Chapter 3

(A. R. C; F. R. H.)

1An arrangement acting similarly had been previously introduced by Borda.2Geodetic Survey of South Africa, vol. iii. (1905), p. viii;Les Nouveaux Appareils pour la mesure rapide des bases géod., par J. René Benoît et Ch. Éd. Guillaume (1906).3See a paper “On the Course of Geodetic Lines on the Earth’s Surface” in thePhil. Mag.1870; Helmert,Theorien der höheren Geodäsie, 1. 321.4Helmert, Theorien der höheren Geodäsie, 1. 232, 247.

1An arrangement acting similarly had been previously introduced by Borda.

2Geodetic Survey of South Africa, vol. iii. (1905), p. viii;Les Nouveaux Appareils pour la mesure rapide des bases géod., par J. René Benoît et Ch. Éd. Guillaume (1906).

3See a paper “On the Course of Geodetic Lines on the Earth’s Surface” in thePhil. Mag.1870; Helmert,Theorien der höheren Geodäsie, 1. 321.

4Helmert, Theorien der höheren Geodäsie, 1. 232, 247.

GEOFFREY, surnamedMartel(1006-1060), count of Anjou, son of the count Fulk Nerra (q.v.) and of the countess Hildegarde or Audegarde, was born on the 14th of October 1006. During his father’s lifetime he was recognized as suzerain by Fulk l’Oison (“the Gosling”), count of Vendôme, the son of his half-sister Adela. Fulk having revolted, he confiscated the countship, which he did not restore till 1050. On the 1st of January 1032 he married Agnes, widow of William the Great, duke of Aquitaine, and taking arms against William the Fat, eldest son and successor of William the Great, defeated him and took him prisoner at Mont-Couër near Saint-Jouin-de-Marnes on the 20th of September 1033. He then tried to win recognition as dukes of Aquitaine for the sons of his wife Agnes by William the Great, who were still minors, but Fulk Nerra promptly took up arms to defend his suzerain William the Fat, from whom he held the Loudunois andSaintonge in fief against his son. In 1036 Geoffrey Martel had to liberate William the Fat, on payment of a heavy ransom, but the latter having died in 1038, and the second son of William the Great, Odo, duke of Gascony, having fallen in his turn at the siege of Mauzé (10th of March 1039) Geoffrey made peace with his father in the autumn of 1039, and had his wife’s two sons recognized as dukes. About this time, also, he had interfered in the affairs of Maine, though without much result, for having sided against Gervais, bishop of Le Mans, who was trying to make himself guardian of the young count of Maine, Hugh, he had been beaten and forced to make terms with Gervais in 1038. In 1040 he succeeded his father in Anjou and was able to conquer Touraine (1044) and assert his authority over Maine (seeAnjou). About 1050 he repudiated Agnes, his first wife, and married Grécie, the widow of Bellay, lord of Montreuil-Bellay (before August 1052), whom he subsequently left in order to marry Adela, daughter of a certain Count Odo. Later he returned to Grécie, but again left her to marry Adelaide the German. When, however, he died on the 14th of November 1060, at the monastery of St Nicholas at Angers, he left no children, and transmitted the countship to Geoffrey the Bearded, the eldest of his nephews (see ANJOU).

See Louis Halphen,Le Comté d’Anjou au XIesiècle(Paris, 1906). A summary biography is given by Célestin Port,Dictionnaire historique, géographique et biographique de Maine-et-Loire(3 vols., Paris-Angers, 1874-1878), vol. ii. pp. 252-253, and a sketch of the wars by Kate Norgate,England under the Angevin Kings(2 vols., London, 1887), vol. i. chs. iii. iv.

(L. H.*)

GEOFFREY,surnamedPlantagenet[orPlantegenet] (1113-1151), count of Anjou, was the son of Count Fulk the Young and of Eremburge (or Arembourg of La Flèche); he was born on the 24th of August 1113. He is also called “le bel” or “the handsome,” and received the surname of Plantagenet from the habit which he is said to have had of wearing in his cap a sprig of broom (genêt). In 1127 he was made a knight, and on the 2nd of June 1129 married Matilda, daughter of Henry I. of England, and widow of the emperor Henry V. Some months afterwards he succeeded to his father, who gave up the countship when he definitively went to the kingdom of Jerusalem. The years of his government were spent in subduing the Angevin barons and in conquering Normandy (seeAnjou). In 1151, while returning from the siege of Montreuil-Bellay, he took cold, in consequence of bathing in the Loir at Château-du-Loir, and died on the 7th of September. He was buried in the cathedral of Le Mans. By his wife Matilda he had three sons: Henry Plantagenet, born at Le Mans on Sunday, the 5th of March 1133; Geoffrey, born at Argentan on the 1st of June 1134; and William Long-Sword, born on the 22nd of July 1136.

