Many of his pictures have been engraved, and after his death a selection of fifty-three of his works was prepared for this purpose by the AustrianKunstverein(Art Union).
Many of his pictures have been engraved, and after his death a selection of fifty-three of his works was prepared for this purpose by the AustrianKunstverein(Art Union).
GAUGE, orGage(Med. Lat.gauja,jaugia, Fr.jauge, perhaps connected with Fr.jale, a bowl,galon, gallon), a standard of measurement, and also the name given to various instruments and appliances by which measurement is effected. The word seems to have been primarily used in connexion with the process of ascertaining the contents of wine casks; the name gauger is still applied to certain custom-house officials in the United States, and in Scotland it means an exciseman. Thence it was extended to other measurements, and used of the instruments used in making them or of the standards to which they were referred. In the mechanical arts gauges are employed in great variety to enable the workmen to ascertain whether the object he is making is of the proper dimensions (seeTool), and similar gauges of various forms are employed to ascertain and to specify the sizes of manufactured articles such as wire and screws. A rain gauge is an apparatus for measuring the amount of the rainfall at any locality, and a wind gauge indicates the pressure and force of the wind. The boilers of steam engines are provided with a water gauge and a steam or pressure gauge. The purpose of the former is to enable the attendant to see whether or not there is a sufficient quantity of water in the boiler. It consists of two cocks or taps communicating with the interior, one being placed at the lowest point to which it is permissible for the water to fall, and the other at the point above which it should not rise; a glass tube connects the two cocks, and when they are both open the water in this stands at the same level as in the boiler. The steam gauge shows the pressure of the steam in the boiler. One of the commonest forms, known as the Bourdon gauge, depends on the fact that a curved tube tends to straighten itself if the pressure within it is greater than that outside it. This gauge therefore consists of a curved or coiled tube of elastic material, and preferably of elliptic section, connected with the boiler and arranged with a multiplying gear so that its bending or unbending actuates a pointer moving over a graduated scale. If the pressure within the tube is less than that outside it, the tube tends to bend or coil itself up further; with a pointer arranged as before, the gauge then becomes a vacuum gauge, indicating how far the pressure in the vessel to which it is attached is below that of the atmosphere. In railway engineering the gauge of a line is the distance between the two rails (seeRailway). In nautical language, a ship is said to have the weather gage when she is to windward of another, and similarly the lee gage when to leeward of another; in this sense the word is usually spelt “gage,” a spelling which prevails in America for all senses.
GAUHATI, a town of British India, in the Kamrup district of Eastern Bengal and Assam, mainly on the left or south, but partly on the right bank of the Brahmaputra. Pop. (1901) 14,244. It is beautifully situated, with an amphitheatre of wooded hills to the south, but is not very healthy. There are many evidences, such as ancient earthworks and tanks, of its historical importance. During the 17th century it was taken and retaken by Mahommedans and Ahoms eight times in fifty years, but in 1681 it became the residence of the Ahom governor of lower Assam, and in 1786 the capital of the Ahom raja. On the cession of Assam to the British in 1826 it was made the seat of the British administration of Assam, and so continued till 1874, when the headquarters were removed to Shillong in the Khasi hills, 67 m. distant, with which Gauhati is connected by an excellent cart-road. Two much-frequented places of Hindu pilgrimage are situated in the immediate vicinity, the temple of Kamakhya on a hill 2 m. west of the town, and the rocky island of Umananda in the mid-channel of the Brahmaputra. Gauhati is still the headquarters of the district and of the Brahmaputra Valley division, though no longer a military cantonment. It is the river terminus of a section of the Assam-Bengal railway. There are a second-grade college, a government high school, a law class and a training school for masters. Gauhati is an important centre of river trade, and the largest seat of commerce in Assam. Cotton-ginning, flour-milling, and an export trade in mustard seed, cotton, silk and forest produce are carried on. Gauhati suffered very severely from the earthquake of the 12th of June 1897.
GAUL, GILBERT WILLIAM(1855- ), American artist, was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, on the 31st of March 1855. He was a pupil of J.G. Brown and L.E. Wilmarth, and he became a painter of military pictures, portraying incidents of the American Civil War. He was elected an associate of the National Academy of Design in 1880, and in 1882 a full academician, and in the latter year became a member of the Society of American Artists. His important works include: “Charging the Battery,” “News from Home,” “Cold Comfort on the Outpost,” “Silenced,” “On the Look-out,” and “Guerillas returning from a Raid.”
GAUL, the modern form of the RomanGallia, the name of the two chief districts known to the Romans as inhabited by Celtic-speaking peoples, (a)Gallia Cisalpina(orCiterior, “Hither”),i.e.north Italy between Alps and Apennines and (b) the far more importantGallia Transalpina(orUlterior, “Further”), usually calledGallia(Gaul) simply, the land bounded by the Alps, the Mediterranean, the Pyrenees, the Atlantic, the Rhine,i.e.modern France and Belgium with parts of Holland, Germany and Switzerland. The Greek form ofGalliawasΓαλατία, but Galatia in Latin denoted another Celtic region in central Asia Minor, sometimes styledGallograecia.
(a) Gallia Cisalpina was mainly conquered by Rome by 222B.C.; later it adopted Roman civilization; about 42B.C.it was united with Italy and its subsequent history is merged in that of the peninsula. Its chief distinctions are that during the later Republic and earlier Empire it yielded excellent soldiers, and thus much aided the success of Caesar against Pompey and of Octavian against Antony, and that it gave Rome the poet Virgil (by origin a Celt), the historian Livy, the lyrist Catullus, Cornelius Nepos, the elder and the younger Pliny and other distinguished writers.1
(b) Gaul proper first enters ancient history when the Greek colony of Massilia was founded (? 600B.C.). Roman armies began to enter it about 218B.C.In 121B.C.the coast fromMontpellier to the Pyrenees (i.e.all that was not Massiliot) with its port of Narbo (mod.Narbonne) and its trade route by Toulouse to the Atlantic, was formed into the province of Gallia Narbonensis and Narbo itself into a Roman municipality. Commercial motives prompted the step, and Roman traders and land speculators speedily flocked in. Gradually the province was extended north of Massilia, up the Rhone, while the Greek town itself became weak and dependent on Rome.
