Chapter 11

See Tacitus,Hist.v. 10, 13; Suetonius,Vespasian, 4; Josephus,Bell. Jud.ii. 14-20; E. Schürer,Hist. of the Jewish People, div. i. vol. ii. p. 212 (Eng. tr., 1890).

GALLUS, GAIUS SULPICIUS, Roman general, statesman and orator. Under Lucius Aemilius Paulus, his intimate friend, he commanded the 2nd legion in the campaign against Perseus, king of Macedonia, and gained great reputation for having predicted an eclipse of the moon on the night before the battle of Pydna (168B.C.). On his return from Macedonia he was elected consul (166), and in the same year reduced the Ligurians to submission. In 164 he was sent as ambassador to Greece and Asia, where he held a meeting at Sardis to investigate the charges brought against Eumenes of Pergamum by the representatives of various cities of Asia Minor. Gallus was a man of great learning, an excellent Greek scholar, and in his later years devoted himself to the study of astronomy, on which subject he is quoted as an authority by Pliny.

See Livy xliv. 37,Epit. 46; Polybius xxxi. 9, 10; Cicero,Brutus, 20,De officiis, i. 6,De senectute, 14; Pliny,Nat. Hist.ii. 9.

GALOIS, EVARISTE(1811-1832), French mathematician, was born on the 25th of October 1811, and killed in a duel on the 31st of May 1832. An obituary notice by his friend Auguste Chevalier appeared in theRevue encyclopédique(1832); and his collected works are published,Journal de Liouville(1846), pp. 381-444, about fifty of these pages being occupied by researches on the resolubility of algebraic equations by radicals. This branch of algebra he notably enriched, and to him is also due the notion of a group of substitutions (seeEquation:Theory of Equations; alsoGroups, Theory of).

His collected works, with an introduction by C.F. Picard, were published in 1897 at Paris.

GALSTON,a police burgh and manufacturing town of Ayrshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 4876. It is situated on the Irvine, 5 m. E. by S. of Kilmarnock, with a station on the Glasgow & South-Western railway. The manufactures include blankets, lace, muslin, hosiery and paper-millboard, and coal is worked in the vicinity. About 1 m. to the north, amid the “bonnie woods and braes,” is Loudoun Castle, a seat of the earl of Loudoun.

GALT, SIR ALEXANDER TILLOCH(1817-1893), Canadian statesman, was the youngest son of John Galt the author. Born in London on the 6th of September 1817, he emigrated to Canada in 1835, and settled in Sherbrooke, in the province of Quebec, where he entered the service of the British American Land Company, of which he rose to be chief commissioner. Later he was one of the contractors for extending the Grand Trunk railway westward from Toronto. He entered public life in 1849 as Liberal member for the county of Sherbrooke, but opposed the chief measure of his party, the Rebellion Losses Bill, and in the same year signed a manifesto in favour of union with the United States, believing that in no other way could Protestant and Anglo-Saxon ascendancy over the Roman Catholic French majority in his native province be maintained. In the same year he retired from parliament but re-entered it in 1853, and was till 1872 the chief representative of the English-speaking Protestants of Quebec province. On the fall of the Brown-Dorion administration in 1858 he was called on to form a ministry, but declined the task, and became finance minister under Sir John Macdonald and Sir George Cartier on condition that the federation of the British North American provinces should become a part of their programme. From 1858 to 1862 and 1864 to 1867 he was finance minister, and did much to reduce the somewhat chaotic finances of Canada into order. To him are due the introduction of the decimal system of currency and the adoption of a system of protection to Canadian manufactures. To his diplomacy was due the coalition in 1864 between Macdonald, Brown and Cartier, which carried the federation of the British North American provinces, and throughout the three years of negotiation which followed his was one of the chief influences. He became finance minister in the first Dominion ministry, but suddenly and mysteriously resigned on the 4th of November 1867. After his retirement he gave to the administration of Sir John Macdonald a support which grew more and more fitful, and advocated independence as the final destiny of Canada. In 1871 he was again offered the ministry of finance on condition of abandoning these views, but declined. In 1877 he was the Canadian nominee on the Anglo-American fisheries commission at Halifax, and rendered brilliant service. In 1880 he was appointed Canadian high commissioner to Great Britain, but retired in 1883 in favour of Sir Charles Tupper. During this period he advocated imperial federation. He was Canadian delegate at the Paris Monetary Conference of 1881, and to the International Exhibition of Fisheries in 1883. From this date till his death on the 19th ofSeptember 1893 he lived in retirement. No Canadian statesman has had sounder or more abundant ideas, but a certain intellectual fickleness made him always a somewhat untrustworthy colleague in political life.

(W. L. G.)

GALT, JOHN(1779-1839), Scottish novelist, was born at Irvine, Ayrshire, on the 2nd of May 1779. He received his early education at Irvine and Greenock, and read largely from one of the public libraries while serving as a clerk in a mercantile office. In 1804 he went to settle in London, where he published anonymously a poem on theBattle of Largs. After unsuccessful attempts to succeed in business Galt entered at Lincoln’s Inn, but was never called to the bar. He obtained a commission from a British firm to go abroad to find out whether the Berlin and Milan decrees could be evaded. He met Byron and Sir John Hobhouse at Gibraltar, travelled with Byron to Malta, and met him again at Athens. He was afterwards employed by the Glasgow merchant Kirkman Finlay on similar business at Gibraltar, and in 1814 visited France and Holland. His early works are theLife and Administration of Wolsey,Voyages and Travels,Letters from the Levant, theLife of Benjamin West,Historical PicturesandThe Wandering Jew; and he induced Colburn to publish a periodical containing dramatic pieces rejected by London managers. These were afterwards edited by Galt as theNew British Theatre, which included some plays of his own. He first showed his real power as a writer of fiction inThe Ayrshire Legatees, which appeared inBlackwood’s Magazinein 1820. This was followed in 1821 by his masterpiece—The Annals of the Parish; and, at short intervals,Sir Andrew Wylie,The Entail,The Steam-BoatandThe Provostwere published. These humorous studies of Scottish character are all in his happiest manner. His next works wereRingan Gilhaize(1823), a story of the Covenanters;The Spaewife(1823), which relates to the times of James I. of Scotland;Rothelan(1824), a novel founded on the reign of Edward III.;The Omen(1825), which was favourably criticized by Sir Walter Scott; andThe Last of the Lairds, another picture of Scottish life.