See Kate Norgate,England under the Angevin Kings(2 vols., London, 1887), vol. i. chs. v.-viii.; Célestin Port,Dictionnaire historique, géographique et biographique de Maine-et-Loire(3 vols., Paris-Angers, 1874-1878), vol. ii. pp. 254-256. A history of Geoffrey le Bel has yet to be written; there is a biography of him written in the 12th century by Jean, a monk of Marmoutier,Historia Gaufredi, ducis Normannorum et comitis Andegavorum, published by Marchegay et Salmon; “Chroniques des comtes d’Anjou” (Société de l’histoire de France, Paris, 1856), pp. 229-310.

(L. H.*)

GEOFFREY(1158-1186), duke of Brittany, fourth son of the English king Henry II. and his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, was born on the 23rd of September 1158. In 1167 Henry suggested a marriage between Geoffrey and Constance (d. 1201), daughter and heiress of Conan IV., duke of Brittany (d. 1171); and Conan not only assented, perhaps under compulsion, to this proposal, but surrendered the greater part of his unruly duchy to the English king. Having received the homage of the Breton nobles, Geoffrey joined his brothers, Henry and Richard, who, in alliance with Louis VII. of France, were in revolt against their father; but he made his peace in 1174, afterwards helping to restore order in Brittany and Normandy, and aiding the new French king, Philip Augustus, to crush some rebellious vassals. In July 1181 his marriage with Constance was celebrated, and practically the whole of his subsequent life was spent in warfare with his brother Richard. In 1183 he made peace with his father, who had come to Richard’s assistance; but a fresh struggle soon broke out for the possession of Anjou, and Geoffrey was in Paris treating for aid with Philip Augustus, when he died on the 19th of August 1186. He left a daughter, Eleanor, and his wife bore a posthumous son, the unfortunate Arthur.

GEOFFREY(c.1152-1212), archbishop of York, was a bastard son of Henry II., king of England. He was distinguished from his legitimate half-brothers by his consistent attachment and fidelity to his father. He was made bishop of Lincoln at the age of twenty-one (1173); but though he enjoyed the temporalities he was never consecrated and resigned the see in 1183. He then became his father’s chancellor, holding a large number of lucrative benefices in plurality. Richard nominated him archbishop of York in 1189, but he was not consecrated till 1191, or enthroned till 1194. Geoffrey, though of high character, was a man of uneven temper; his history in chiefly one of quarrels, with the see of Canterbury, with the chancellorWilliamLongchamp, with his half-brothers Richard and John, and especially with his canons at York. This last dispute kept him in litigation before Richard and the pope for many years. He led the clergy in their refusal to be taxed by John and was forced to fly the kingdom in 1207. He died in Normandy on the 12th of December 1212.

See Giraldus Cambrensis,Vita Galfridi; Stubbs’s prefaces toRoger de Hoveden, vols. iii. and iv. (Rolls Series).

(H. W. C. D.)

GEOFFREY DE MONTBRAY(d. 1093), bishop of Coutances (Constantiensis), a right-hand man of William the Conqueror, was a type of the great feudal prelate, warrior and administrator at need. He knew, says Orderic, more about marshalling mailed knights than edifying psalm-singing clerks. Obtaining, as a young man, in 1048, the see of Coutances, by his brother’s influence (seeMowbray), he raised from his fellow nobles and from their Sicilian spoils funds for completing his cathedral, which was consecrated in 1056. With bishop Odo, a warrior like himself, he was on the battle-field of Hastings, exhorting the Normans to victory; and at William’s coronation it was he who called on them to acclaim their duke as king. His reward in England was a mighty fief scattered over twelve counties. He accompanied William on his visit to Normandy (1067), but, returning, led a royal force to the relief of Montacute in September 1069. In 1075 he again took the field, leading with Bishop Odo a vast host against the rebel earl of Norfolk, whose stronghold at Norwich they besieged and captured.

