Chapter 17

(G. A. Gr.)

GUJRANWALA,a town and district of British India, in the Lahore division of the Punjab. The town is situated 40 m. N. of Lahore by rail. It is of modern growth, and owes its importance to the father and grandfather of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, whose capital it formed during the early period of the Sikh power. Pop. (1901) 29,224. There are manufactures of brass-ware, jewellery, and silk and cotton scarves.

TheDistrictcomprises an area of 3198 sq. m. In 1901 the population was 756,797, showing an increase of 29% in the decade. The district is divided between a low alluvial tract along the rivers Chenab and Degh and the upland between them, which forms the central portion of the Rechna Doab, intermediate between the fertile submontane plains of Sialkot and the desert expanses of Jhang. Part of the upland tract has been brought under cultivation by the Chenab canal. The country is very bare of trees, and the scenery throughout is tame and in the central plateau becomes monotonous. It seems likely that the district once contained the capital of the Punjab, at an epoch when Lahore had not begun to exist. We learn from the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, Hsuan Tsang, that about the year 630 he visited a town known as Tse-kia (or Taki), the metropolis of the whole country of the five rivers. A mound near the modern village of Asarur has been identified as the site of the ancient capital. Until the Mahommedan invasions little is known of Gujranwala, except that Taki had fallen into oblivion and Lahore had become the chief city. Under Mahommedan rule the district flourished for a time; but a mysterious depopulation fell upon the tract, and the whole region seems to have been almost entirely abandoned. On the rise of Sikh power, the waste plains of Gujranwala were seized by various military adventurers. Charat Singh took-possession of the village of Gujranwala, and here his grandson the great Maharaja Ranjit Singh was born. The Sikh rule, which was elsewhere so disastrous, appears to have been an unmitigated benefit to this district. Ranjit Singh settled large colonies in the various villages, and encouraged cultivation throughout the depopulated plain. In 1847 the district came under British influence in connexion with the regency at Lahore; and in 1849 it was included in the territory annexed after the second Sikh war. A large export trade is carried on in cotton, wheat and other grains. The district is served by the main line and branches of the North-Western railway.

GUJRAT,a town and district of British India, in the Rawalpindi division of the Punjab, lying on the south-western border of Kashmir. The town stands about 5 m. from the right bank of the river Chenab, 70 m. N. of Lahore by rail. Pop. (1901) 19,410. It is built upon an ancient site, formerly occupied, according to tradition, by two successive cities, the second of which is supposed to have been destroyed in 1303, the year of a Mongol invasion. More than 200 years later either Sher Shah or Akbar founded the existing town. Though standing in the midst of a Jat neighbourhood, the fort was first garrisoned by Gujars, and took the name of Gujrat. Akbar’s fort, largely improved by Gujar Singh, stands in the centre of the town. The neighbouring shrine of the saint Shah Daula serves as a kind of native asylum for lunatics. The town has manufactures of furniture, inlaid work in gold and iron, brass-ware, boots, cotton goods and shawls.

TheDistrict of Gujratcomprises a narrow wedge of sub-Himalayan plain country, possessing few natural advantages. From the basin of the Chenab on the south the general level rises rapidly towards the interior, which, owing to the great distance of the water beneath the surface, assumes a dreary and desert aspect. A range of low hills, known as the Pabbi, traverses the northern angle of Gujrat. They are composed of a friable Tertiary sandstone and conglomerate, destitute of vegetation, and presenting a mere barren chaos of naked rock, deeply scored with precipitous ravines. Immediately below the Pabbi stretches a high plateau, terminating abruptly in a precipitous bluff some 200 ft. in height. At the foot of this plateau is a plain, which forms the actual valley of the Chenab and participates in the irrigation from the river bed.

Numerous relics of antiquity stud the surface of the district. Mounds of ancient construction yield early coins, and bricks are found whose size and type prove them to belong to the prehistoric period. A mound now occupied by the village of Moga or Mong has been identified as the site of Nicaea, the city built by Alexander the Great on the field of his victory over Porus. The Delhi empire established its authority in this district under Bahlol Lodi (1451-1489). A century later it was visited by Akbar, who founded Gujrat as the seat of government. During the decay of the Mogul power, the Ghakkars of Rawalpindi overran this portion of the Punjab and established themselves in Gujrat about 1741. Meanwhile the Sikh power had been asserting itself in the eastern Punjab, and in 1765 the Ghakkar chief was defeated by Sirdar Gujar Singh, chief of the Bhangi confederacy. On his death, his son succeeded him, but after a few months’ warfare, in 1798, he submitted himself as vassal to the Maharaja Ranjit Singh. In 1846 Gujrat first came under the supervision of British officials. Two years later the district became the theatre for the important engagements which decided the event of the second Sikh war. After several bloody battles in which the British were unsuccessful, the Sikh power was irretrievably broken at the engagement which took place at Gujrat on the 22nd of February 1849. The Punjab then passed by annexation under British rule.