It is not, however, until the middle of the 1st centuryB.C.that we have any detailed knowledge of pre-Roman Gaul. The earliest account is that contained in theCommentariesof Julius Caesar. According to this authority, Gaul was at that time divided among three peoples, more or less distinct from one another, the Aquitani, the Gauls, who called themselves Celts, and the Belgae. The first of these extended from the Pyrenees to the Garumna (Garonne); the second, from that river to the Sequana (Seine) and its chief tributary the Matrona (Marne), reaching eastward presumably as far as the Rhenus (Rhine); and the third, from this bounding line to the mouth of the last-named river, thus bordering on the Germans. By implication Caesar recognizes as a fourth division the province of Gallia Narbonensis. By far the greater part of the country was a plain watered by numerous rivers, the chief of which have already been mentioned, with the exception of its great central stream, the Liger or Ligeris (Loire). Its principal mountain ranges were Cebenna or Gebenna (Cévennes) in the south, and Jura, with its continuation Vosegus or Vogesus (Vosges), in the east. The tribes inhabiting Gaul in Caesar’s time, and belonging to one or other of the three races distinguished by him, were numerous. Prominent among them, and dwelling in the division occupied by the Celts, were the Helvetii, the Sequani and the Aedui, in the basins of the Rhodanus and its tributary the Arar (Saône), who, he says, were reckoned the three most powerful nations in all Gaul; the Arverni in the mountains of Cebenna; the Senones and Carnutes in the basin of the Liger; the Veneti and other Armorican tribes between the mouths of the Liger and Sequana. The Nervii, Bellovaci, Suessiones, Remi, Morini, Menapii and Aduatuci were Belgic tribes; the Tarbelli and others were Aquitani; while the Allobroges inhabited the north of the Provincia, having been conquered in 121B.C.The ethnological divisions thus set forth by Caesar have been much discussed (seeCelt, and articles on the chief tribes).
The Gallic Wars (58-51) of Caesar (q.v.) added all the rest of Gaul, north-west of the Cévennes, to the Rhine and the Ocean, and in 49 also annexed Massilia. All Gaul was now Roman territory. Now the second period of her history opens; it remained for Roman territory to become romanized.
Caesar had no time to organize his conquest; this work was left to Augustus. As settled by him, and in part perhaps also by his successor Tiberius, it fell into the following five administrative areas.
(i)Narbonensis, that is, the land between Alps, sea and Cévennes, extending up the Rhone to Vienne, was as Augustus found it, distinct in many ways from the rest of Gaul. By nature it is a sun-steeped southern region, the home of the vine and olive, of the minstrelsy of the Provençal and the exuberance of Tartarin, distinct from the colder and more sober north. By history it had already (in the time of Augustus) been Roman for from 80 to 100 years and was familiar with Roman ways. It was ready to be Italianized and it was civilized enough to need no garrison. Accordingly, it was henceforward governed by a proconsul (appointed by the senate) and freed from the burden of troops, while its local government was assimilated to that of Italy. The old Celtic tribes were broken up: instead, municipalities of Roman citizens were founded to rule their territories. Thus the Allobroges now disappear and thecoloniaof Vienna takes their place: the Volcae vanish and we find Nemausus (Nîmes). Thus thrown into Italian fashion, the province took rapidly to Italian ways. ByA.D.70 it was “Italia verius quam provincia” (Pliny). The Gauls obviously had a natural bias towards the Italian civilization, and there soon became no difference between Italy and southern Gaul. But though education spread, the results were somewhat disappointing. Trade flourished; the corporations of bargemen and the like on the Rhone made money; the many towns grew rich and could afford splendid public buildings. But no great writer and no great administrator came from Narbonensis; itinerant lecturers and journalists alone were produced in plenty, and at times minor poets.
(ii.-iv.) Across the Cévennes lay Caesar’s conquests, Atlantic in climate, new to Roman ways. The whole area, often collectively styled “Gallia Comata,” often “Tres Provinciae,” was divided into three provinces, each under alegatus pro praetoreappointed by the emperor, with a common capital at Lugudunum (Lyons). The three provinces were:Aquitania, reaching from the Pyrenees almost to the Loire;Lugudunensis, the land between Loire and Seine, reaching from Brittany in the west to Lyons in the south-east; andBelgicain the north. The boundaries, it will be observed, were wholly artificial. Here also it was found possible to dispense with garrisons, not because the provinces were as peaceful as Narbonensis, but because the Rhine army was close at hand. As befitted an unromanized region, the local government was unlike that of Italy or Narbonensis. Roman municipalities were not indeed unknown, but very few: the local authorities were the magistrates of the old tribal districts. Local autonomy was here carried to an extreme. But the policy succeeded. The Gauls of the Three Provinces, or some of them, revolted inA.D.21 under Florus and Sacrovir, in 68 under Vindex, and in 70 under Classicus and Tutor (seeCivilis, Claudius). But all five leaders were romanized nobles, with Roman names and Roman citizenship, and their risings were directed rather against the Roman government than the Roman empire. In general, the Gauls of these provinces accepted Roman civilization more or less rapidly, and in due course became hardly distinguishable from the Italian. In particular, they eagerly accepted the worship of “Augustus and Rome,” devised by the first emperor as a bond of state religion connecting the provinces with Rome. Each August, despite the heat, representatives from the 60 (or 64) tribes of Gallia Comata met at Lyons, elected a priest, “sacerdos ad aram Augusti et Romae,” and held games. The post of representative, and still more that of priest, was eagerly coveted and provided a scope for the ambitions which despotism usually crushes. It agrees with the vigorous development of this worship that the Three Provinces, though romanized, retained their own local feeling. Even in the 3rd century the cult of Celtic deities (Hercules Magusanus, Deusoniensis, &c.) were revived, the Celticleugareintroduced instead of the Roman mile on official milestones, and a brief effort made to establish an independent, though romanized, Gaul under Postumus and his short-lived successors (A.D.250-273). Not only was the area too large and strong to lose its individuality: it was also too rural and too far from the Mediterranean to be romanized as fully and quickly as Narbonensis. It is even probable that Celtic was spoken in forest districts into the 4th centuryA.D.Town life, however, grew. Thechefs-lieuxof the tribes became practically, though not officially, municipalities, and many of these towns reached considerable size and magnificence of public buildings. But they attest their tribal relations by their appellations, which are commonly drawn from the name of the tribe and not of the town itself. Thus the capitals of the Remi and Parisii were actually Durocortorum and Lutetia: the appellations in use were Remis or Remus, Parisiis or Parisius—these forms being indeclinable nouns formed from a sort of locative of the tribe names. Literature also flourished. In the latest empire Ausonius, Symmachus, Apollinaris, Sidonius and other Gaulish writers, chiefly of Gallia Comata, kept alive the classical literary tradition, not only for Gaul but for the world.