Meanwhile the Conqueror had invested him with important judicial functions. In 1072 he had presided over the great Kentish suit between the primate and Bishop Odo, and about the same time over those between the abbot of Ely and his despoilers, and between the bishop of Worcester and the abbot of Ely, and there is some reason to think that he acted as a Domesday commissioner (1086), and was placed about the same time in charge of Northumberland. The bishop, who attended the Conqueror’s funeral, joined in the great rising against William Rufus next year (1088), making Bristol, with which (as Domesday shows) he was closely connected and where he had built a strong castle, his base of operations. He burned Bath and ravaged Somerset, but had submitted to the king before the end of the year. He appears to have been at Dover with William in January 1090, but, withdrawing to Normandy, died at Coutances three years later. In his fidelity to Duke Robert he seems to have there held out for him against his brother Henry, when the latter obtained the Cotentin.

See E.A. Freeman,Norman ConquestandWilliam Rufus; J.H. Round,Feudal England; and, for original authorities, the works of Orderic Vitalis and William of Poitiers, and of Florence of Worcester; the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; William of Malmesbury’sGesta pontificum, and Lanfranc’s works, ed. Giles; Domesday Book.

(J. H. R.)

GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH(d. 1154), bishop of St Asaph and writer on early British history, was born about the year 1100. Of his early life little is known, except that he received a liberal education under the eye of his paternal uncle, Uchtryd, who was at that time archdeacon, and subsequently bishop, of Llandaff. In 1129 Geoffrey appears at Oxford among the witnesses of an Oseney charter. He subscribes himself Geoffrey Arturus; from this we may perhaps infer that he had already begun his experiments in the manufacture of Celtic mythology. A first edition of hisHistoria Britonumwas in circulation by the year1139, although the text which we possess appears to date from 1147. This famous work, which the author has the audacity to place on the same level with the histories of William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon, professes to be a translation from a Celtic source; “a very old book in the British tongue” which Walter, archdeacon of Oxford, had brought from Brittany. Walter the archdeacon is a historical personage; whether his book has any real existence may be fairly questioned. There is nothing in the matter or the style of theHistoriato preclude us from supposing that Geoffrey drew partly upon confused traditions, partly on his own powers of invention, and to a very slight degree upon the accepted authorities for early British history. His chronology is fantastic and incredible; William of Newburgh justly remarks that, if we accepted the events which Geoffrey relates, we should have to suppose that they had happened in another world. William of Newburgh wrote, however, in the reign of Richard I. when the reputation of Geoffrey’s work was too well established to be shaken by such criticisms. The fearless romancer had achieved an immediate success. He was patronized by Robert, earl of Gloucester, and by two bishops of Lincoln; he obtained, about 1140, the archdeaconry of Llandaff “on account of his learning”; and in 1151 was promoted to the see of St Asaph.

Before his death theHistoria Britonumhad already become a model and a quarry for poets and chroniclers. The list of imitators begins with Geoffrey Gaimar, the author of theEstorie des Engles(c.1147), and Wace, whoseRoman de Brut(1155) is partly a translation and partly a free paraphrase of theHistoria. In the next century the influence of Geoffrey is unmistakably attested by theBrutof Layamon, and the rhyming English chronicle of Robert of Gloucester. Among later historians who were deceived by theHistoria Britonumit is only needful to mention Higdon, Hardyng, Fabyan (1512), Holinshed (1580) and John Milton. Still greater was the influence of Geoffrey upon those writers who, like Warner inAlbion’s England(1586), and Drayton inPolyolbion(1613), deliberately made their accounts of English history as poetical as possible. The stories which Geoffrey preserved or invented were not infrequently a source of inspiration to literary artists. The earliest English tragedy,Gorboduc(1565), theMirror for Magistrates(1587), and Shakespeare’s Lear, are instances in point. It was, however, the Arthurian legend which of all his fabrications attained the greatest vogue. In the work of expanding and elaborating this theme the successors of Geoffrey went as far beyond him as he had gone beyond Nennius; but he retains the credit due to the founder of a great school. Marie de France, who wrote at the court of Henry II., and Chrétien de Troyes, her French contemporary, were the earliest of the avowed romancers to take up the theme. The succeeding age saw the Arthurian story popularized, through translations of the French romances, as far afield as Germany and Scandinavia. It produced in England theRoman du Saint Graaland theRoman de Merlin, both from the pen of Robert de Borron; theRoman de Lancelot; theRoman de Tristan, which is attributed to a fictitious Lucas de Gast. In the reign of Edward IV. Sir Thomas Malory paraphrased and arranged the best episodes of these romances in English prose. HisMorte d’Arthur, printed by Caxton in 1485, epitomizes the rich mythology which Geoffrey’s work had first called into life, and gave the Arthurian story a lasting place in the English imagination. The influence of theHistoria Britonummay be illustrated in another way, by enumerating the more familiar of the legends to which it first gave popularity. Of the twelve books into which it is divided only three (Bks. IX., X., XI.) are concerned with Arthur. Earlier in the work, however, we have the adventures of Brutus; of his follower Corineus, the vanquisher of the Cornish giant Goemagol (Gogmagog); of Locrinus and his daughter Sabre (immortalized in Milton’sComus); of Bladud the builder of Bath; of Lear and his daughters; of the three pairs of brothers, Ferrex and Porrex, Brennius and Belinus, Elidure and Peridure. The story of Vortigern and Rowena takes its final form in theHistoria Britonum; and Merlin makes his first appearance in the prelude to the Arthur legend. Besides theHistoria BritonumGeoffrey is also credited with aLife of Merlincomposed in Latin verse. The authorship of this work has, however, been disputed, on the ground that the style is distinctly superior to that of theHistoria. A minor composition, theProphecies of Merlin, was written before 1136, and afterwards incorporated with theHistoria, of which it forms the seventh book.