In 1826 he went to America as secretary to the Canada Land Company. He carried out extensive schemes of colonization, and opened up a road through what was then forest country between Lakes Huron and Erie. In 1827 he founded Guelph in upper Canada, passing on his way the township of Galt on the Grand river, named after him by the Hon. William Dixon. But all this work proved financially unprofitable to Galt. In 1829 he returned to England commercially a ruined man, and devoted himself with great ardour to literary pursuits, of which the first fruit wasLawrie Todd—one of his best novels. Then cameSouthennan, a tale of Scottish life in the times of Queen Mary. In 1830 he was appointed editor of theCouriernewspaper—a post he soon relinquished. His untiring industry was seen in the publication, in rapid succession, of aLife of Byron,Lives of the Players,Bogle Corbet,Stanley Buxton,The Member,The Radical,Eben Erskine,The Stolen Child, hisAutobiography, and a collection of tales entitledStories of the Study. In 1834 appeared hisLiterary Life and Miscellanies, dedicated by permission to William IV., who sent the author a present of £200. As soon as this work was published Galt retired to Greenock, where he continued his literary labours till his death on the 11th of April 1839.

Galt, like almost all voluminous writers, was exceedingly unequal. His masterpieces areThe Ayrshire Legatees,The Annals of the Parish,Sir Andrew Wylie,The Entail,The ProvostandLawrie Todd.The Ayrshire Legateesgives, in the form of a number of exceedingly diverting letters, the adventures of the Rev. Dr Pringle and his family in London. The letters are made the excuse for endless tea-parties and meetings of kirk-session in the rural parish of Garnock.The Annals of the Parishare told by the Rev. Micah Balwhidder, Galt’s finest character. This work (which, be it remembered, existed in MS. beforeWaverleywas published) is a splendid picture of the old-fashioned Scottish pastor and the life of a country parish; and, in rich humour, genuine pathos and truth to nature it is unsurpassed even by Scott. It is a fine specimen of the homely graces of the Scottish dialect, and preserves much vigorous Doric phraseology fast passing out of use even in country districts. In this novel Mr Galt used, for the first time, the term “Utilitarian,” which afterwards became so intimately associated with the doctrines of John Stuart Mill and Bentham (seeAnnals of the Parish, chap. xxxv., and a note by Mill inUtilitarianism, chap. ii.). InSir Andrew Wyliethe hero entered London as a poor lad, but achieved remarkable success by his shrewd business qualities. The character is somewhat exaggerated, but excessively amusing.The Entailwas read thrice by Byron and Scott, and is the best of Galt’s longer novels. Leddy Grippy is a wonderful creation, and was considered by Byron equal to any female character in literature since Shakespeare’s time.The Provost, in which Provost Pawkie tells his own story, portrays inimitably the jobbery, bickerings and self-seeking of municipal dignitaries in a quaint Scottish burgh. InLawrie ToddGalt, by giving us the Scot in America, accomplished a feat which Sir Walter never attempted. This novel exhibits more variety of style and a greater love of nature than his other books. The life of a settler is depicted with unerring pencil, and with an enthusiasm and imaginative power much more poetical than any of the author’s professed poems.

The best of Galt’s novels were reprinted in Blackwood’sStandard Novels, to volume i. of which his friend Dr Moir prefixed a memoir.

GALT,a town in Waterloo county, Ontario, Canada, 23 m. N.N.W. of Hamilton, on the Grand river and on the Grand Trunk and Canadian Pacific railways. Pop. (1881) 5187; (1901) 7866. It is named after John Galt, the author. It has excellent water privileges which furnish power for flour-mills and for manufactures of edge tools, castings, machinery, paper and other industries.

GALTON, SIR FRANCIS(1822- ), English anthropologist, son of S.T. Galton, of Duddeston, Warwickshire, was born on the 16th of February 1822. His grandfather was the poet-naturalist Erasmus Darwin, and Charles Darwin was his cousin. After attending King Edward VI.’s grammar school, Birmingham, he studied at Birmingham hospital, and afterwards at King’s College, London, with the intention of making medicine his profession; but after taking his degree at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1843 he changed his mind. The years 1845-1846 he spent in travelling in the Sudan, and in 1850 he made an exploration, with Dr John Anderson, of Damaraland and the Ovampo country in south-west Africa, starting from Walfisch Bay. These tracts had practically never been traversed before, and on the appearance of the published account of his journey and experiences under the title ofNarrative of an Explorer in Tropical South Africa(1853) Galton was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society. HisArt of Travel; or, Shifts and Contrivances in Wild Countrieswas first published in 1855. In 1860 he visited the north of Spain, and published the fruits of his observations of the country and the people in the first of a series of volumes, which he edited, entitledVacation Tourists. He then turned to meteorology, the result of his investigations appearing inMeteorographica, published in 1863. This work was the first serious attempt to chart the weather on an extensive scale, and in it also the author first established the existence and theory of anti-cyclones. Galton was a member of the meteorological committee (1868), and of the Meteorological Council which succeeded it, for over thirty years. But his name is most closely associated with studies in anthropology and especially in heredity. In 1869 appeared hisHereditary Genius, its Laws and Consequences, a work which excited much interest in scientific and medical circles. This was followed byEnglish Men of Science, their Nature and Nurture, published in 1874;Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development, issued in 1883;Life-History Album(1884);Record of Family Faculties(1884) (tabular forms and directions for entering data, with a preface); andNatural Inheritance(1889). The idea that systematic efforts should be made to improve the breed of mankind by checking the birth-rate of the unfit and furthering the productivity of the fit was first put forward by him In 1865; he mooted it again in 1884, using the term “eugenics” for the first time inHuman Faculty, and in 1904 he endowed a research fellowship in the university of London for the promotion ofknowledge of that subject, which was defined as “the study of agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations, either physically or mentally.” Galton was the author of memoirs on various anthropometric subjects; he originated the process of composite portraiture, and paid much attention to finger-prints and their employment for the identification of criminals, his publications on this subject includingFinger Prints(1892),Decipherment of Blurred Finger Prints(1893) andFinger Print Directories(1895). From the Royal Society, of which he was elected a fellow in 1860, he received a royal medal in 1886 and the Darwin medal in 1902, and honorary degrees were bestowed on him by Oxford (1894) and Cambridge (1895). In 1908 he publishedMemories of My Life, and in 1909 he received a knighthood.

GALUPPI, BALDASSARE(1706-1785), Italian musical composer, was born on the 18th of October 1706 on the island of Burano near Venice, from which he was often known by the nickname of Buranello. His father, a barber, and violinist at the local theatre, was his first teacher. His first opera, composed at the age of sixteen, being hissed off the stage, he determined to study seriously, and entered the Conservatorio degli Incurabili at Venice, as a pupil of Antonio Lotti. After successfully producing two operas in collaboration with a fellow-pupil, G.B. Pescetti, in 1728 and 1729, he entered upon a busy career as a composer of operas for Venetian theatres, writing sometimes as many as five in a year. He visited London in 1741, and arranged apasticcio,Alexander in Persia, for the Haymarket. Burney considered his influence on English music to have been very powerful. In 1740 he becamevice-maestro di cappellaat St Mark’s andmaestroin 1762. In 1749 he began writing comic operas to libretti by Goldoni, which enjoyed an enormous popularity. He was invited to Russia by Catherine II. in 1766, where his operas made a favourable impression, and his influence was also felt in Russian church music. He returned to Venice in 1768, where he had held the post of director of the Conservatorio degli Incurabili since 1762. He died on the 3rd of January 1785.