The district comprises an area of 2051 sq. m. In 1901 the population was 750,548, showing a decrease of 1%, compared with an increase of 10% in the previous decade. The district has a large export trade in wheat and other grains, oil, wool, cotton and hides. The main line and the Sind-Sagar branch of the North-Western railway traverse it.

GULA,a Babylonian goddess, the consort of Ninib. She is identical with another goddess, known as Bau, though it would seem that the two were originally independent. The name Bau is more common in the oldest period and gives way in the post-Khammurabic age to Gula. Since it is probable that Ninib (q.v.) has absorbed the cults of minor sun-deities, the two names may represent consorts of different gods. However this may be, the qualities of both are alike, and the two occur as synonymous designations of Ninib’s female consort. Other names borne by this goddess are Nin-Karrak, Ga-tum-dug and Nin-din-dug, the latter signifying “the lady who restores to life.” The designation well emphasizes the chief trait of Bau-Gula which is that of healer. She is often spoken of as “the great physician,” and accordingly plays a specially prominent rôle in incantations and incantation rituals intended to relieve those suffering from disease. She is, however, also invoked to curse those who trample upon the rights of rulers or those who do wrong with poisonous potions. As in the case of Ninib, the cult of Bau-Gula is prominent in Shirgulla and in Nippur. While generally in close association with her consort, she is also invoked by herself, and thus retains a larger measure of independence than most of the goddesses of Babylonia and Assyria. She appears in a prominent position on the designs accompanying the Kudurrus boundary-stone monuments of Babylonia, being represented by a statue, when other gods and goddesses are merely pictured by their shrines, by sacred animals or by weapons. In neo-Babylonian days her cult continues to occupy a prominent position, and Nebuchadrezzar II. speaks of no less than three chapels or shrines within the sacred precincts of E-Zida in the city of Borsippa, besides a temple in her honour at Babylon.

(M. Ja.)

GULBARGA,an ancient city of India, situated in the Nizam’s dominions, 70 m. S.E. of Sholapur. Pop. (1901) 29,228. Originally a Hindu city, it was made the capital of the Bahmani kings when that dynasty established their independence in the Deccan in 1347, and it remained such until 1422. The palaces, mosques and tombs of these kings still stand half-ruined. The most notable building is a mosque modelled after that of Cordovain Spain, covering an area of 38,000 sq. ft., which is almost unique in India as being entirely covered in. Since the opening of a station on the Great India Peninsula railway, Gulbarga has become a centre of trade, with cotton-spinning and weaving mills. It is also the headquarters of a district and division of the same name. The district, as recently reconstituted, has an area of 6004 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 1,041,067.

GULF STREAM,1the name properly applied to the stream current which issues from the Gulf of Mexico and flows north-eastward, following the eastern coast of North America, and separated from it by a narrow strip of cold water (theCold Wall), to a point east of the Grand Banks off Newfoundland. The Gulf Stream is a narrow, deep current, and its velocity is estimated at about 80 m. a day. It is joined by, and often indistinguishable from, a large body of water which comes from outside the West Indies and follows the same course. The term was formerly applied to the drift current which carries the mixed waters of the Gulf Stream and the Labrador current eastwards across the Atlantic. This is now usually known as the “Gulf Stream drift,” although the name is not altogether appropriate. See Atlantic.

1The word “gulf,” a portion of the sea partially enclosed by the coast-line, and usually taken as referring to a tract of water larger than a bay and smaller than a sea, is derived through the Fr.golfe, from Late Gr.κόλφος, class. Gr.κόλπος, bosom, hence bay, cf. Lat. sinus. In University slang, the term is used of the position of those who fail to obtain a place in the honours list at a public examination, but are allowed a “pass.”

GULFWEED,in botany, a popular name for the seaweedSargassum bacciferum, one of the brown seaweeds (Phaeophyceae), large quantities of which are found floating in the Gulf of Mexico, whence it is carried northwards by the Gulf Stream, small portions sometimes being borne as far as the coasts of the British Isles. It was observed by Columbus, and is remarkable among seaweeds for its form, which resembles branches bearing leaves and berries; the latter, to which the species-namebacciferumrefers, are hollow floats answering the same purpose as the bladders in another brown seaweed,Fucus vesiculosus, which is common round the British Isles between high and low water.