For a discussion of the manuscripts of Geoffrey’s work, see Sir T.D. Hardy’sDescriptive Catalogue(Rolls Series), i. pp. 341 ff. TheHistoria Britonumhas been critically edited by San Marte (Halle, 1854). There is an English translation by J.A. Giles (London, 1842). TheVita Merlinihas been edited by F. Michel and T. Wright (Paris, 1837). See also theDublin Univ. Magazinefor April 1876, for an article by T. Gilray on the literary influence of Geoffrey; G. Heeger’sTrojanersage der Britten(1889); and La Borderie’sÉtudes historiques bretonnes(1883).

(H. W. C. D.)

GEOFFREY OF PARIS(d.c.1320), French chronicler, was probably the author of theChronique métrique de Philippe le Bel, or Chronique rimée de Geoffroi de Paris. This work, which deals with the history of France from 1300 to 1316, contains 7918 verses, and is valuable as that of a writer who had a personal knowledge of many of the events which he relates. Various short historical poems have also been attributed to Geoffrey, but there is no certain information about either his life or his writings.

TheChroniquewas published by J.A. Buchon in hisCollection des chroniques, tome ix. (Paris, 1827), and it has also been printed in tome xxii. of theRecueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France(Paris, 1865). See G. Paris,Histoire de la littérature française au moyen âge(Paris, 1890); and A. Molinier,Les Sources de l’histoire de France, tome iii. (Paris, 1903).

GEOFFREY THE BAKER(d.c.1360), English chronicler, is also called Walter of Swinbroke, and was probably a secular clerk at Swinbrook in Oxfordshire. He wrote aChronicon Angliae temporibus Edwardi II. et Edwardi III., which deals with the history of England from 1303 to 1356. From the beginning until about 1324 this work is based upon Adam Murimuth’sContinuatio chronicarum, but after this date it is valuable and interesting, containing information not found elsewhere, and closing with a good account of the battle of Poitiers. The author obtained his knowledge about the last days of Edward II. from William Bisschop, a companion of the king’s murderers, Thomas Gurney and John Maltravers. Geoffrey also wrote aChroniculumfrom the creation of the world until 1336, the value of which is very slight. His writings have been edited with notes by Sir E.M. Thompson as theChronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke(Oxford, 1889). Some doubt exists concerning Geoffrey’s share in the compilation of theVita et mors Edwardi II., usually attributed to Sir Thomas de la More, or Moor, and printed by Camden in hisAnglica scripta. It has been maintained by Camden and others that More wrote an account of Edward’s reign in French, and that this was translated into Latin by Geoffrey and used by him in compiling hisChronicon. Recent scholarship, however, asserts that More was no writer, and that theVita et morsis an extract from Geoffrey’sChronicon, and was attributed to More, who was the author’s patron. In the main this conclusion substantiates the verdict of Stubbs, who has published theVita et morsin hisChronicles of the reigns of Edward I. and Edward II.(London, 1883). The manuscripts of Geoffrey’s works are in the Bodleian library at Oxford.