Galuppi’s best works are his comic operas, of whichIl Filosofo di Campagna(1754), known in England asThe Guardian Trick’d(Dublin, 1762) was the most popular. His melody is attractive rather than original, but his workmanship in harmony and orchestration is generally superior to that of his contemporaries. He seems to have been the first to extend the concerted finales of Leo and Logroscino into a chain of several separate movements, working up to a climax, but in this respect he is much inferior to Sarti and Mozart.

Browning’s poem, “A Toccata of Galuppi,” does not refer to any known composition, but more probably to an imaginary extemporization on the harpsichord, such as was of frequent occurrence in the musical gatherings of Galuppi’s day.

See also Alfred Wotquerme,Baldassare Galuppi, étude bibliographique sur ses œuvres dramatiques(Brussels, 1902). Many of his autograph scores are in the library of the Brussels conservatoire.

(E. J. D.)

GALVANI, LUIGI(1737-1798), Italian physiologist, after whom galvanism received its name, was born at Bologna on the 9th of September 1737. It was his wish in early life to enter the church, but by his parents he was educated for a medical career. At the university of Bologna, in which city he practised, he was in 1762 appointed public lecturer in anatomy, and soon gained repute as a skilled though not eloquent teacher, and, chiefly from his researches on the organs of hearing and genito-urinary tract of birds, as a comparative anatomist. His celebrated theory of animal electricity he enunciated in a treatise, “De viribus electricitatis in motu musculari commentarius,” published in the 7th volume of the memoirs of the Institute of Sciences at Bologna in 1791, and separately at Modena in the following year, and elsewhere subsequently. The statement has frequently been repeated that, in 1786, Galvani had noticed that the leg of a skinned frog, on being accidentally touched by a scalpel which had lain near an electrical machine, was thrown into violent convulsions; and that it was thus that his attention was first directed to the relations of animal functions to electricity. From documents in the possession of the Institute of Bologna, however, it appears that twenty years previous to the publication of hisCommentaryGalvani was already engaged in investigations as to the action of electricity upon the muscles of frogs. The observation that the suspension of certain of these animals on an iron railing by copper hooks caused twitching in the muscles of their legs led him to the invention of his metallic arc, the first experiment with which is described in the third part of theCommentary, with the date September 20, 1786. The arc he constructed of two different metals, which, placed in contact the one with a frog’s nerve and the other with a muscle, caused contraction of the latter. In Galvani’s view the motions of the muscle were the result of the union, by means of the metallic arc, of its exterior or negative electrical charge with positive electricity which proceeded along the nerve from its inner substance. Volta, on the other hand, attributed them solely to the effect of electricity having its source in the junction of the two dissimilar metals of the arc, and regarded the nerve and muscle simply as conductors. On Galvani’s refusal, from religious scruples, to take the oath of allegiance to the Cisalpine republic in 1797, he was removed from his professorship. Deprived thus of the means of livelihood, he retired to the house of his brother Giacomo, where he soon fell into a feverish decline. The republican government, in consideration of his great scientific fame, eventually, but too late, determined to reinstate him in his chair, and he died at Bologna on the 4th of December 1798.

A quarto edition of his works was published at Bologna in 1841-1842, by the Academy of Sciences of the Institute of that city, under the titleOpere edite ed inedite del professore Luigi Galvani.

GALVANIZED IRON, sheet iron having its surface covered with a thin coating of zinc. In spite of the name, galvanic action has often no part in the production of galvanized iron, which is prepared by dipping the iron, properly cleaned and pickled in acid, in a bath of molten zinc. The hotter the zinc the thinner the coating, but as a high temperature of the bath is attended with certain objections, it is a common practice to use a moderate temperature and clear off the excess of zinc by passing the plates between rollers. In Norwood and Rogers’s process a thin coating of tin is applied to the iron before it is dipped in the zinc, by putting the plates between layers of granulated tin in a wooden tank containing a dilute solution of stannous chloride, when tin is deposited on them by galvanic action. In “cold galvanizing” the zinc is deposited electrolytically from a bath, preferably kept neutral or slightly acid, containing a 10% solution of crystallized zinc sulphate, ZnSO4·7H2O. The resulting surface is usually duller and less lustrous than that obtained by the use of molten zinc. Another method of forming a coating of zinc, known as “sherardizing,” was invented by Sherard Cowper-Coles, who found that metals embedded in zinc dust (a product obtained in zinc manufacture and consisting of metallic zinc mixed with a certain amount of zinc oxide) and heated to temperatures well below the melting point of zinc, become coated with a layer of that metal. In carrying out the process the articles are placed in an air-tight vessel with the zinc dust, which must be dry, and subjected to a heat of 250-330°C., the time for which the heating is continued depending on the thickness of the deposit required and varying from one-half to several hours. If an air-tight receptacle is not available, a small percentage of powdered carbon is added to the zinc-dust, to prevent increase in the amount of oxide, which, if present in excess, tends to make the deposit dull.

Galvanized iron by its zinc surface is protected from corrosion by the weather, though the protection is not very efficient in the presence of acid or sulphurous fumes, and accordingly it is extensively employed for roofing, especially in the form of corrugated sheets. The iron wire used for wire-netting, telegraphic purposes, &c., is commonly galvanized, as also are bolts, nuts, chains and other fittings on ships.

GALVANOMETER, an instrument for detecting or measuring electric currents. The term is generally applied to instruments which indicate electric current in scale divisions or arbitrary units, as opposed to instruments called amperemeters (q.v.), which show directly on a dial the value of the current in amperes.Galvanometers may be divided into direct current and alternating current instruments, according as they are intended to measure one or other of these two classes of currents (seeElectrokinetics).