(v.) The fifth division of Gaul was the Rhenish military frontier. Augustus had planned the conquest of Germany up to the Elbe. His plans were foiled by the courage of Arminius and the inability of the Roman exchequer to pay a larger army. Instead, his successor Tiberius organized the Rhine frontier in two military districts. The northern one was the valley of the Meuse and that of the Rhine to a point just south of Bonn: the southern was the rest of the Rhine valley to Switzerland. Eachdistrict was garrisoned at first by four, later by fewer legions, which were disposed at various times in some of the following fortresses: Vetera (Xanten), Novaesium (Neuss), Bonne (Bonn), Moguntiacum (Mainz), Argentorate (Strassburg) and Vindonissa (Windisch in Switzerland). At first the districts were purely military, were called, after the garrisons, “exercitus Germanicus superior” (south) and “inferior” (north). Later one or two municipalities were founded—Colonia Agrippinensis at Cologne (A.D.51), Colonia Augusta Treverorum at Trier (date uncertain), Colonia Ulpia Traiana outside Vetera—and about 80-90A.D.the two “Exercitus” were turned into the two provinces of Upper and Lower Germany. The armies in these districts formed the defence of Gaul against German invaders. They also helped to keep Gaul itself in order and their presence explains why the four provinces of Gaul proper contained no troops.
These provincial divisions were modified by Diocletian but without seriously affecting the life of Gaul. The whole country, indeed, continued Roman and fairly safe from barbarian invasions till after 400. In 407 a multitude of Franks, Vandals, &c., burst over Gaul: Roman rule practically ceased and the three kingdoms of the Visigoths, Burgundians and Franks began to form. There were still a Roman general and Roman troops when Attila was defeated in thecampi CatalauniciinA.D.451, but the general, Aetius, was “the last of the Romans,” and in 486 Clovis the Frank ended the last vestige of Roman rule in Gaul.
For Roman antiquities in Gaul see, beside articles on the modern towns (Arles,Nîmes,Orange&c.),Bibracte,Alesia,Itius Portus,Aqueduct,Architecture,Amphitheatre, &c.; for religion seeDruidism; for the famous schools of Autun, Lyons, Toulouse, Nîmes, Vienne, Marseilles and Narbonne, see J.E. Sandys,History of Classical Scholarship(ed. 1906-1908), i. pp. 247-250; for the Roman provinces, Th. Mommsen,Provinces of the Roman Empire(trans. 1886), vol. i. chap. iii. See also Desjardins,Géographie historique et administrative de la Gaule romaine(Paris, 1877); Fustel de Coulanges,Histoire des institutions politiques de l’ancienne France(Paris, 1877); for Caesar’s campaigns, articleCaesar, Julius, and works quoted; for coins, art.Numismaticsand articles in theNumismatische ZeitschriftandRevue numismatique(e.g.Blanchet, 1907, pp. 461 foll.).
For Roman antiquities in Gaul see, beside articles on the modern towns (Arles,Nîmes,Orange&c.),Bibracte,Alesia,Itius Portus,Aqueduct,Architecture,Amphitheatre, &c.; for religion seeDruidism; for the famous schools of Autun, Lyons, Toulouse, Nîmes, Vienne, Marseilles and Narbonne, see J.E. Sandys,History of Classical Scholarship(ed. 1906-1908), i. pp. 247-250; for the Roman provinces, Th. Mommsen,Provinces of the Roman Empire(trans. 1886), vol. i. chap. iii. See also Desjardins,Géographie historique et administrative de la Gaule romaine(Paris, 1877); Fustel de Coulanges,Histoire des institutions politiques de l’ancienne France(Paris, 1877); for Caesar’s campaigns, articleCaesar, Julius, and works quoted; for coins, art.Numismaticsand articles in theNumismatische ZeitschriftandRevue numismatique(e.g.Blanchet, 1907, pp. 461 foll.).
(F. J. H.)
1When Cisalpine Gaul became completely Romanized, it was often known as “Gallia Togata,” while the Province was distinguished as “Gallia Bracata” (bracae, incorrectlybraccae, “trousers”), from the long trousers worn by the inhabitants, and the rest of Gaul as “Gallia Comata,” from the inhabitants wearing their hair long.
1When Cisalpine Gaul became completely Romanized, it was often known as “Gallia Togata,” while the Province was distinguished as “Gallia Bracata” (bracae, incorrectlybraccae, “trousers”), from the long trousers worn by the inhabitants, and the rest of Gaul as “Gallia Comata,” from the inhabitants wearing their hair long.
GAULT, in geology, one of the members of the Lower Cretaceous System. The name is still employed provincially in parts of England for a stiff blue clay of any kind; by the earlier writers it was sometimes spelt “Galt” or “Golt.”
The formation now known as Gault in England has been variously designated “Blue Marle,” “Brick Earth,” “Golt Brick Earth” and “Oak-tree-soil.” In certain parts of the south of England the Gault appears as a well-marked deposit of clay, lying between two sandy formations; the one above came to be known as the “Upper Greensand,” the one below being the “Lower Greensand” (seeGreensand). Since the typical clayey Gault is continually taking on a sandy facies as it is traced both horizontally and vertically; and since the fossils of the Upper Greensand and Gault are inseparably related, it has been proposed by A.J. Jukes-Browne that these two series of beds should be regarded as the arenaceous and argillaceous phases of a single formation, to which he has given the name “Selbornian” (from the village of Selborne where the beds are well developed). Lithologically, then, the Selbornian includes the blue and grey clays and marls of the Gault proper; the glauconitic sands of the Upper Greensand, and their local equivalent, the “malm,” “malm rock” or “firestone,” which in places passes into the micaceous sandstone containing sponge spicules and globules of silica, the counterpart of the rock called “gaize” on the same horizon in northern France. In Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and parts of Norfolk the Selbornian is represented by the Red Chalk. The malm is a ferruginous siliceous rock, the silica being mainly in the colloidal condition in the form of globules and sponge spicules; some quartz grains, mica and glauconite are usually present along with from 2 to 25% of calcareous matter. Chert-bands and nodules are common in the Upper Greensand of certain districts; and calcareous concretions, locally recognized as cowstones (Lyme Regis), doggers or buhrstones, are not infrequent.