GEOFFRIN, MARIE THÉRÈSE RODET(1699-1777), a Frenchwoman who played an interesting part in French literary and artistic life, was born in Paris in 1699. She married, on the 19th of July 1713, Pierre François Geoffrin, a rich manufacturer and lieutenant-colonel of the National Guard, who died in 1750. It was not till Mme Geoffrin was nearly fifty years of age that we begin to hear of her as a power in Parisian society. She had learned much from Mme de Tencin, and about 1748 began to gather round her a literary and artistic circle. She had every week two dinners, on Monday for artists, and on Wednesday for her friends the Encyclopaedists and other men of letters. She received many foreigners of distinction, Hume and Horace Walpole among others. Walpole spent much time in her society before he was finally attached to Mme du Deffand, and speaks of her in his letters as a model of common sense. She was indeed somewhat of a small tyrant in her circle. She had adopted the pose of an old woman earlier than necessary, and her coquetry, ifsuch it can be called, took the form of being mother and mentor to her guests, many of whom were indebted to her generosity for substantial help. Although her aim appears to have been to have theEncyclopédiein conversation and action around her, she was extremely displeased with any of her friends who were so rash as to incur open disgrace. Marmontel lost her favour after the official censure ofBélisaire, and her advanced views did not prevent her from observing the forms of religion. A devoted Parisian, Mme Geoffrin rarely left the city, so that her journey to Poland in 1766 to visit the king, Stanislas Poniatowski, whom she had known in his early days in Paris, was a great event in her life. Her experiences induced a sensible gratitude that she had been born “Française” and “particulière.” In her last illness her daughter, Thérèse, marquise de la Ferté Imbault, excluded her mother’s old friends so that she might die as a good Christian, a proceeding wittily described by the old lady: “My daughter is like Godfrey de Bouillon, she wished to defend my tomb from the infidels.” Mme Geoffrin died in Paris on the 6th of October 1777.

SeeCorrespondance inédite du roi Stanislas Auguste Poniatowski et de Madame Geoffrin, edited by the comte de Mouÿ (1875); P. de Ségur,Le Royaume de la rue Saint-Honoré, Madame Geoffrin et sa fille(1897); A. Tornezy,Un Bureau d’esprit au XVIIIesiècle: le salon de Madame Geoffrin(1895); and Janet Aldis,Madame Geoffrin, her Salon and her Times, 1750-1777(1905).

GEOFFROY, ÉTIENNE FRANÇOIS(1672-1731), French chemist, born in Paris on the 13th of February 1672, was first an apothecary and then practised medicine. After studying at Montpellier he accompanied Marshal Tallard on his embassy to London in 1698 and thence travelled to Holland and Italy. Returning to Paris he became professor of chemistry at the Jardin du Roi and of pharmacy and medicine at the Collège de France, and dean of the faculty of medicine. He died in Paris on the 6th of January 1731. His name is best known in connexion with his tables of affinities (tables des rapports), which he presented to the French Academy in 1718 and 1720. These were lists, prepared by collating observations on the actions of substances one upon another, showing the varying degrees of affinity exhibited by analogous bodies for different reagents, and they retained their vogue for the rest of the century, until displaced by the profounder conceptions introduced by C.L. Berthollet. Another of his papers dealt with the delusions of the philosopher’s stone, but nevertheless he believed that iron could be artificially formed in the combustion of vegetable matter. HisTractatus de materia medica, published posthumously in 1741, was long celebrated.

His brotherClaude Joseph, known as Geoffroy the younger (1685-1752), was also an apothecary and chemist who, having a considerable knowledge of botany, devoted himself especially to the study of the essential oils in plants.