GULL, SIR WILLIAM WITHEY,1st Bart. (1816-1890), English physician, was the youngest son of John Gull, a barge-owner and wharfinger of Thorpe-le-Soken, Essex, and was born on the 31st of December 1816 at Colchester. He began life as a schoolmaster, but in 1837 Benjamin Harrison, the treasurer of Guy’s Hospital, who had noticed his ability, brought him up to London from the school at Lewes where he was usher, and gave him employment at the hospital, where he also gained permission to attend the lectures. In 1843 he was made a lecturer in the medical school of the hospital, in 1851 he was chosen an assistant physician, and in 1856 he became full physician. In 1847 he was elected Fullerian professor of physiology in the Royal Institution, retaining the post for the usual three years, and in 1848 he delivered the Gulstonian Lectures at the College of Physicians, where he filled every office of honour but that of president. He died in London on the 29th of January 1890 after a series of paralytic strokes, the first of which had occurred nearly three years previously. He was created a baronet in 1872, in recognition of the skill and care he had shown in attending the prince of Wales during his attack of typhoid in 1871. Sir William Gull’s fame rested mainly on his success as a clinical practitioner; as he said himself, he was “a clinical physician or nothing.” This success must be largely ascribed to his remarkable powers of observation, and to the great opportunities he enjoyed for gaining experience of disease. He was sometimes accused of being a disbeliever in drugs. That was not the case, for he prescribed drugs like other physicians when he considered them likely to be beneficial. He felt, however, that their administration was only a part of the physician’s duties, and his mental honesty and outspokenness prevented him from deluding either himself or his patients with unwarranted notions of what they can do. But though he regarded medicine as primarily an art for the relief of physical suffering, he was far from disregarding the scientific side of his profession, and he made some real contributions to medical science. His papers were printed chiefly inGuy’s Hospital Reportsand in the proceedings of learned societies: among the subjects he wrote about were cholera, rheumatic fever, taenia, paraplegia and abscess of the brain, while he distinguished for the first time (1873) the disease now known as myxoedema, describing it as a “cretinoid state in adults.”

GULL(Welshgwylan, Breton,goelann, whence Fr.goêland), the name commonly adopted, to the almost entire exclusion of the O. Eng.Mew(Icel.máfur, Dan.maage, Swedishmåse, Ger.Meve, Dutchmeeuw, Fr.mouette), for a group of sea-birds widely and commonly known, all belonging to the genusLarusof Linnaeus, which subsequent systematists have broken up in a very arbitrary and often absurd fashion. The familyLaridaeis composed of two chief groups,LarinaeandSterninae—the gulls and the terns, though two other subfamilies are frequently counted, the skuas (Stercorariinae), and that formed by the single genusRhynchops, the skimmers; but there seems no strong reason why the former should not be referred to theLarinaeand the latter to theSterninae.