The principal divisions of the Selbornian stage with their characteristic zonal fossils are as follows:—
Warminster BedsPecten asperandCardiaster fossarius.Upper GaultDevizes Beds or Merstham Beds withSchloenbachia rostralus.Lower GaultHoplites lautus.H. interruptus.Acanthoceras mammillatum.The Gault (with Upper Greensand) crops out all round the Wealden area; it extends beneath the London basin and reappears from beneath the northern scarp of the Chalk along the foot of the Chiltern Hills to near Tring. In the south of England the Gault clay is fairly constant in the lower part, with the Greensand above; the clay, however, passes into sand as it is followed westward and, as already pointed out, the clay and sand appear to pass into a red chalk towards the north-east. The Gault overlaps the Lower Greensand towards the east, where it rests upon the old Paleozoic axis; it also overlaps the same formation towards the west about Frome, and thence passes unconformably across the Portlandian beds, Kimeridge Clay, Corallian beds and Oxford Clay; in south Dorsetshire it rests upon the Wealden Series. The Gault (with Upper Greensand) passes on to the Jurassic and Rhaetic rocks near Axmouth, and oversteps farther westward, in the Haldon Hills, on to the Permian. A large outlier occurs on the Blackdown Hills of Devonshire. Good localities for fossils are Folkestone—where many of the shells are preserved with their original pearly nacre,—Burnham, Merstham, Isle of Wight, the Blackdown and Haldon Hills, Warminster, Hunstanton and Speeton, Black Venn near Lyme Regis, and Devizes (malmstone and gaize). The beds are well developed in the vale of Wardour, and in the Isle of Wight; the Gault forms the so-called “blue slipper” at Ventnor which has been the cause of the landslip or undercliff.The Gault of north France is very similar to that in the south of England, but the French termAlbienincludes only a portion of the Selbornian formation. The Gault of north-west Germany embraces beds that would be classed asAlbienandAptienby French authors; it comprises the “Flammenmergel”—a pale siliceous marl shot with flame-shaped darker patches—a clay withBelemnites minimus, and the “Gargasmergel” (Aptian). In the Diester and Teutoberger Wald, and in the region of Halberstadt, the clays and marls are replaced by sandstones, the so-calledGault-Quader. Continental writers usually place the Gault or Albian at the summit of the Lower Cretaceous; while with English geologists the practice is to commence the Upper Cretaceous with this formation. In addition to the fossils already noticed, the following may be mentioned:Acanthoceras Desmoceras Beaudanti,Hoplites splendens,Hamites,Scaphites,Turrilites,Aporrhais retusa,Trigonia aliforme, alsoIchthyosaurusandOrnithocheirus(Pterodactyl). From the clays, bricks and tiles are made at Burham, Barnwell, Dunton Green, Arlesey, Hitchin, &c. The cherts in the Greensand portion are used for road metal, and in the Blackdown Hills, for scythe stones; hearthstone is obtained about Merstham; phosphatic nodules occur at several horizons.SeeCretaceous System;Albian;Aptian; also A.J. Jukes-Browne, “The Gault and Upper Greensand of England.” vol. i.,Cretaceous Rocks of Britain;Mem. Geol. Survey, 1900.
The Gault (with Upper Greensand) crops out all round the Wealden area; it extends beneath the London basin and reappears from beneath the northern scarp of the Chalk along the foot of the Chiltern Hills to near Tring. In the south of England the Gault clay is fairly constant in the lower part, with the Greensand above; the clay, however, passes into sand as it is followed westward and, as already pointed out, the clay and sand appear to pass into a red chalk towards the north-east. The Gault overlaps the Lower Greensand towards the east, where it rests upon the old Paleozoic axis; it also overlaps the same formation towards the west about Frome, and thence passes unconformably across the Portlandian beds, Kimeridge Clay, Corallian beds and Oxford Clay; in south Dorsetshire it rests upon the Wealden Series. The Gault (with Upper Greensand) passes on to the Jurassic and Rhaetic rocks near Axmouth, and oversteps farther westward, in the Haldon Hills, on to the Permian. A large outlier occurs on the Blackdown Hills of Devonshire. Good localities for fossils are Folkestone—where many of the shells are preserved with their original pearly nacre,—Burnham, Merstham, Isle of Wight, the Blackdown and Haldon Hills, Warminster, Hunstanton and Speeton, Black Venn near Lyme Regis, and Devizes (malmstone and gaize). The beds are well developed in the vale of Wardour, and in the Isle of Wight; the Gault forms the so-called “blue slipper” at Ventnor which has been the cause of the landslip or undercliff.
The Gault of north France is very similar to that in the south of England, but the French termAlbienincludes only a portion of the Selbornian formation. The Gault of north-west Germany embraces beds that would be classed asAlbienandAptienby French authors; it comprises the “Flammenmergel”—a pale siliceous marl shot with flame-shaped darker patches—a clay withBelemnites minimus, and the “Gargasmergel” (Aptian). In the Diester and Teutoberger Wald, and in the region of Halberstadt, the clays and marls are replaced by sandstones, the so-calledGault-Quader. Continental writers usually place the Gault or Albian at the summit of the Lower Cretaceous; while with English geologists the practice is to commence the Upper Cretaceous with this formation. In addition to the fossils already noticed, the following may be mentioned:Acanthoceras Desmoceras Beaudanti,Hoplites splendens,Hamites,Scaphites,Turrilites,Aporrhais retusa,Trigonia aliforme, alsoIchthyosaurusandOrnithocheirus(Pterodactyl). From the clays, bricks and tiles are made at Burham, Barnwell, Dunton Green, Arlesey, Hitchin, &c. The cherts in the Greensand portion are used for road metal, and in the Blackdown Hills, for scythe stones; hearthstone is obtained about Merstham; phosphatic nodules occur at several horizons.