GEOFFROY, JULIEN LOUIS(1743-1814), French critic, was born at Rennes in 1743. He studied in the school of his native town and at the Collège Louis le Grand in Paris. He took orders and fulfilled for some time the humble functions of an usher, eventually becoming professor of rhetoric at theCollège Mazarin. A bad tragedy, Caton, was accepted at theThéâtre Français, but was never acted. On the death of Élie Fréron in 1776 the other collaborators in theAnnée littéraireasked Geoffroy to succeed him, and he conducted the journal until in 1792 it ceased to appear. Geoffroy was a bitter critic of Voltaire and his followers, and made for himself many enemies. An enthusiastic royalist, he published with Fréron’s brother-in-law, the abbé Thomas Royou (1741-1792), a journal,L’Ami du roi(1790-1792), which possibly did more harm than good to the king’s cause by its ill-advised partisanship. During the Terror Geoffroy hid in the neighbourhood of Paris, only returning in 1799. An attempt to revive theAnnée littérairefailed, and Geoffroy undertook the dramatic feuilleton of theJournal des débats. His scathing criticisms had a success of notoriety, but their popularity was ephemeral, and the publication of them (5 vols., 1819-1820) asCours de littérature dramatiqueproved a failure. He was also the author of a perfunctoryCommentaireon the works of Racine prefixed to Lenormant’s edition (1808). He died in Paris on the 27th of February 1814.

GEOFFROY SAINT-HILAIRE, ÉTIENNE(1772-1844), French naturalist, was the son of Jean Gèrard Geoffroy, procurator and magistrate of Étampes, Seine-et-Oise, where he was born on the 15th of April 1772. Destined for the church he entered the college of Navarre, in Paris, where he studied natural philosophy under M.J. Brisson; and in 1788 he obtained one of the canonicates of the chapter of Sainte Croix at Étampes, and also a benefice. Science, however, offered him a more congenial career, and he gained from his father permission to remain in Paris, and to attend the lectures at the Collège de France and the Jardin des Plantes, on the condition that he should also read law. He accordingly took up his residence at Cardinal Lemoine’s college, and there became the pupil and soon the esteemed associate of Brisson’s friend, the abbé Haüy, the mineralogist. Having, before the close of the year 1790, taken the degree of bachelor in law, he became a student of medicine, and attended the lectures of A.F. de Fourcroy at the Jardin des Plantes, and of L.J.M. Daubenton at the Collège de France. His studies at Paris were at length suddenly interrupted, for, in August 1792, Haüy and the other professors of Lemoine’s college, as also those of the college of Navarre, were arrested by the revolutionists as priests, and confined in the prison of St Firmin. Through the influence of Daubenton and others Geoffroy on the 14th of August obtained an order for the release of Haüy in the name of the Academy; still the other professors of the two colleges, save C.F. Lhomond, who had been rescued by his pupil J.L. Tallien, remained in confinement. Geoffroy, foreseeing their certain destruction if they remained in the hands of the revolutionists, determined if possible to secure their liberty by stratagem. By bribing one of the officials at St Firmin, and disguising himself as a commissioner of prisons, he gained admission to his friends, and entreated them to effect their escape by following him. All, however, dreading lest their deliverance should render the doom of their fellow-captives the more certain, refused the offer, and one priest only, who was unknown to Geoffroy, left the prison. Already on the night of the 2nd of September the massacre of the proscribed had begun, when Geoffroy, yet intent on saving the life of his friends and teachers, repaired to St Firmin. At 4 o’clock on the morning of the 3rd of September, after eight hours’ waiting, he by means of a ladder assisted the escape of twelve ecclesiastics, not of the number of his acquaintance, and then the approach of dawn and the discharge of a gun directed at him warned him, his chief purpose unaccomplished, to return to his lodgings. Leaving Paris he retired to Étampes, where, in consequence of the anxieties of which he had lately been the prey, and the horrors which he had witnessed, he was for some time seriously ill. At the beginning of the winter of 1792 he returned to his studies in Paris, and in March of the following year Daubenton, through the interest of Bernardin de Saint Pierre, procured him the office of sub-keeper and assistant demonstrator of the cabinet of natural history, vacant by the resignation of B.G.E. Lacépède. By a law passed in June 1793, Geoffroy was appointed one of the twelve professors of the newly constituted museum of natural history, being assigned the chair of zoology. In the same year he busied himself with the formation of a menagerie at that institution.

In 1794 through the introduction of A.H. Tessier he entered into correspondence with Georges Cuvier, to whom, after the perusal of some of his manuscripts, he wrote: “Venez jouer parmi nous le rôle de Linné, d’un autre législateur de l’histoire naturelle.” Shortly after the appointment of Cuvier as assistant at the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, Geoffroy received him into his house. The two friends wrote together five memoirs on natural history, one of which, on the classification of mammals, puts forward the idea of the subordination of characters upon which Cuvier based his zoological system. It was in a paper entitled “Histoire des Makis, ou singes de Madagascar,” written in 1795, that Geoffroy first gave expression to his views on “the unity of organic composition,” the influence of which is perceptible in all his subsequent writings; nature, he observes, presents us with only one plan of construction, the same in principle, but varied in its accessory parts.