Taking the gulls in their restricted sense, Howard Saunders, who has subjected the group to a rigorous revision (Proc. Zool. Society, 1878, pp. 155-211), admits forty-nine species of them, which he places in five genera instead of the many which some prior investigators had sought to establish. Of the genera recognized by him,PagophilaandRhodostethiahave but one species each,RissaandXematwo, while the rest belong toLarus. ThePagophilais the so-called ivory-gull,P. eburnea, names which hardly do justice to the extreme whiteness of its plumage, to which its jet-black legs offer a strong contrast. The young, however, are spotted with black. An inhabitant of the most northern seas, examples, most commonly young birds of the year, find their way in winter to more temperate shores. Its breeding-place has seldom been discovered, and the first of its eggs ever seen by ornithologists was brought home by Sir L. M’Clintock in 1853 from Cape Krabbe (Journ. R. Dubl. Society, i. 60, pl. 1); others were subsequently obtained by Dr Malmgren in Spitsbergen. Of the species ofRissa, one is the abundant and well-known kittiwake,R. tridactyla, of circumpolar range, breeding, however, also in comparatively low latitudes, as on the coasts of Britain, and in winter frequenting southern waters. The other isR. brevirostris, limited to the North Pacific, between Alaska and Kamchatka. The singular fact requires to be noticed that in both these species the hind toe is generally deficient, but that examples of each are occasionally found in which this functionless member has not wholly disappeared. We have then the genusLarus, which ornithologists have attempted most unsuccessfully to subdivide. It contains the largest as well as the smallest of gulls. In some species the adults assume a dark-coloured head every breeding-season, in others any trace of dark colour is the mark of immaturity. The larger species prey fiercely on other kinds of birds, while the smaller content themselves with a diet of small animals, often insects and worms. But however diverse be the appearance, structure or habits of the extremities of the series of species, they are so closely connected by intermediate forms that it is hard to find a gap between them that would justify a generic division. Forty-three species of this genus are recognized by Saunders. About fifteen belong to Europe and fourteen to North America, of which (excluding stragglers) some five only are common to both countries. Our knowledge of the geographical distribution of several of them is still incomplete. Some have a very wide range, others very much the reverse, as witnessL. fuliginosus, believed to be confined to the Galapagos, andL. scopulinusandL. bullerito New Zealand,—the last indeed perhaps only to the South Island. The largest species of the group are the glaucous gull and greater black-backed gull,L. glaucusandL. marinus, of which the former is circumpolar, and the latter nearly so—not being hitherto found between Labrador and Japan. The smallest species is the EuropeanL. minutus, though the North AmericanL. Philadelphiadoes not much exceed it in size. Many of the gulls congregate in vast numbers to breed, whether on rocky cliffs of the sea-coastor on healthy islands in inland waters. Some of the settlements of the black-headed or “peewit” gull,L. ridibundus, are a source of no small profit to their proprietors,—the eggs, which are rightly accounted a great delicacy, being taken on an orderly system up to a certain day, and the birds carefully protected. Ross’s or the roseate gull,Rhodostethia rosea, forms a well-marked genus, distinguished not so much by the pink tint of its plumage (for that is found in other species) but by its small dove-like bill and wedge-shaped tail. It is an exceedingly scarce bird, and beyond its having an Arctic habitat, little has yet been ascertained about it. More rare still is one of the species ofXema,X. furcatum, of which only two specimens, both believed to have come from the Galapagos, have been seen. Its smaller congener Sabine’s gull,X. sabinii, is more common, and has been found breeding both in Arctic America and in Siberia, and several examples, chiefly immature birds, have been obtained in the British islands. Both species ofXemaare readily distinguished from all other gulls by their forked tails.

(A. N.)

GULLY, JOHN(1783-1863), English sportsman and politician, was born at Wick, near Bath, on the 21st of August 1783, the son of an innkeeper. He came into prominence as a boxer, and in 1805 he was matched against Henry Pearce, the “Game Chicken,” before the duke of Clarence (afterwards William IV.) and numerous other spectators, and after fighting sixty-four rounds, which occupied an hour and seventeen minutes, was beaten. In 1807 he twice fought Bob Gregson, the Lancashire giant, for two hundred guineas a side, winning on both occasions. As the landlord of the “Plough” tavern in Carey Street, London, be retired from the ring in 1808, and took to horse-racing. In 1827 he lost £40,000 by backing his horse “Mameluke” (for which he had paid four thousand guineas) for the St Leger. In partnership with Robert Ridskale, in 1832, he made £85,000 by winning the Derby and St Leger with “St Giles” and “Margrave.” In partnership with John Day he won the Two Thousand Guineas with “Ugly Buck” in 1844, and two years later he took the Derby and the Oaks with “Pyrrhus the First” and “Mendicant,” in 1854 the Two Thousand Guineas with “Hermit,” and in the same year, in partnership with Henry Padwick, the Derby with “Andover.” Having bought Ackworth Park near Pontefract he was M.P. from December 1832 to July 1837. In 1862 he purchased the Wingate Grange estate and collieries. Gully was twice married and had twelve children by each wife. He died at Durham on the 9th of March 1863. He appears to have been no relation of the subsequent Speaker, Lord Selby.

GULPÁÏGÁN(Jerbádegánof the Arab geographers), a district and city in Central Persia, situated N.W. of Isfahán and S.E. of Irák. Together with Khunsár it forms a small province, paying a yearly revenue of about £6000. The city of Gulpáïgán is situated 87 m. N.W. of Isfahán, at an elevation of 5875 ft. in 33° 24′ N. and 50° 20′ E., and has a population of about 5000. The district is fertile and produces much grain and some opium. Sometimes it is under the governor-general of the Isfahán province, at others it forms part of the province of Irák, and at times, as in 1906, is under a governor appointed from Teheran.