SeeCretaceous System;Albian;Aptian; also A.J. Jukes-Browne, “The Gault and Upper Greensand of England.” vol. i.,Cretaceous Rocks of Britain;Mem. Geol. Survey, 1900.
GAUNTLET(a diminutive of the Fr.gant, glove), a large form of glove, and especially the steel-plated glove of medieval armour. To “run the gauntlet,”i.e.to run between two rows of men who, armed with sticks, rope-ends or other weapons, beat and strike at the person so running, was formerly a punishment for military and naval offences. It was abolished in the Prussian army by Scharnhorst. As a method of torturing prisoners, it was employed among the North American Indians. “Gauntlet” (earlier “gantlet”) in this expression is a corruption of “gantlope,” from a Swedishgatlope, fromgata, lane, andlopp, a course (cf. Ger.gassenlaufen, to run the gauntlet). According to theNew English Dictionarythe word became familiar in England at the time of the Thirty Years’ War.
GAUR, orLakhnauti, a ruined city of British India, in Malda district of Eastern Bengal and Assam. The ruins are situated about 8 m. to the south of English Bazar, the civil station of the district of Malda, and on the eastern bank of the Bhagirathi, an old channel of the Ganges. It is said to have been founded by Lakshman, and its most ancient name was Lakshmanavati, corrupted into Lakhnauti. Its known history begins with its conquest inA.D.1198 by the Mahommedans, who retained it as the chief seat of their power in Bengal for more than three centuries. When the Afghan kings of Bengal established their independence, they transferred their seat of government (about 1350) to Pandua (q.v.), also in Malda district, and to build their new capital they plundered Gaur of every monument that could be removed. When Pandua was in its turn deserted (A.D.1453), Gaur once more became the capital under thename of Jannatabad; it remained so as long as the Mahommedan kings retained their independence. InA.D.1564 Sulaiman Kirani, a Pathan adventurer, abandoned it for Tanda, a place somewhat nearer the Ganges. Gaur was sacked by Sher Shah in 1539, and was occupied by Akbar’s general in 1575, when Daud Shah, the last of the Afghan dynasty, refused to pay homage to the Mogul emperor. This occupation was followed by an outbreak of the plague, which completed the downfall of the city, and since then it has been little better than a heap of ruins, almost overgrown with jungle.
The city in its prime measured 7½ m. from north to south, with a breadth of 1 to 2 m. With suburbs it covered an area of 20 to 30 sq. m., and in the 16th century the Portuguese historian Faria y Sousa described it as containing 1,200,000 inhabitants. The ramparts of this walled city, which was surrounded by extensive suburbs, still exist; they were works of vast labour, and were on the average about 40 ft. high, and 180 to 200 ft. thick at the base. The facing of masonry and the buildings with which they were covered have now disappeared, and the embankments themselves are overgrown with dense jungle. The western side of the city was washed by the Ganges, and within the space enclosed by these embankments and the river stood the city of Gaur proper, with the fort containing the palace in its south-west corner. Radiating north, south and east from the city, other embankments are to be traced running through the suburbs and extending in certain directions for 30 or 40 m. Surrounding the palace is an inner embankment of similar construction to that which surrounds the city, and even more overgrown with jungle. A deep moat protects it on the outside. To the north of the outer enbankment lies the Sagar Dighi, a great reservoir, 1600 yds. by 800 yds., dating fromA.D.1126.
Fergusson in hisHistory of Eastern Architecturethus describes the general architectural style of Gaur:—“It is neither like that of Delhi nor Jaunpore, nor any other style, but one purely local and not without considerable merit in itself; its principal characteristic being heavy short pillars of stone supporting pointed arches and vaults in brick—whereas at Jaunpore, for instance, light pillars carried horizontal architraves and flat ceilings.” Owing to the lightness of the small, thin bricks, which were chiefly used in the making of Gaur, its buildings have not well withstood the ravages of time and the weather; while much of its enamelled work has been removed for the ornamentation of the surrounding cities of more modern origin. Moreover, the ruins long served as a quarry for the builders of neighbouring towns and villages, till in 1900 steps were taken for their preservation by the government. The finest ruin in Gaur is that of the Great Golden Mosque, also called Bara Darwaza, or twelve-doored (1526). An arched corridor running along the whole front of the original building is the principal portion now standing. There are eleven arches on either side of the corridor and one at each end of it, from which the mosque probably obtained its name. These arches are surmounted by eleven domes in fair preservation; the mosque had originally thirty-three.
The Small Golden or Eunuch’s mosque, in the ancient suburb of Firozpur, has fine carving, and is faced with stone fairly well preserved. The Tantipara mosque (1475-1480) has beautiful moulding in brick, and the Lotan mosque of the same period is unique in retaining its glazed tiles. The citadel, of the Mahommedan period, was strongly fortified with a rampart and entered through a magnificent gateway called the Dakhil Darwaza (? 1459-1474). At the south-east corner was a palace, surrounded by a wall of brick 66 ft. high, of which a part is standing. Near by were the royal tombs. Within the citadel is the Kadam Rasul mosque (1530), which is still used, and close outside is a tall tower called the Firoz Minar (perhaps signifying “tower of victory”). There are a number of Mahommedan buildings on the banks of the Sagar Dighi, including, notably, the tomb of the saint Makhdum Shaikh Akhi Siraj (d. 1357), and in the neighbourhood is a burning ghat, traditionally the only one allowed to the use of the Hindus by their Mahommedan conquerors, and still greatly venerated and frequented by them. Many inscriptions of historical importance have been found in the ruins.
See M. Martin (Buchanan Hamilton),Eastern India, vol. iii. (1831); G.H. Ravenshaw,Gaur(1878); James Fergusson,History of Indian and Eastern Architecture(1876);Reports of the Archaeological Surveyor, Bengal Circle(1900-1904).
See M. Martin (Buchanan Hamilton),Eastern India, vol. iii. (1831); G.H. Ravenshaw,Gaur(1878); James Fergusson,History of Indian and Eastern Architecture(1876);Reports of the Archaeological Surveyor, Bengal Circle(1900-1904).