Direct Current Galvanometers.—The principle on which one type of direct current galvanometer, called a movable needle galvanometer, depends for its action is that a small magnet when suspended in the centre of a coil of wire tends to set its magnetic axis in the direction of the magnetic field of the coil at that point due to the current passing through it. In the other type, or movable coil galvanometer, the coil is suspended and the magnet fixed; hence the coil tends to set itself with its axis parallel to the lines of force of the magnet. The movable system must be constrained in some way to take up and retain a definite position when no current is passing by means which are called the “control.”In its simple and original form the movable needle galvanometer consisted of a horizontal magnetic needle suspended within a coil of insulated wire by silk fibres or pivoted on a point like a compass needle. The direction of such a needle is controlledMovable needle galvanometer.by the direction of the terrestrial magnetic force within the coil. If the needle is so placed that its axis is parallel to the plane of the coil, then when an electric current passes through the coil it is deflected and places itself at an angle to the axis of the coil determined by the strength of the current and of the controlling field. In the early forms of movable needle galvanometer the needle was either a comparatively large magnet several inches in length, or else a smaller magnet was employed carrying a long pointer which moved over a scale of degrees so as to indicate the deflexion. A method of measuring the deflexion by means of a mirror scale and telescope was introduced by K.F. Gauss and W. Weber. The magnet had a mirror attached to it, and a telescope having cross wires in the focus was used to observe the scale divisions of a fixed scale seen reflected in the mirror. LordMirror galvanometers.Kelvin (Professor W. Thomson) made the important improvement of reducing the size of the needle and attaching it to the back of a very small mirror, the two being suspended by a single fibre of cocoon silk. The mirror was made of silvered microscopic glass about ¼ in. in diameter, and the magnetic needle or needles consisted of short fragments of watchspring cemented to its back. A ray of light being thrown on the mirror from a lamp the deflexions of the needle were observed by watching the movements of a spot of light reflected from it upon a fixed scale. This form of mirror galvanometer was first devised in connexion with submarine cable signalling, but soon became an indispensable instrument in the physical laboratory.In course of time both the original form of single needle galvanometer and mirror galvanometer were improved by introducing the astatic principle and weakening the external controlling magnetic field. If two magnetic needles of equal size andAstatic galvanometers.moment are attached rigidly to one stem parallel to each other but with poles placed in opposite directions an astatic system results; that is, if the needles are so suspended as to be free to move in a horizontal plane, and if they are made exactly equal in magnetic strength, the system will have no directive power. If one needle is slightly weaker than the other, the suspended system will set itself with some axis parallel to the lines of force of a field in which it is placed. In a form of astatic needle galvanometer devised by Professor A. Broca of Paris, the pair of magnetized needles are suspended vertically and parallel to each other with poles in opposite directions. The upper poles are included in one coil and the lower poles within another coil, so connected that the current circulates in the right direction in each coil to displace the pairs of poles in the same direction. By this mode of arrangement a greater magnetic moment can be secured, together with more perfect astaticity and freedom from disturbance by external fields. The earth’s magnetic field can be weakened by means of a controlling magnet arranged to create in the space in the interior of the galvanometer coils an extremely feeble controlling magnetic field. In instruments having a coil for each needle and designed so that the current in both coils passes so as to turn both needles in the same direction, the controlling magnet is so adjusted that the normal position of the needles is with the magnetic axis parallel to the plane of the coil. An astatic magnetic system used in conjunction with a mirror galvanometer gives a highly sensitive form of instrument (fig. 1); it is, however, easily disturbed by stray magnetic fields caused by neighbouring magnets or currents through conductors, and therefore is not suitable for use in many places.This fact led to the introduction of the movable coil galvanometer which was first devised by Lord Kelvin as a telegraphic signalling instrument but subsequently modified by A. d’Arsonval and others into a laboratory galvanometer (fig. 2). In thisMovable coil galvanometer.instrument a permanent magnet, generally of the horseshoe shape, is employed to create a strong magnetic field, in which a light movable coil is suspended. The suspension is bifilar, consisting of two fine wires which are connected to the ends of the coil and serve to lead the current in and out. If such a coil is placed with its plane parallel to the lines of force of the permanent magnet, then when a current is passing through it it displaces itself in the field, so as to set with its axis more nearly parallel to the lines of force of the field. The movable coil may carry a pointer or a mirror; in the latter form it is well represented by several much used laboratory instruments. The movable coil galvanometer has the great advantage that it is not easily disturbed by the magnetic fields caused by neighbouring magnets or electric currents, and thus is especially useful in the electrical workshop and factory.Fig.1.—Kelvin Astatic Mirror Galvanometer. Elliott square pattern.In the practical construction of the suspended needle fixed coil galvanometer great care must be taken with the insulation of the wire of the coil. This wire is generally silk-covered, wound on a frame, the whole being thoroughly saturatedConstruction and use.with paraffin wax. In some cases two wires are wound on in parallel, constituting a “differential galvanometer.” When properly adjusted this instrument can be used for the exact comparison of electric currents by a null method, because if an electric current is passed through one wire and creates certain deflexions of the needle, the current which annuls this deflexion when passed through the other wire must be equal to the first current. In the construction of a movable coil galvanometer, it is usual to intensify the magnetic field by inserting a fixed soft iron core in the interior of the movable coil. If the current to be measured is too large to be passed entirely through the galvanometer, a portion is allowed to flow through a circuit connecting the two terminals of the instrument. This circuit is called ashuntand is generally arranged so as to take 0.9, 0.99, or 0.999 of the total current, leaving 0.1, 0.01 or 0.001 to flow through the galvanometer. W.E. Ayrton and T. Mather have designed a universal shunt box or resistance which can be applied to any galvanometer and by which a known fraction of any current can be sent through the galvanometer when we know its resistance (seeJour. Inst. Elec. Eng. Lond., 1894, 23, p. 314). A galvanometer can be calibrated, or the meaning of its deflexion determined, by passing through it an electric current of known value and observing the deflexion of the needle or coil. The known current can be provided in the following manner:—a single secondary cell of any kind can have its electromotive force measured by the potentiometer (q.v.), and compared with that of a standard voltaic cell. If the secondary cell is connected with the galvanometer through a known high resistance R, and if the galvanometer is shunted, that is, has its terminals connected by another resistance S, then if the resistance of the galvanometer itself is denoted by G, the whole resistance of the shunted galvanometer and high resistance has a value represented by R + GS/(G + S), and therefore the current through the galvanometer produced by an electromotive force E of the cell is represented bySE.R(G + S) + GSFig.2.—Movable Coil Galvanometer.Suppose this current produces a deflexion of the needle or coil or spot of light equal to X scale divisions, we can then alter the value of the resistances R and S, and so determine the relation between the deflexion and the current. By the sensitiveness of thegalvanometer is meant the deflexion produced by a known electromotive force put upon its terminals or a known current sent through it. It is usual to specify the sensitiveness of a mirror galvanometer by requiring a certain deflexion, measured in millimetres, of a spot of light thrown on the scale placed at one metre from the mirror, when an electromotive force of one-millionth of a volt (microvolt) is applied to the terminals of the galvanometer; it may be otherwise expressed by stating the deflexion produced under the same conditions when a current of one microampere is passed through the coil. In modern mirror galvanometers a deflexion of 1 mm. of the spot of light upon a scale at 1 metre distance can be produced by a current as small as one hundred millionth (10−8) or even one ten thousand millionth (10−10) of an ampere. It is easy to produce considerable sensitiveness in the galvanometer, but for practical purposes it must always be controlled by the condition that the zero remains fixed, that is to say, the galvanometer needle or coil must come back to exactly the same position when no current is passing through the instrument. Other important qualifications of a galvanometer are its time-period and its dead-beatness. For certain purposes the needle or coil should return as quickly as possible to the zero position and with either no, or very few, oscillations. If the latter condition is fulfilled the galvanometer is said to be “dead-beat.” On the other hand, for some purposes the galvanometer is required with the opposite quality, that is to say, there must be as little retardation as possible to the needle or coil when set in motion under an impulsive blow. Such a galvanometer is called “ballistic.” The quality of a galvanometer in this respect is best estimated by taking the logarithmic decrement of the oscillations when the movable system is set swinging. This last term is defined as the logarithm of the ratio of one swing to the next succeeding swing, and a galvanometer of which the logarithmic decrement is large, is said to be highly damped. For many purposes, such as for resistance measurement, it is desirable to have a galvanometer which is highly damped; this result can be obtained by affixing to the needles either light pieces of mica, when it is a movable needle galvanometer, or by winding the coil on a silver frame when it is a movable coil galvanometer. On the other hand, for the comparison of capacities of condensers and for other purposes, a galvanometer is required which is as little damped as possible, and for this purpose the coil must have the smallest possible frictional resistance to its motion through the air. In this case the moment of inertia of the movable system must be decreased or the control strengthened.The Einthoven string galvanometer is another form of sensitive instrument for the measurement of small direct currents. It consists of a fine wire or silvered quartz fibre stretched in a strong magnetic field. When a current passes through the wire it is displaced across the field and the displacement is observed with a microscope.Fig. 3.—Helmholtz Tangent Galvanometer.For the measurement of large currents a “tangent galvanometer” is employed (fig. 3). Two fixed circular coils are placed apart at a distance equal to the radius of either coil, so that a current passing through them creates in the centralTangent galvanometer.region between them a nearly uniform magnetic field. At the centre of the coils is suspended a small magnetic needle the length of which should not be greater than1⁄10the radius of either coil. The normal position of the needle is at right angles to the line joining the centre of the coils. If a current is passed through the coils, the needle will be deflected, and the tangent of the angle of its deflexion will be nearly proportional to the current passing through the coil, provided that the controlling field is uniform in strength and direction, and that the length of the magnetic needle is so short that the space in which it rotates is a practically uniform magnetic field.Alternating Current Galvanometers.—For the detection of small alternating currents a magnetic needle or movable coil galvanometer is of no utility. We can, however, construct an instrument suitable for the purpose by suspending within a coil of insulated wire a small needle of soft iron placed with its axis at an angle of 45° to the axis of the coil. When an alternating current passes through the coil the soft iron needle tends to set itself in the direction of the axis of the coil, and if it is suspended by a quartz fibre or metallic wire so as to afford a control, it can become a metrical instrument. Another arrangement, devised by J.A. Fleming in 1887, consists of a silver or copper disk suspended within a coil, the plane of the disk being held at 45° to that of the coil. When an alternating current is passed through the coil, induced currents are set up in the disk and the mutual action causes the disk to endeavour to set itself so that these currents are a minimum. This metal disk galvanometer has been made sufficiently sensitive to detect the feeble oscillatory electric currents set up in the receiving wire of a wireless telegraph apparatus. The Duddell thermal ammeter is another very sensitive form of alternating current galvanometer. In it the current to be detected or measured is passed through a high resistance wire or strip of metal leaf mounted on glass, over which is suspended a closed loop of bismuth and antimony, forming a thermoelectric couple. This loop is suspended by a quartz fibre in a strong magnetic field, and one junction of the couple is held just over the resistance wire and as near it as possible without touching. When an alternating current passes through the resistance it creates heat which in turn acts on the thermo-junction and generates a continuous current in the loop, thus deflecting it in the magnetic field. The sensitiveness of such a thermal ammeter can be made sufficiently great to detect a current of a few microamperes.References.—J.A. Fleming,A Handbook for the Electrical Laboratory and Testing Room, vol. i. (London, 1901); W.E. Ayrton, T. Mather and W.E. Sumpner, “On Galvanometers,”Proc. Phys. Soc. London(1890), 10, 393; H.R. Kempe,A Handbook of Electrical Testing(London, 1906); A. Gray,Absolute Measurements in Electricity and Magnetism, vol. ii. part ii. (London, 1893). Useful information is also contained in the catalogues of all the principal electrical instrument makers—Messrs. Elliott Bros., Nalder, The Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company, Pitkin, Hartmann and Braun, Queen and others.