GUM(Fr.gomme, Lat.gommi, Gr.κόμμι, possibly a Coptic word; distinguish “gum,” the fleshy covering of the base of a tooth, in O. Eng.góma, palate, cf. Ger.Gaumen, roof of the mouth; the ultimate origin is probably the rootgha, to open wide, seen in Gr.χαίνειν, to gape, cf. “yawn”), the generic name given to a group of amorphous carbo-hydrates of the general formula (C6H10O5)n, which exist in the juices of almost all plants, and also occur as exudations from stems, branches and fruits of plants. They are entirely soluble or soften in water, and form with it a thick glutinous liquid or mucilage. They yield mucic and oxalic acids when treated with nitric acid. In structure the gums are quite amorphous, being neither organized like starch nor crystallized like sugar. They are odourless and tasteless, and some yield clear aqueous solutions—the real gums—while others swell up and will not percolate filter paper—the vegetable mucilages. The acacias and the Rosaceae yield their gums most abundantly when sickly and in an abnormal state, caused by a fulness of sap in the young tissues, whereby the new cells are softened and finally disorganized; the cavities thus formed fill with liquid, which exudes, dries and constitutes the gum.

Gum arabicmay be taken as the type of the gums entirely soluble in water. Another variety, obtained from theProsopis dulcis, a leguminous plant, is called gum mesquite or mezquite; it comes from western Texas and Mexico, and is yellowish in colour, very brittle and quite soluble in water.

Gum arabic occurs in pieces of varying size, and some kinds are full of minute cracks. The specific gravity of Turkey picked gum (the purest variety) is 1.487, or, when dried at 100° C., 1.525. It is soluble in water to an indefinite extent; boiled with dilute sulphuric acid it is converted into the sugar galactose. Moderately strong nitric acid changes it into mucic, saccharic, tartaric and oxalic acids. Under the influence of yeast it does not enter into the alcoholic fermentation, but M. P. E. Berthelot, by digesting with chalk and cheese, obtained from it 12% of its weight of alcohol, along with calcium lactate, but no appreciable quantity of sugar. Gum arabic may be regarded as a potassium and calcium salt of gummic or arabic acid. T. Graham (Chemical and Physical Researches) recommended dialysis as the best mode of preparing gummic acid, and stated that the power of gum to penetrate the parchment septum is 400 times less than that of sodium chloride, and, further, that by mixing the gum with substances of the crystalloid class the diffusibility is lowered, and may be even reduced to nothing. The mucilage must be acidulated with hydrochloric acid before dialysing, to set free the gummic acid. By adding alcohol to the solution, the acid is precipitated as a white amorphous mass, which becomes glassy at 100°. Its formula is (C6H10O5)2H2O, and it forms compounds with nearly all bases which are easily soluble in water. Gummic acid reddens litmus, its reaction being about equal to carbonic acid. When solutions of gum arabic and gelatin are mixed, oily drops of a compound of the two are precipitated, which on standing form a nearly colourless jelly, melting at 25° C., or by the heat of the hand. This substance can be washed without decomposition. Gummic acid is soluble in water; when well dried at 100° C., it becomes transformed into metagummic acid, which is insoluble, but swells up in water like gum tragacanth.Gum arabic, when heated to 150° C. with two parts of acetic anhydride, swells up to a mass which, when washed with boiling water, and then with alcohol, gives a white amorphous insoluble powder called acetyl arabin C6H8(C2H3O)2O5. It is saponified by alkalies, with reproduction of soluble gum. Gum arabic is not precipitated from solution by alum, stannous chloride, sulphate or nitrate of copper, or neutral lead acetate; with basic lead acetate it forms a white jelly, with ferric chloride it yields a stiff clear gelatinoid mass, and its solutions are also precipitated by borax.

Gum arabic, when heated to 150° C. with two parts of acetic anhydride, swells up to a mass which, when washed with boiling water, and then with alcohol, gives a white amorphous insoluble powder called acetyl arabin C6H8(C2H3O)2O5. It is saponified by alkalies, with reproduction of soluble gum. Gum arabic is not precipitated from solution by alum, stannous chloride, sulphate or nitrate of copper, or neutral lead acetate; with basic lead acetate it forms a white jelly, with ferric chloride it yields a stiff clear gelatinoid mass, and its solutions are also precipitated by borax.

The finer varieties are used as an emollient and demulcent in medicine, and in the manufacture of confectionery; the commoner qualities are used as an adhesive paste, for giving lustre to crape, silk, &c., in cloth finishing to stiffen the fibres, and in calico-printing. For labels, &c., it is usual to mix sugar or glycerin with it to prevent it from cracking.