GAUR, the native name of the wild ox,Bos(Bibos)gaurus, of India, miscalled bison by sportsmen. The gaur, which extends into Burma and the Malay Peninsula, where it is known as seladang, is the typical representative of an Indo-Malay group of wild cattle characterized by the presence of a ridge on the withers, the compressed horns, and the white legs. The gaur, which reaches a height of nearly 6 ft. at the shoulder, is specially characterized by the forward curve and great elevation of the ridge between the horns. The general colour is blackish-grey. Hill-forests are the resort of this species.
GAUSS, KARL FRIEDRICH(1777-1855), German mathematician, was born of humble parents at Brunswick on the 30th of April 1777, and was indebted for a liberal education to the notice which his talents procured him from the reigning duke. His name became widely known by the publication, in his twenty-fifth year (1801), of theDisquisitiones arithmeticae. In 1807 he was appointed director of the Göttingen observatory, an office which he retained to his death: it is said that he never slept away from under the roof of his observatory, except on one occasion, when he accepted an invitation from Baron von Humboldt to attend a meeting of natural philosophers at Berlin. In 1809 he published at Hamburg hisTheoria motus corporum coelestium, a work which gave a powerful impulse to the true methods of astronomical observation; and his astronomical workings, observations, calculations of orbits of planets and comets, &c., are very numerous and valuable. He continued his labours in the theory of numbers and other analytical subjects, and communicated a long series of memoirs to the Royal Society of Sciences (Königliche Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften) at Göttingen. His first memoir on the theory of magnetism,Intensitas vis magneticae terrestris ad mensuram absolutam revocata, was published in 1833, and he shortly afterwards proceeded, in conjunction with Wilhelm Weber, to invent new apparatus for observing the earth’s magnetism and its changes; the instruments devised by them were the declination instrument and the bifilar magnetometer. With Weber’s assistance he erected in 1833 at Göttingen a magnetic observatory free from iron (as Humboldt and F.J.D. Arago had previously done on a smaller scale), where he made magnetic observations, and from this same observatory he sent telegraphic signals to the neighbouring town, thus showing the practicability of an electromagnetic telegraph. He further instituted an association (Magnetischer Verein), composed at first almost entirely of Germans, whose continuous observations on fixed term-days extended from Holland to Sicily. The volumes of their publication,Resultate am den Beobachtungen des magnetischen Vereins, extend from 1836 to 1839; and in those for 1838 and 1839 are contained the two important memoirs by Gauss,Allgemeine Theorie des Erdmagnetismus, and the Allgemeine Lehrsätze—on the theory of forces attracting according to the inverse square of the distance. The instruments and methods thus due to him are substantially those employed in the magnetic observatories throughout the world. He co-operated in the Danish and Hanoverian measurements of an arc and trigonometrical operations (1821-1848), and wrote (1843, 1846) the two memoirsÜber Gegenstände der höheren Geodäsie. Connected with observations in general we have (1812-1826) the memoirTheoria combinationis observationum erroribus minimis obnoxia, with a second part and a supplement. Another memoir of applied mathematics is theDioptrische Untersuchungen(1840). Gauss was well versed in general literature and the chief languages of modern Europe, and was a member of nearly all the leading scientific societies in Europe. He died at Göttingen on the 23rd of February 1855. The centenary of his birth was celebrated (1877) at his native place, Brunswick.
Gauss’s collected works were published by the Royal Society of Göttingen, in 7 vols. 4to (Gött., 1863-1871), edited by E.J. Schering—(1)theDisquisitiones arithmeticae, (2)Theory of Numbers, (3)Analysis, (4)Geometry and Method of Least Squares, (5)Mathematical Physics, (6)Astronomy, and (7) theTheoria motus corporum coelestium. Additional volumes have since been published,Fundamente der Geometrie usw. (1900), andGeodatische Nachträge zu Band iv. (1903). They include, besides his various works and memoirs, notices by him of many of these, and of works of other authors in theGöttingen gelehrte Anzeigen, and a considerable amount of previously unpublished matter,Nachlass. Of the memoirs in pure mathematics, comprised for the most part in vols, ii., iii. and iv. (but to these must be added those onAttractionsin vol. v.), it may be safely said there is not one which has not signally contributed to the progress of the branch of mathematics to which it belongs, or which would not require to be carefully analysed in a history of the subject. Running through these volumes in order, we have in the second the memoir,Summatio quarundam serierum singularium, the memoirs on the theory of biquadratic residues, in which the notion of complex numbers of the forma+biwas first introduced into the theory of numbers; and included in theNachlassare some valuable tables. That for the conversion of a fraction into decimals (giving the complete period for all the prime numbers up to 997) is a specimen of the extraordinary love which Gauss had for long arithmetical calculations; and the amount of work gone through in the construction of the table of the number of the classes of binary quadratic forms must also have been tremendous. In vol. iii. we have memoirs relating to the proof of the theorem that every numerical equation has a real or imaginary root, the memoir on theHypergeometric Series, that onInterpolation, and the memoirDeterminatio attractionis—in which a planetary mass is considered as distributed over its orbit according to the time in which each portion of the orbit is described, and the question (having an implied reference to the theory of secular perturbations) is to find the attraction of such a ring. In the solution the value of an elliptic function is found by means of thearithmetico-geometrical mean. TheNachlasscontains further researches on this subject, and also researches (unfortunately very fragmentary) on the lemniscate-function, &., showing that Gauss was, even before 1800, in possession of many of the discoveries which have made the names of N.H. Abel and K.G.J. Jacobi illustrious. In vol. iv. we have the memoirAllgemeine Auflösung, on the graphical representation of one surface upon another, and theDisquisitiones generales circa superficies curvas. (An account of the treatment of surfaces which he originated in this paper will be found in the articleSurface.) And in vol. v. we have a memoirOn the Attraction of Homogeneous Ellipsoids, and the already mentioned memoirAllgemeine Lehrsätze, on the theory of forces attracting according to the inverse square of the distance.