In 1798 Geoffroy was chosen a member of the great scientific expedition to Egypt, and on the capitulation of Alexandria in August 1801, he took part in resisting the claim made by the British general to the collections of the expedition, declaring that, were that demand persisted in, history would have to record that he also had burnt a library in Alexandria. Early in January 1802 Geoffroy returned to his accustomed labours in Paris. He was elected a member of the academy of sciences of that city in September 1807. In March of the following year the emperor, who had already recognized his national services by the award of the cross of the legion of honour, selected him to visit the museums of Portugal, for the purpose of procuring collections from them, and in the face of considerable opposition from the British he eventually was successful in retaining them as a permanent possession for his country. In 1809, the year after his return to France, he was made professor of zoology at the faculty of sciences at Paris, and from that period he devoted himself more exclusively than before to anatomical study. In 1818 he gave to the world the first part of his celebratedPhilosophie anatomique, the second volume of which, published in 1822, and subsequent memoirs account for the formation of monstrosities on the principle of arrest of development, and of the attraction of similar parts. When, in 1830, Geoffroy proceeded to apply to the invertebrata his views as to the unity of animal composition, he found a vigorous opponent in Georges Cuvier, and the discussion between them, continued up to the time of the death of the latter, soon attracted the attention of the scientific throughout Europe. Geoffroy, a synthesist, contended, in accordance with his theory of unity of plan in organic composition, that all animals are formed of the same elements, in the same number, and with the same connexions: homologous parts, however they differ in form and size, must remain associated in the same invariable order. With Goethe he held that there is in nature a law of compensation or balancing of growth, so that if one organ take on an excess of development, it is at the expense of some other part; and he maintained that, since nature takes no sudden leaps, even organs which are superfluous in any given species, if they have played an important part in other species of the same family, are retained as rudiments, which testify to the permanence of the general plan of creation. It was his conviction that, owing to the conditions of life, the same forms had not been perpetuated since the origin of all things, although it was not his belief that existing species are becoming modified. Cuvier, who was an analytical observer of facts, admitted only the prevalence of “laws of co-existence” or “harmony” in animal organs, and maintained the absolute invariability of species, which he declared had been created with a regard to the circumstances in which they were placed, each organ contrived with a view to the function it had to fulfil, thus putting, in Geoffroy’s considerations, the effect for the cause.

In July 1840 Geoffroy became blind, and some months later he had a paralytic attack. From that time his strength gradually failed him. He resigned his chair at the museum in 1841, and died at Paris on the 19th of June 1844.

Geoffroy wrote:Catalogue des mammifères du Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle(1813), not quite completed;Philosophie anatomique—t. i.,Des organes respiratoires(1818), and t. ii.,Des monstruosités humaines(1822);Système dentaire des mammifères et des oiseaux(1st pt., 1824);Sur le principe de l’unité de composition organique(1828);Cours de l’histoire naturelle des mammifères(1829);Principes de philosophie zoologique(1830);Études progressives d’un naturaliste(1835);Fragments biographiques(1832);Notions synthétiques, historiques et physiologiques de philosophie naturelle(1838), and other works; also part of theDescription de l’Égypte par la commission des sciences(1821-1830); and, with Frédéric Cuvier (1773-1838), a younger brother of G. Cuvier,Histoire naturelle des mammifères(4 vols., 1820-1842); besides numerous papers on such subjects as the anatomy of marsupials, ruminants and electrical fishes, the vertebrate theory of the skull, the opercula of fishes, teratology, palaeontology and the influence of surrounding conditions in modifying animal forms.SeeVie, travaux, et doctrine scientifique d’Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, par son fils M. Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire(Paris and Strasburg, 1847), to which is appended a list of Geoffroy’s works; and Joly, inBiog. universelle, t. xvi. (1856).

SeeVie, travaux, et doctrine scientifique d’Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, par son fils M. Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire(Paris and Strasburg, 1847), to which is appended a list of Geoffroy’s works; and Joly, inBiog. universelle, t. xvi. (1856).

