (Odyss. i. 107). In one form of the game as played by the Greeks there were 25 squares, and each player had 5 men which were probably moved along the lines. In another there were 4 men and 16 squares with a “sacred enclosure,” a square of the same size as the others, marked in the exact centre and bisected by one of the horizontal lines, which was known as the “sacred line.” From the incident in the game of a piece hemmed in on this line by a rival piece having to be pushed forward as a last resort, arose the phrase “to move the man from the sacred line” as synonymous with being hard pressed. This and other phrases based on incidents in the game testify to the vogue the game enjoyed in ancient Greece. The Roman game of Latrunculi was similar, but there were officers (kings in modern draughts) as well as men. When a player’s pieces were all hemmed in he was stale-mated, to use a chess phrase (ad incitas redactus est), and lost the game. Other explanations of this phrase are, however, given (see Les Jeux des anciens, by Becq de Fouquières). The fullest account of the Roman game is to be found in the De laude Pisonis, written by an anonymous contemporary of Nero (see [Calpurnius, Titus]). Unfortunately the texts are full of obscurities, so that it is difficult to make any definite statements as to how the game was played.