Gauss’s collected works were published by the Royal Society of Göttingen, in 7 vols. 4to (Gött., 1863-1871), edited by E.J. Schering—(1)theDisquisitiones arithmeticae, (2)Theory of Numbers, (3)Analysis, (4)Geometry and Method of Least Squares, (5)Mathematical Physics, (6)Astronomy, and (7) theTheoria motus corporum coelestium. Additional volumes have since been published,Fundamente der Geometrie usw. (1900), andGeodatische Nachträge zu Band iv. (1903). They include, besides his various works and memoirs, notices by him of many of these, and of works of other authors in theGöttingen gelehrte Anzeigen, and a considerable amount of previously unpublished matter,Nachlass. Of the memoirs in pure mathematics, comprised for the most part in vols, ii., iii. and iv. (but to these must be added those onAttractionsin vol. v.), it may be safely said there is not one which has not signally contributed to the progress of the branch of mathematics to which it belongs, or which would not require to be carefully analysed in a history of the subject. Running through these volumes in order, we have in the second the memoir,Summatio quarundam serierum singularium, the memoirs on the theory of biquadratic residues, in which the notion of complex numbers of the forma+biwas first introduced into the theory of numbers; and included in theNachlassare some valuable tables. That for the conversion of a fraction into decimals (giving the complete period for all the prime numbers up to 997) is a specimen of the extraordinary love which Gauss had for long arithmetical calculations; and the amount of work gone through in the construction of the table of the number of the classes of binary quadratic forms must also have been tremendous. In vol. iii. we have memoirs relating to the proof of the theorem that every numerical equation has a real or imaginary root, the memoir on theHypergeometric Series, that onInterpolation, and the memoirDeterminatio attractionis—in which a planetary mass is considered as distributed over its orbit according to the time in which each portion of the orbit is described, and the question (having an implied reference to the theory of secular perturbations) is to find the attraction of such a ring. In the solution the value of an elliptic function is found by means of thearithmetico-geometrical mean. TheNachlasscontains further researches on this subject, and also researches (unfortunately very fragmentary) on the lemniscate-function, &., showing that Gauss was, even before 1800, in possession of many of the discoveries which have made the names of N.H. Abel and K.G.J. Jacobi illustrious. In vol. iv. we have the memoirAllgemeine Auflösung, on the graphical representation of one surface upon another, and theDisquisitiones generales circa superficies curvas. (An account of the treatment of surfaces which he originated in this paper will be found in the articleSurface.) And in vol. v. we have a memoirOn the Attraction of Homogeneous Ellipsoids, and the already mentioned memoirAllgemeine Lehrsätze, on the theory of forces attracting according to the inverse square of the distance.
(A. Ca.)
GAUSSEN, FRANÇOIS SAMUEL ROBERT LOUIS(1790-1863), Swiss Protestant divine, was born at Geneva on the 25th of August 1790. His father, Georg Markus Gaussen, a member of the council of two hundred, was descended from an old Languedoc family which had been scattered at the time of the religious persecutions in France. At the close of his university career at Geneva, Louis was in 1816 appointed pastor of the Swiss Reformed Church at Satigny near Geneva, where he formed intimate relations with J.E. Cellérier, who had preceded him in the pastorate, and also with the members of the dissenting congregation at Bourg-de-Four, which, together with the Église du témoignage, had been formed under the influence of the preaching of James and Robert Haldane in 1817. The Swiss revival was distasteful to the pastors of Geneva (Vénérable Compagnie des Pasteurs), and on the 7th of May 1817 they passed an ordinance hostile to it. As a protest against this ordinance, in 1819 Gaussen published in conjunction with Cellérier a French translation of the Second Helvetic Confession, with a preface expounding the views he had reached upon the nature, use and necessity of confessions of faith; and in 1830, for having discarded the official catechism of his church as being insufficiently explicit on the divinity of Christ, original sin and the doctrines of grace, he was censured and suspended by his ecclesiastical superiors. In the following year he took part in the formation of aSociété Évangélique(Evangelische Gesellschaft). When this society contemplated, among other objects, the establishment of a new theological college, he was finally deprived of his charge. After some time devoted to travel in Italy and England, he returned to Geneva and ministered to an independent congregation until 1834, when he joined Merle d’Aubigné as professor of systematic theology in the college which he had helped to found. This post he continued to occupy until 1857, when he retired from the active duties of the chair. He died at Les Grottes, Geneva, on the 18th of June 1863.
His best-known work, entitledLa Théopneustie ou pleine inspiration des saintes écritures, an elaborate defence of the doctrine of “plenary inspiration,” was originally published in Paris in 1840, and rapidly gained a wide popularity in France, as also, through translations, in England and America. It was followed in 1860 by a supplementary treatise on the canon (Le Canon des saintes écritures au double point de vue de la science et de la foi), which, though also popular, has hardly been so widely read.
See the article in Herzog-Hauck,Realencyklopädie(1899).
See the article in Herzog-Hauck,Realencyklopädie(1899).
GAUTIER, ÉMILE THÉODORE LÉON(1832-1897), French literary historian, was born at Hâvre on the 8th of August 1832. He was educated at the École des Chartes, and became successively keeper of the archives of the department of Haute-Marne and of the imperial archives at Paris under the empire. In 1871 he became professor of palaeography at the École des Chartes. He was elected member of the Academy of Inscriptions in 1887, and became chief of the historical section of the national archives in 1893. Léon Gautier rendered great services to the study of early French literature, the most important of his numerous works on medieval subjects being a critical text (Tours, 1872) with translation and introduction of theChanson de Roland, andLes Épopées françaises(3 vols., 1866-1867; 2nd ed., 5 vols., 1878-1897, including aBibliographie des chansons de geste). He died in Paris on the 25th of August 1897.
GAUTIER, THÉOPHILE(1811-1872), French poet and miscellaneous writer, was born at Tarbes on the 31st of August 1811. He was educated at the grammar school of that town, and afterwards at the Collège Charlemagne in Paris, but was almost as much in the studios. He very early devoted himself to the study of the older French literature, especially that of the 16th and the early part of the 17th century. This study qualified him well to take part in the Romantic movement, and enabled him to astonish Sainte-Beuve by the phraseology and style of some literary essays which, when barely eighteen years old, he put into the critic’s hands. In consequence of this introduction he at once came under the influence of the great Romanticcénacle, to which, as to Victor Hugo in particular, he was also introduced by his gifted but ill-starred schoolmate Gérard de Nerval. With Gérard, Petrus Borel, Corot, and many other less known painters and poets whose personalities he has delightfully sketched in the articles collected under the titles ofHistoire du Romantisme, &c., he formed a minor romantic clique who were distinguished for a time by the most extravagant eccentricity. A flaming crimson waistcoat and a great mass of waving hair were the outward signs which qualified Gautier for a chief rank among the enthusiastic devotees who attended the rehearsals ofHernaniwith red tickets marked “Hierro,” performed mocking dances round the bust of Racine, and were at all times ready to exchange word or blow with theperruquesandgrisâtresof the classical party. In Gautier’s case these freaks were not inconsistent with real genius and real devotion to sound ideals of literature. He began (like Thackeray, to whom he presents in other ways some striking points of resemblance) as an artist, but soon found that his true powers lay in another direction.