Gum senegal, a variety of gum arabic produced byAcacia Verek, occurs in pieces generally rounded, of the size of a pigeon’s egg, and of a reddish or yellow colour, and specific gravity 1.436. It gives with water a somewhat stronger mucilage than gum arabic, from which it is distinguished by its clear interior, fewer cracks and greater toughness. It is imported from the river Gambia, and from Senegal and Bathurst.

Chagual gum, a variety brought from Santiago, Chile, resembles gum senegal. About 75% is soluble in water. Its solution is not thickened by borax, and is precipitated by neutral lead acetate; and dilute sulphuric acid converts it intod-glucose.

Gum tragacanth, familiarly called gum dragon, exudes from the stem, the lower part especially, of the various species ofAstragalus, especiallyA. gummifer, and is collected in Asia Minor, the chief port of shipment being Smyrna. Formerly only what exuded spontaneously was gathered; this was often of a brownish colour; but now the flow of the gum is aided by incisions cut near the root, and the product is the fine, white, flaky variety so much valued in commerce. The chief flow of gum takes place during the night, and hot and dry weather is the most favourable for its production.

In colour gum tragacanth is of a dull white; it occurs in horny, flexible and tough, thin, twisted flakes, translucent, and with peculiar wavy lines on the surface. When dried at temperatures under 100° C. it loses about 14% of water, and is then easily powdered. Its specific gravity is 1.384. With water it swells by absorption, andwith even fifty times its weight of that liquid forms a thick mucilage. Part of it only is soluble in water, and that resembles gummic acid in being precipitated by alcohol and ammonium oxalate, but differs from it in giving a precipitate with neutral lead acetate and none with borax. The insoluble part of the gum is a calcium salt of bassorin (C12H20O10), which is devoid of taste and smell, forms a gelatinoid mass with water, but by continued boiling is rendered soluble.

Gum tragacanth is used in calico-printing as a thickener of colours and mordants; in medicine as a demulcent and vehicle for insoluble powders, and as an excipient in pills; and for setting and mending beetles and other insect specimens. It is medicinally superior to gum acacia, as it does not undergo acetous fermentation. The best pharmacopeial preparation is theMucilago Tragacanthae. The compound powder is a useless preparation, as the starch it contains is very liable to ferment.

Gum kuteera resembles in appearance gum tragacanth, for which the attempt has occasionally been made to substitute it. It is said to be the product ofSterculia urens, a plant of the natural order Sterculiaceae.

Cherry tree gumis an exudation from trees of the generaPrunusandCerasus. It occurs in shiny reddish lumps, resembling the commoner kinds of gum arabic. With water, in which it is only partially soluble, it forms a thick mucilage. Sulphuric acid converts it into l-arabinose; and nitric acid oxidizes it to oxalic acid (without the intermediate formation of mucic acid as in the case of gum arabic).

Gum of Bassora, from Bassora or Bussorah in Asia, is sometimes imported into the London market under the name of the hog tragacanth. It is insipid, crackles between the teeth, occurs in variable-sized pieces, is tough, of a yellowish-white colour, and opaque, and has properties similar to gum tragacanth. Its specific gravity is 1.36. It contains only 1% of soluble gum or arabin. Under the name of Caramania gum it is mixed with inferior kinds of gum tragacanth before exportation.

Mucilage.—Very many seeds, roots, &c., when infused in boiling water, yield mucilages which, for the most part, consist of bassorin. Linseed, quince seed and marshmallow root yield it in large quantity. In their reactions the different kinds of mucilage present differences;e.g.quince seed yields only oxalic acid when treated with nitric acid, and with a solution of iodine in zinc iodide it gives, after some time, a beautiful red tint. Linseed does not give the latter reaction; by treatment with boiling nitric acid it yields mucic and oxalic acids.

Gum Resins.—This term is applied to the inspissated milky juices of certain plants, which consist of gum soluble in water, resin and essential oil soluble in alcohol, other vegetable matter and a small amount of mineral matter. They are generally opaque and solid, and often brittle. When finely powdered and rubbed down with water they form emulsions, the undissolved resin being suspended in the gum solution. Their chief uses are in medicine. Examples are ammoniacum, asafetida, bdellium, euphorbium, gamboge, myrrh, sagapanum and scammony.