In its simple and original form the movable needle galvanometer consisted of a horizontal magnetic needle suspended within a coil of insulated wire by silk fibres or pivoted on a point like a compass needle. The direction of such a needle is controlledMovable needle galvanometer.by the direction of the terrestrial magnetic force within the coil. If the needle is so placed that its axis is parallel to the plane of the coil, then when an electric current passes through the coil it is deflected and places itself at an angle to the axis of the coil determined by the strength of the current and of the controlling field. In the early forms of movable needle galvanometer the needle was either a comparatively large magnet several inches in length, or else a smaller magnet was employed carrying a long pointer which moved over a scale of degrees so as to indicate the deflexion. A method of measuring the deflexion by means of a mirror scale and telescope was introduced by K.F. Gauss and W. Weber. The magnet had a mirror attached to it, and a telescope having cross wires in the focus was used to observe the scale divisions of a fixed scale seen reflected in the mirror. LordMirror galvanometers.Kelvin (Professor W. Thomson) made the important improvement of reducing the size of the needle and attaching it to the back of a very small mirror, the two being suspended by a single fibre of cocoon silk. The mirror was made of silvered microscopic glass about ¼ in. in diameter, and the magnetic needle or needles consisted of short fragments of watchspring cemented to its back. A ray of light being thrown on the mirror from a lamp the deflexions of the needle were observed by watching the movements of a spot of light reflected from it upon a fixed scale. This form of mirror galvanometer was first devised in connexion with submarine cable signalling, but soon became an indispensable instrument in the physical laboratory.

In course of time both the original form of single needle galvanometer and mirror galvanometer were improved by introducing the astatic principle and weakening the external controlling magnetic field. If two magnetic needles of equal size andAstatic galvanometers.moment are attached rigidly to one stem parallel to each other but with poles placed in opposite directions an astatic system results; that is, if the needles are so suspended as to be free to move in a horizontal plane, and if they are made exactly equal in magnetic strength, the system will have no directive power. If one needle is slightly weaker than the other, the suspended system will set itself with some axis parallel to the lines of force of a field in which it is placed. In a form of astatic needle galvanometer devised by Professor A. Broca of Paris, the pair of magnetized needles are suspended vertically and parallel to each other with poles in opposite directions. The upper poles are included in one coil and the lower poles within another coil, so connected that the current circulates in the right direction in each coil to displace the pairs of poles in the same direction. By this mode of arrangement a greater magnetic moment can be secured, together with more perfect astaticity and freedom from disturbance by external fields. The earth’s magnetic field can be weakened by means of a controlling magnet arranged to create in the space in the interior of the galvanometer coils an extremely feeble controlling magnetic field. In instruments having a coil for each needle and designed so that the current in both coils passes so as to turn both needles in the same direction, the controlling magnet is so adjusted that the normal position of the needles is with the magnetic axis parallel to the plane of the coil. An astatic magnetic system used in conjunction with a mirror galvanometer gives a highly sensitive form of instrument (fig. 1); it is, however, easily disturbed by stray magnetic fields caused by neighbouring magnets or currents through conductors, and therefore is not suitable for use in many places.