GEOFFROY SAINT-HILAIRE, ISIDORE(1805-1861), French zoologist, son of the preceding, was born at Paris on the 16th of December 1805. In his earlier years he showed an aptitude for mathematics, but eventually he devoted himself to the study of natural history and of medicine, and in 1824 he was appointed assistant naturalist to his father. On the occasion of his taking the degree of doctor of medicine in September 1829, he read a thesis entitledPropositions sur la monstruosité, considérée chez l’homme et les animaux; and in 1832-1837 was published his great teratological work,Histoire générale et particulière des anomalies de l’organisation chez l’homme et les animaux, 3 vols. 8vo. with 20 plates. In 1829 he delivered for his father the second part of a course of lectures on ornithology, and during the three following years he taught zoology at the Athénée, and teratology at the École pratique. He was elected a member of the academy of sciences at Paris in 1833, was in 1837 appointed to act as deputy for his father at the faculty of sciences in Paris, and in the following year was sent to Bordeaux to organize a similar faculty there. He became successively inspector of the academy of Paris (1840), professor of the museum on the retirement of his father (1841), inspector-general of the university (1844), a member of the royal council for public instruction (1845), and on the death of H.M.D. de Blainville, professor of zoology at the faculty of sciences (1850). In 1854 he founded the Acclimatization Society of Paris, of which he was president. He died at Paris on the 10th of November 1861.

Besides the above-mentioned works, he wrote:Essais de zoologie générale(1841);Vie ... d’Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire(1847);Acclimatation et domestication des animaux utiles(1849; 4th ed., 1861);Lettres sur les substances alimentaires et particulièrement sur la viande de cheval(1856); andHistoire naturelle générale des règnes organiques(3 vols., 1854-1862), which was not quite completed. He was the author also of various papers on zoology, comparative anatomy and palaeontology.

GEOGRAPHY(Gr.γῆ, earth, andγράφειν, to write), the exact and organized knowledge of the distribution of phenomena on the surface of the earth. The fundamental basis of geography is the vertical relief of the earth’s crust, which controls all mobile distributions. The grander features of the relief of the lithosphere or stony crust of the earth control the distribution of the hydrosphere or collected waters which gather into the hollows, filling them up to a height corresponding to the volume, and thus producing the important practical division of the surface into land and water. The distribution of the mass of the atmosphere over the surface of the earth is also controlled by the relief of the crust, its greater or lesser density at the surface corresponding to the lesser or greater elevation of the surface. The simplicity of the zonal distribution of solar energy on the earth’s surface, which would characterize a uniform globe, is entirely destroyed by the dissimilar action of land and water with regard to radiant heat, and by the influence of crust-forms on the direction of the resulting circulation. The influence of physical environment becomes clearer and stronger when the distribution of plant and animal life is considered, and if it is less distinct in the case of man, the reason is found in the modifications of environment consciously produced by human effort. Geography is a synthetic science, dependent for the data with which it deals on the results of specialized sciences such as astronomy, geology, oceanography, meteorology, biology and anthropology, as well as on topographical description. The physical and natural sciences are concerned in geography only so far as they deal with the forms of the earth’s surface, or as regards the distribution of phenomena. The distinctive task of geography as a science is to investigate the control exercised by the crust-forms directly or indirectly upon the various mobile distributions. This gives to it unity and definiteness, and renders superfluous the attempts that have been made from time to time to define the limits which divide geography from geology on the one hand and from history on the other. It is essential to classify the subject-matter of geography in such a manner as to give prominence not only to facts, but to their mutual relations and their natural and inevitable order.

The fundamental conception of geography is form, includingthe figure of the earth and the varieties of crustal relief. Hence mathematical geography (seeMap), including cartography as a practical application, comes first. It merges into physical geography, which takes account of the forms of the lithosphere (geomorphology), and also of the distribution of the hydrosphere and the rearrangements resulting from the workings of solar energy throughout the hydrosphere and atmosphere (oceanography and climatology). Next follows the distribution of plants and animals (biogeography), and finally the distribution of mankind and the various artificial boundaries and redistributions (anthropogeography). The applications of anthropogeography to human uses give rise to political and commercial geography, in the elucidation of which all the earlier departments or stages have to be considered, together with historical and other purely human conditions. The evolutionary idea has revolutionized and unified geography as it did biology, breaking down the old hard-and-fast partitions between the various departments, and substituting the study of the nature and influence of actual terrestrial environments for the earlier motive, the discovery and exploration of new lands.

History of Geographical Theory

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