GÜMBEL, KARL WILHELM VON,Baron(1823-1898), German geologist, was born at Dannenfels, in the Palatinate of the Rhine, on the 11th of February 1823, and is known chiefly by his researches on the geology of Bavaria. He received a practical and scientific education in mining at Munich and Heidelberg, taking the degree of Ph.D. at Munich in 1862; and he was engaged for a time at the colliery of St Ingbert and as a surveyor in that district. In 1851, when the Geological Survey of Bavaria was instituted, Gümbel was appointed chief geologist; in 1863 he was made honorary professor of geognosy and surveying at the university of Munich, and in 1879, Oberberg director of the Bavarian mining department with which the Geological Survey was incorporated. His geological map of Bavaria appeared in 1858, and the official memoir descriptive of the detailed work, entitledGeognostische Beschreibung des Königreichs Bayernwas issued in three parts (1861, 1868 and 1879). He subsequently published hisGeologie von Bayernin 2 vols. (1884-1894), an elaborate treatise on geology, with special reference to the geology of Bavaria. In the course of his long and active career he engaged in much palaeontological work: he studied the fauna of the Trias, and in 1861 introduced the term Rhaetic for the uppermost division of that system; he supported at first the view of the organic nature ofEozoon(1866 and 1876), he devoted special attention to Foraminifera, and described those of the Eocene strata of the northern Alps (1868); he dealt also with Receptaculites (1875) which he regarded as a genus belonging to the Foraminifera. He died on the 18th of June 1898.

GUMBINNEN,a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of East Prussia, on the Pissa, an affluent of the Pregel, 22 m. by rail S.W. of Eydtkuhnen on the line to Königsberg. Pop. (1905), 14,194. The surrounding country is pleasant and fruitful, and the town has spacious and regular streets shaded by linden trees. It has a Roman Catholic and three Evangelical churches, a synagogue, a gymnasium, two public schools, a public library, a hospital and an infirmary. In the market square there is a statue of the king of Prussia Frederick William I., who in 1724 raised Gumbinnen to the rank of a town, and in 1732 brought to it a number of persons who had been driven from Salzburg by religious persecution. On the bridge over the Pissa a monument has been erected to the soldiers from the neighbourhood who fell in the Franco-German war of 1870-71. Iron founding and the manufacture of machinery, wool, cotton, and linen weaving, stocking-making, tanning, brewing and distilling are the principal industries. There are horse and cattle markets, and some trade in corn and linseed.

See J. Schneider,Aus Gumbinnens Vergangenheit(Gumbinnen, 1904).

GUMBO,orOkra, termed alsoOkro, Ochro, Ketmia, Gubboand Syrian mallow (Sans.Tindisa, BengaliDheras, Pers.Bámiyah—theBammiaof Prosper Alpinus; Fr.Gombaut, or betterGombo, andKetmie comestible),Hibiscus esculentus, a herbaceous hairy annual plant of the natural orderMalvaceae, probably of African origin, and now naturalized or cultivated in all tropical countries. The leaves are cordate, and 3 to 5-lobed, and the flowers yellow, with a crimson centre; the fruit or pod, theBendi-Kaiof the Europeans of southern India, is a tapering, 10-angled capsule, 4 to 10 in. in length, except in the dwarf varieties of the plant, and contains numerous oval dark-coloured seeds, hairy at the base. Three distinct varieties of the gumbo (QuiaboandQuimgombo) in Brazil have been described by Pacheco. The unripe fruit is eaten either pickled or prepared like asparagus. It is also an ingredient in various dishes,e.g.thegumboof the Southern United States and thecalalouof Jamaica; and on account of the large amount of mucilage it contains, it is extensively consumed, both fresh and in the form of the prepared powder, for the thickening of broths and soups. For winter use it is salted or sliced and dried. The fruit is grown on a very large scale in the vicinity of Constantinople. It was one of the esculents of Egypt in the time of Abul-Abbas el-Nebāti, who journeyed to Alexandria in 1216 (Wüstenfeld,Gesch. d. arab. Ärzte, p. 118, Gött., 1840), and is still cultivated by the Egyptians, who called itBammgé.

The seeds of the gumbo are used as a substitute for coffee. From their demulcent and emollient properties, the leaves and immature fruit have long been in repute in the East for the preparation of poultices and fomentations. Alpinus (1592) mentions the employment of their decoction in Egypt in ophthalmia and in uterine and other complaints.