This fact led to the introduction of the movable coil galvanometer which was first devised by Lord Kelvin as a telegraphic signalling instrument but subsequently modified by A. d’Arsonval and others into a laboratory galvanometer (fig. 2). In thisMovable coil galvanometer.instrument a permanent magnet, generally of the horseshoe shape, is employed to create a strong magnetic field, in which a light movable coil is suspended. The suspension is bifilar, consisting of two fine wires which are connected to the ends of the coil and serve to lead the current in and out. If such a coil is placed with its plane parallel to the lines of force of the permanent magnet, then when a current is passing through it it displaces itself in the field, so as to set with its axis more nearly parallel to the lines of force of the field. The movable coil may carry a pointer or a mirror; in the latter form it is well represented by several much used laboratory instruments. The movable coil galvanometer has the great advantage that it is not easily disturbed by the magnetic fields caused by neighbouring magnets or electric currents, and thus is especially useful in the electrical workshop and factory.

In the practical construction of the suspended needle fixed coil galvanometer great care must be taken with the insulation of the wire of the coil. This wire is generally silk-covered, wound on a frame, the whole being thoroughly saturatedConstruction and use.with paraffin wax. In some cases two wires are wound on in parallel, constituting a “differential galvanometer.” When properly adjusted this instrument can be used for the exact comparison of electric currents by a null method, because if an electric current is passed through one wire and creates certain deflexions of the needle, the current which annuls this deflexion when passed through the other wire must be equal to the first current. In the construction of a movable coil galvanometer, it is usual to intensify the magnetic field by inserting a fixed soft iron core in the interior of the movable coil. If the current to be measured is too large to be passed entirely through the galvanometer, a portion is allowed to flow through a circuit connecting the two terminals of the instrument. This circuit is called ashuntand is generally arranged so as to take 0.9, 0.99, or 0.999 of the total current, leaving 0.1, 0.01 or 0.001 to flow through the galvanometer. W.E. Ayrton and T. Mather have designed a universal shunt box or resistance which can be applied to any galvanometer and by which a known fraction of any current can be sent through the galvanometer when we know its resistance (seeJour. Inst. Elec. Eng. Lond., 1894, 23, p. 314). A galvanometer can be calibrated, or the meaning of its deflexion determined, by passing through it an electric current of known value and observing the deflexion of the needle or coil. The known current can be provided in the following manner:—a single secondary cell of any kind can have its electromotive force measured by the potentiometer (q.v.), and compared with that of a standard voltaic cell. If the secondary cell is connected with the galvanometer through a known high resistance R, and if the galvanometer is shunted, that is, has its terminals connected by another resistance S, then if the resistance of the galvanometer itself is denoted by G, the whole resistance of the shunted galvanometer and high resistance has a value represented by R + GS/(G + S), and therefore the current through the galvanometer produced by an electromotive force E of the cell is represented by

Suppose this current produces a deflexion of the needle or coil or spot of light equal to X scale divisions, we can then alter the value of the resistances R and S, and so determine the relation between the deflexion and the current. By the sensitiveness of thegalvanometer is meant the deflexion produced by a known electromotive force put upon its terminals or a known current sent through it. It is usual to specify the sensitiveness of a mirror galvanometer by requiring a certain deflexion, measured in millimetres, of a spot of light thrown on the scale placed at one metre from the mirror, when an electromotive force of one-millionth of a volt (microvolt) is applied to the terminals of the galvanometer; it may be otherwise expressed by stating the deflexion produced under the same conditions when a current of one microampere is passed through the coil. In modern mirror galvanometers a deflexion of 1 mm. of the spot of light upon a scale at 1 metre distance can be produced by a current as small as one hundred millionth (10−8) or even one ten thousand millionth (10−10) of an ampere. It is easy to produce considerable sensitiveness in the galvanometer, but for practical purposes it must always be controlled by the condition that the zero remains fixed, that is to say, the galvanometer needle or coil must come back to exactly the same position when no current is passing through the instrument. Other important qualifications of a galvanometer are its time-period and its dead-beatness. For certain purposes the needle or coil should return as quickly as possible to the zero position and with either no, or very few, oscillations. If the latter condition is fulfilled the galvanometer is said to be “dead-beat.” On the other hand, for some purposes the galvanometer is required with the opposite quality, that is to say, there must be as little retardation as possible to the needle or coil when set in motion under an impulsive blow. Such a galvanometer is called “ballistic.” The quality of a galvanometer in this respect is best estimated by taking the logarithmic decrement of the oscillations when the movable system is set swinging. This last term is defined as the logarithm of the ratio of one swing to the next succeeding swing, and a galvanometer of which the logarithmic decrement is large, is said to be highly damped. For many purposes, such as for resistance measurement, it is desirable to have a galvanometer which is highly damped; this result can be obtained by affixing to the needles either light pieces of mica, when it is a movable needle galvanometer, or by winding the coil on a silver frame when it is a movable coil galvanometer. On the other hand, for the comparison of capacities of condensers and for other purposes, a galvanometer is required which is as little damped as possible, and for this purpose the coil must have the smallest possible frictional resistance to its motion through the air. In this case the moment of inertia of the movable system must be decreased or the control strengthened.

The Einthoven string galvanometer is another form of sensitive instrument for the measurement of small direct currents. It consists of a fine wire or silvered quartz fibre stretched in a strong magnetic field. When a current passes through the wire it is displaced across the field and the displacement is observed with a microscope.

For the measurement of large currents a “tangent galvanometer” is employed (fig. 3). Two fixed circular coils are placed apart at a distance equal to the radius of either coil, so that a current passing through them creates in the centralTangent galvanometer.region between them a nearly uniform magnetic field. At the centre of the coils is suspended a small magnetic needle the length of which should not be greater than1⁄10the radius of either coil. The normal position of the needle is at right angles to the line joining the centre of the coils. If a current is passed through the coils, the needle will be deflected, and the tangent of the angle of its deflexion will be nearly proportional to the current passing through the coil, provided that the controlling field is uniform in strength and direction, and that the length of the magnetic needle is so short that the space in which it rotates is a practically uniform magnetic field.