His first considerable poem,Albertus(1830), displayed a good deal of the extravagant character which accompanied rather than marked the movement, but also gave evidence of uncommon command both of language and imagery, and in particular of a descriptive power hardly to be excelled. The promise thus given was more than fulfilled in his subsequent poetry, which, in consequence of its small bulk, may well be noticed at once and by anticipation. TheComédie de la mort, which appeared soon after (1832), is one of the most remarkable of French poems, and though never widely read has received the suffrage of every competent reader. Minor poems of various dates, published in 1840, display an almost unequalled command over poetical form, an advance even overAlbertusin vigour, wealth and appropriateness of diction, and abundance of the special poetical essence. All these good gifts reached their climax in theÉmaux et camées, first published in 1856, and again, with additions, just before the poet’s death in 1872. These poems are in their own way such ascannot be surpassed. Gautier’s poetical work contains in little an expression of his literary peculiarities. There are, in addition to the peculiarities of style and diction already noticed, an extraordinary feeling and affection for beauty in art and nature, and a strange indifference to anything beyond this range, which has doubtless injured the popularity of his work.
But it was not, after all, as a poet that Gautier was to achieve either profit or fame. For the theatre, he had but little gift, and his dramatic efforts (if we except certain masques or ballets in which his exuberant and graceful fancy came into play) are by far his weakest. It was otherwise with his prose fiction. His first novel of any size, and in many respects his most remarkable work, wasMademoiselle de Maupin(1835). Unfortunately this book, while it establishes his literary reputation on an imperishable basis, was unfitted by its subject, and in parts by its treatment, for general perusal, and created, even in France, a prejudice against its author which he was very far from really deserving. During the years from 1833 onwards, his fertility in novels and tales was very great.Les Jeunes-France(1833), which may rank as a sort of proseAlbertusin some ways, displays the follies of the youthful Romantics in a vein of humorous and at the same time half-pathetic satire.Fortunio(1838) perhaps belongs to the same class.Jettatura, written somewhat later, is less extravagant and more pathetic. A crowd of minor tales display the highest literary qualities, and rank with Mérimée’s at the head of all contemporary works of the class. First of all must be mentioned the ghost-story ofLa Morte amoureuse, a gem of the most perfect workmanship. For many years Gautier continued to write novels.La Belle Jenny(1864) is a not very successful attempt to draw on his English experience, but the earlierMilitona(1847) is a most charming picture of Spanish life. InSpirite(1866) he endeavoured to enlist the fancy of the day for supernatural manifestations, and aRoman de la momie(1856) is a learned study of ancient Egyptian ways. His most remarkable effort in this kind, towards the end of his life, wasLe Capitaine Fracasse(1863), a novel, partly of the picaresque school, partly of that which Dumas was to make popular, projected nearly thirty years earlier, and before Dumas himself had taken to the style. This book contains some of the finest instances of his literary power.
Yet neither in poems nor in novels did the main occupation of Gautier as a literary man consist. He was early drawn to the more lucrative task of feuilleton-writing, and for more than thirty years he was among the most expert and successful practitioners of this art. Soon after the publication ofMademoiselle de Maupin, in which he had not been too polite to journalism, he became irrevocably a journalist. He was actually the editor ofL’Artistefor a time: but his chief newspaper connexions were withLa Pressefrom 1836 to 1854 and with theMoniteurlater. His work was mainly theatrical and art criticism. The rest of his life was spent either at Paris or in travels of considerable extent to Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Turkey, England, Algeria and Russia, all undertaken with a more or less definite purpose of book-making. Having absolutely no political opinions, he had no difficulty in accepting the Second Empire, and received from it considerable favours, in return for which, however, he in no way prostituted his pen, but remained a literary man pure and simple. He died on the 23rd of December 1872.
Accounts of his travels, criticisms of the theatrical and literary works of the day, obituary notices of his contemporaries and, above all, art criticism occupied him in turn. It has sometimes been deplored that this engagement in journalism should have diverted Gautier from the performance of more capital work in literature. Perhaps, however, this regret springs from a certain misconception. Gautier’s power was literary power pure and simple, and it is as evident in his slightest sketches and criticisms as inÉmaux et camées or La Morte amoureuse. On the other hand, his weakness, if he had a weakness, lay in his almost total indifference to the matters which usually supply subjects for art and therefore for literature. He has thus been accused of “lack of ideas” by those who have not cleared their own minds of cant; and in the recent set-back of the critical current against form and in favour of “philosophic” treatment, comment upon him has sometimes been unfavourable. But this injustice will, beyond all question, be redressed again. He was neither immoral, irreligious nor unduly subservient to despotism, but morals, religion and politics (to which we may add science and material progress) were matters of no interest to him. He was to all intents a humanist, as the word was understood in the 15th century. But he was a humorist as well, and this combination, joined to his singularly kindly and genial nature, saved him from some dangers and depravations as well as some absurdities to which the humanist temper is exposed. As time goes on it may be predicted that, though Gautier may not be widely read, yet his writings will never cease to be full of indescribable charm and of very definite instruction to men of letters. Besides those of his works which have been already cited, we may noticeUne Larme du diable(1839), a charming mixture of humour and tenderness;Les Grotesques(1844), a volume of early criticisms on some oddities of 17th-century literature;Caprices et zigzags(1845), miscellanies dealing in part with English life;Voyage en Espagne(1845),Constantinople(1854),Voyage en Russie(1866), brilliant volumes of travel;Ménagerie intime(1869) andTableaux de siège(1872), his two latest works, which display his incomparable style in its quietest but not least happy form.