Alternating Current Galvanometers.—For the detection of small alternating currents a magnetic needle or movable coil galvanometer is of no utility. We can, however, construct an instrument suitable for the purpose by suspending within a coil of insulated wire a small needle of soft iron placed with its axis at an angle of 45° to the axis of the coil. When an alternating current passes through the coil the soft iron needle tends to set itself in the direction of the axis of the coil, and if it is suspended by a quartz fibre or metallic wire so as to afford a control, it can become a metrical instrument. Another arrangement, devised by J.A. Fleming in 1887, consists of a silver or copper disk suspended within a coil, the plane of the disk being held at 45° to that of the coil. When an alternating current is passed through the coil, induced currents are set up in the disk and the mutual action causes the disk to endeavour to set itself so that these currents are a minimum. This metal disk galvanometer has been made sufficiently sensitive to detect the feeble oscillatory electric currents set up in the receiving wire of a wireless telegraph apparatus. The Duddell thermal ammeter is another very sensitive form of alternating current galvanometer. In it the current to be detected or measured is passed through a high resistance wire or strip of metal leaf mounted on glass, over which is suspended a closed loop of bismuth and antimony, forming a thermoelectric couple. This loop is suspended by a quartz fibre in a strong magnetic field, and one junction of the couple is held just over the resistance wire and as near it as possible without touching. When an alternating current passes through the resistance it creates heat which in turn acts on the thermo-junction and generates a continuous current in the loop, thus deflecting it in the magnetic field. The sensitiveness of such a thermal ammeter can be made sufficiently great to detect a current of a few microamperes.

References.—J.A. Fleming,A Handbook for the Electrical Laboratory and Testing Room, vol. i. (London, 1901); W.E. Ayrton, T. Mather and W.E. Sumpner, “On Galvanometers,”Proc. Phys. Soc. London(1890), 10, 393; H.R. Kempe,A Handbook of Electrical Testing(London, 1906); A. Gray,Absolute Measurements in Electricity and Magnetism, vol. ii. part ii. (London, 1893). Useful information is also contained in the catalogues of all the principal electrical instrument makers—Messrs. Elliott Bros., Nalder, The Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company, Pitkin, Hartmann and Braun, Queen and others.

(J. A. F.)

GALVESTON, a city and port of entry and the county-seat of Galveston county, Texas, U.S.A., on the Gulf of Mexico, near the N.E. extremity of Galveston Island and at the entrance to Galveston Bay. It is about 48 m. S.E. of Houston and 310 m. W. of New Orleans. Pop. (1890) 29,084; (1900) 37,789, (6339 were foreign-born and 8291 negroes); (1910) 36,981; land area (1906) 7.8 sq. m. It is served by the Galveston, Houston & Henderson, the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio, the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fé, the Trinity & Brazos Valley, the International & Great Northern, and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railways, and by numerous steamship lines to Gulf ports in the United States and Mexico, and to Cuba, South America, Europe and the Atlantic ports of the United States. Galveston Island is a low, sandy strip of land about 28 m. long and 1½ to 3½ m. wide, lying from 2 to 3 m. off the mainland. The city, which extends across the island from Gulf to Bay, faces and has its harbour on the latter. The island was connected with the mainland before the 1900 storm by a road bridge and several railway bridges, which, a short distance W. of the city, crossed the narrow strip of water separating the West Bay from Galveston Bay proper; the bridge least harmed (a single-track railway bridge) was repaired immediately and was for a time the city’s only connexion with the mainland, but in 1908 bonds were issued for building a concrete causeway, accommodating four railway tracks, one interurban car track, and a roadway for vehicles and pedestrians. An enormous sea-wall (completed in 1904 at a cost of $2,091,000) was constructed on the eastern and Gulf sides of the city, about 5 m. long, 17 ft. above mean low tide (1.5 ft. above the high-water mark of the storm of 1900 and 7.5 ft. above the previous high-water mark, that of September 1875), 16 ft. wide at the base and 5 ft. at the top, weighing 20 tons to the lineal foot, and with a granite rip-rap apron extending out 27 ft. on the Gulf side. The entire grade of the city was raised from 1 to 15 ft. above the old level. Between the sea-wall and the sea there is a splendid beach, the entire length of which is nearly 30 m. Among the principal buildings are the city hall, the court-house, the masonic temple, the Federal custom-house and post-office, the Y.M.C.A. building and the public library. The United States government maintains a marine hospital, a live-saving station, an immigrant landing station, and the state and the Federal government separate quarantine stations. In addition to the Ball public high school, Galveston is the seat of St Mary’s University (1854), the Sacred Heart and Ursuline academies, and the Cathedral school, all under Roman Catholic control.

The government of the municipality was long vested in a council of ward aldermen, controlled by a “machine,” which was proved corrupt in 1894 by an investigation undertaken at the personal expense of the mayor; it gave place in 1895 to a city council of aldermen at large, which by 1901 had proved its inefficiency especially in the crisis following the storm of the preceding year. Government then seemed a business question and was practically undertaken by the city’s commercial experts, the Deepwater commission, whose previous aim had been harbour improvement, and who now drew up a charter providing for government by a board of five appointed by the governor of the state. A compromise measure making three members appointeesof the governor and two elected by the voters of the city was in force for a time but was declared unconstitutional. A third charter was adopted providing for five commissioners, chosen by the people, dividing among themselves the posts of mayor-president and commissioners of finance and revenue, of water-works and sewerage, of streets and public property, and of police and fire protection, each commissioner being held individually responsible for the management of his department. These are business departments carefully systematized by their heads. The legislative power is vested in the commission as a whole, over whose meetings the mayor-president presides; he has a vote like every other commissioner, and has no veto power. The success of this commission government has been remarkable: in 1901-1908 the city, without issuing bonds except for grade raising, paid off a large debt, raised the salaries of city employees, paid its running expenses in cash, planned and began public improvements and sanitary reforms, and did much for the abolition of gambling and the regulation of other vice. The Galveston Plan and similar schemes of government have been adopted in many other American cities.

Galveston’s manufactories, the products of which in 1900 were valued at $5,016,360, a decrease of 12.4% from 1890 (value of products under “factory system,” $3,675,323 in 1900; $2,996,654 in 1905, a decrease of 18.5%), include cotton-seed oil refineries, flour and feed mills, lumber mills, wooden-ware factories, breweries, cement works, creosoting works, ship-yards and ice factories. There are extensive cotton warehouses, coal and grain elevators, and large wholesale supply depots. The Gulf Fisheries Company has its fleet’s headquarters and large packing-houses at Galveston. It is as a commercial port that Galveston is chiefly important. In 1907 it was the second port in the United States in the value of its exports (domestic and foreign, $196,627,382, or 10.22% of the total), being surpassed only by New York City; and was the first of the Gulf ports (having 45.43% of the total value), New Orleans being second with $164,998,540. Galveston’s imports in 1907 were valued at $7,669,458. Galveston is the greatest cotton-exporting port in the Union, its exports of cotton in 1907 being valued at $163,564,445. Other exports of great value are cotton seed products (oil and cake, $10,188,594 in 1907), Indian corn ($3,457,279 in 1907), wheat ($9,443,901 in 1906), lumber and flour. The electric lighting and water-supply systems are owned and operated by the municipality.

The harbour of Galveston seems to have been named about 1782 by Spanish explorers in honour either of José de Galvez, Marquis of Sonora, or his nephew Bernardo, governor of Louisiana; and in the early days of the 19th century was the principal rendezvous of a powerful band of buccaneers and pirates, of whom, for many years, the notorious Jean Lafitte was chief. After much difficulty these were finally dispersed about 1820 by the United States authorities, and in 1837 the first settlement from the United States was made on the site of the present city. The town was incorporated by the legislature of the Republic of Texas in 1839. On the 8th of October 1862 the city was taken by a Federal naval force under Commander William B. Renshaw (1816-1863). After a sharp engagement a Confederate force under General John B. Magruder (1810-1871) retook the city on the 1st of January 1863, one of the Federal ships, the “Harriet Lane,” falling into Confederate hands, and another, the “Westfield,” being blown up with Commander Renshaw on board. Thereafter Galveston remained in Confederate hands, although rigidly blockaded by the Federal navy, until the close of the war. On the 8th of September 1900 the city was seriously damaged by a West Indian hurricane, which, blowing steadily for eighteen hours, reached a velocity of 135 m. an hour. The waters of the Gulf were piled up in enormous waves that swept across a large part of the city, destroying or badly damaging more than 8000 buildings, entailing a loss of about 5000 lives, and a property loss estimated at about $17,000,000. Liberal contributions came from all over the country, and the state partially remitted the city’s taxes for 17 years. The city was rapidly rebuilt on a more substantial plan.

GALWAY, a county in the west of Ireland, in the province of Connaught, bounded N. by Mayo and Roscommon; E. by Roscommon, King’s County and Tipperary; S. by Clare and Galway Bay; and W. by the Atlantic Ocean. The area is 1,519,699 acres or about 2375 sq. m., the county being second in size to Cork among the Irish counties.

The county is naturally divided by Lough Corrib into two great divisions. The eastern, which comprehends all the county except the four western baronies, rests on a limestone base, and is, generally speaking, a level champaign country, but contains large quantities of wet bog. Its southern portion is partly a continuation of the Golden Vale of Limerick, celebrated for its fertility, and partly occupied by the Slievebaughty Mountains. The northern portion of the division contains rich pasture and tillage ground, beautifully diversified with hill and dale. Some of the intermediate country is comparatively uncultivated, but forms excellent pasturage for sheep. The western division of the county has a substratum of granite, and is barren, rugged and mountainous. It is divided into the three districts of Connemara, Jar-Connaught and Joyce’s Country; the name of Connemara is, however, often applied to the whole district. Its highest mountains are the grand and picturesque group of Bunnabeola, or the Twelve Bens or Pins, which occupy a space of about 25 sq. m., the highest elevation being 2695 ft. Much of this district is a gently sloping plain, from 100 to 300 ft. above sea-level. Joyce’s Country, farther north, is an elevated tract, with flat-topped hills 1300 to 2000 ft. high, and deep narrow valleys lying between them.

Galway possesses the advantage of a very extended line of sea-coast, indented by numerous harbours, which, however, are rarely used except by a few coasting and fishing vessels. At the boundary with the county Mayo in the north is Killary Harbour which separates the two counties. The first bay on the western coast capable of accommodating large ships is Ballynakill, sheltered by Freaghillaun or Heath Island. Next in succession is Cleggan Bay. Off these inlets lie the islands of Inishbofin and Inishark, with others. Streamstown is a narrow inlet, within which are the inhabited islands of Omey, Inishturk and Turbot. Ardbear harbour is divided into two inlets, the northern terminating at the town of Clifden, with excellent anchorage; the southern inlet has also good anchorage within the bar, and has a good salmon fishery. Mannin Bay, though large, is much exposed and little frequented by shipping. From Slyne Head the coast turns eastward to Roundstone Bay, which has its entrance protected by the islands of Inishnee and Inishlacken. Next in order is Bertraghboy Bay, studded with islets and rocks, but deep and sheltered. Kilkieran Bay, the largest on this coast, has a most productive kelp shore of nearly 100 m.; its mouth is but 3 m. broad. Between Gorumna Island and the mainland is Greatman’s Bay and close to it Costello Bay, the most eastern of those in Connemara. The whole of the coast from Greatman’s Bay eastward is comprehended in the Bay of Galway, the entrance of which is protected by the three limestone islands of Aran, Inishmore (or Aranmore), Inishmann and Inisheer.

The rivers are few, and, except the Shannon, of small size. The Suck, which forms the eastern boundary of the county, rises in Roscommon, and passing by Ballinasloe, unites with the Shannon at Shannonbridge. The Shannon forms the south-eastern boundary of the county, and passing Shannon Harbour, Banagher, Meelick and Portumna, swells into the great expanse of water called Lough Derg, which skirts the county as far as the village of Mount Shannon. The Claregalway flows southward through the centre of the county, and enters Lough Corrib some 4 m. above the town of Galway. The Ballynahinch, considered one of the best salmon-fishing rivers in Connaught, rises in the Twelve Pins, passes through Ballynahinch Lake, and after a short but rapid course falls into Bertraghboy Bay. Lakes are numerous. Lough Corrib extends from Galway town northwards over 30,000 acres, with a shore of 50 m. in extent. The lake is studded with many islands, some of them thickly inhabited. The district west of Lough Corrib contains a vast number of lakes, about twenty-five of them more than a mile in length. Lough Rea, by the town of thesame name, is more remarkable for scenic beauty than for extent. Besides these perennial lakes, there are several low tracts, called turloughs, which are covered with water during a great part of the year. Loughs Mask and Corrib are connected by a salmon ladder, and contain large trout. Galway, with the Screab Waters, draining into Camus Bay, a branch of Kilkieran Bay, with Recess and the Ballynahinch waters, are the best fishing centres. On account of its scenic beauty, both coastal and inland, together with its facilities for sport, county Galway is frequented by summer visitors. Though for long the remoter parts were difficult of access, as in the case of Donegal, Mayo, Clare and the western counties generally, the Galway and Clifden railway assisted private enterprise to open up the country. The western mountains, broken by deep landlocked and island-sheltered bays, as well as by the innumerable small loughs of the Connemara districts, afford scenes varying from gentle slopes occasionally well wooded along the water’s edge to wild, bare moorlands among the heights, while the summits are usually bold and rocky cones. Several small fishing villages have acquired the dignity of watering-places from the erection of hotels, which have also been planted in previously untenanted situations of high scenic attractions; among these may be mentioned Leenane at the head of Killary harbour, Renvyle House at its entrance, Letterfrack on Ballynakill Bay, Streamstown and Clifden, and Cashel on Bertraghboy Bay. Inland are Recess, near Lough Derryclare, and Ballynahinch, on the lough of that name, both on the railway, at the foot of the Twelve Pins.

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