The musk okra (Sans.,Latákasturiká, cf. the Gr.κάστωρ; Bengali,Latákasturi; Ger.Bisamkörnerstrauch; Fr.Ketmie musquée),Hibiscus Abelmoschus(Abelmoschus moschatus), indigenous to India, and cultivated in most warm regions of the globe, is a suffruticose plant, bearing a conical 5-ridged pod about 3 in. in length, within which are numerous brown reniform seeds, smaller than those ofH. esculentus.The seeds possess a musky odour, due to an oleo-resin present in the integument, and are known to perfumers under the name ofambretteas a substitute for musk. They are said to be used by the Arabs for scenting coffee. The seeds (in the Fantee language,Incromahom) are used in Africa as beads; and powdered and steeped in rum they are valued in the West Indies as a remedy for snakebites. The plant yields an excellent fibre, and, being rich in mucilage, is employed in Upper India for the clarifying of sugar. The best-perfumed seeds are reported to come from Martinique.See P. Alpinus,De plantis Aegypti, cap. xxvii. p. 38 (Venice, 1592); J. Sontheimer’sAbd Allah ibn Ahmad, &c., i. 118 (Stuttgart,1840-1842); P. P. Pacheco, “La Ketmie potagère ou comestible,”La Belgique horticole, iv. 63 (1853); Della Sudda, “De l’emploi à Constantinople de la racine de l’Hibiscus esculentus,”Répert. de pharm., January 1860, p. 229; E. J. Waring,Pharm. of India, p. 35 (1868); O. Popp, “Über die Aschenbestandteile der Samen von Acacia nilotica und Hibiscus esculentus in Ägypten,”Arch. der Pharm.cxcv. p. 140 (1871); Drury,The Useful Plants of India, pp. 1, 2 (2nd ed., 1873); U. C. Dutt,The Mat. Med. of the Hindus, pp. 123, 321 (1877); Lanessan,Hist. des drogues, i. 181-184 (1878); G. Watt,Dictionary of the Economic Products of India(1890).

See P. Alpinus,De plantis Aegypti, cap. xxvii. p. 38 (Venice, 1592); J. Sontheimer’sAbd Allah ibn Ahmad, &c., i. 118 (Stuttgart,1840-1842); P. P. Pacheco, “La Ketmie potagère ou comestible,”La Belgique horticole, iv. 63 (1853); Della Sudda, “De l’emploi à Constantinople de la racine de l’Hibiscus esculentus,”Répert. de pharm., January 1860, p. 229; E. J. Waring,Pharm. of India, p. 35 (1868); O. Popp, “Über die Aschenbestandteile der Samen von Acacia nilotica und Hibiscus esculentus in Ägypten,”Arch. der Pharm.cxcv. p. 140 (1871); Drury,The Useful Plants of India, pp. 1, 2 (2nd ed., 1873); U. C. Dutt,The Mat. Med. of the Hindus, pp. 123, 321 (1877); Lanessan,Hist. des drogues, i. 181-184 (1878); G. Watt,Dictionary of the Economic Products of India(1890).

GUMTI,a river of northern India. It rises in a depression in the Pilibhit district of the United Provinces, and after a sinuous but generally south-easterly course of 500 m. past Lucknow and Jaunpur joins the Ganges in Ghazipar district. At Jaunpur it is a fine stream, spanned by a 16th-century bridge of sixteen arches, and is navigable by vessels of 17 tons burden. There is also a small river of the same name in the Tippera district of eastern Bengal and Assam.

GUMULJINA,orGumurdjina, a town of European Turkey, in the vilayet of Adrianople. Pop. (1905), about 8000, of whom three-fourths are Turks and the remainder Greeks, Jews or Armenians. Gumuljina is situated on the river Karaja-Su, south of the eastern extremity of the Rhodope range of mountains and 13 m. inland from the Aegean Sea. It has a station on the railway between Salonica and Dédéagatch. The district produces wheat, maize, barley and tobacco; sericulture and viticulture are both practised on a limited scale. A cattle fair is held annually on Greek Palm Sunday. Copper and antimony are found in the neighbourhood.

GUMUS,orGumz, Negroes of the Shangalla group of tribes, dwelling in the mountainous district of Fazogli on the Sudan-Abyssinian frontier. They live in independent groups, some being mountaineers while others are settled on the banks of the Blue Nile. Gumz in the native tongue signifies “people,” and the sub-tribes have distinctive names. The Gumus are nature-worshippers, God and the sun being synonymous. On ceremonial occasions they carry parasols of honour (seeShangalla).

GÜMÜSH-KHANEH,the chief town of a sanjak of the same name in the Trebizond vilayet of Asiatic Turkey, situated on high ground (4400 ft.) in the valley of the Kharshut Su, about ½ m. to south of the Trebizond-Erzerumchaussée. The silver mines from which the place takes its name were noted in ancient times and are mentioned by Marco Polo. Pop. about 3000, chiefly Greeks, who are in the habit of emigrating to great distances to work in mines. They practically supply the whole lead and silver-mining labour in Asiatic Turkey, and in consequence the Greek bishop of Gümüsh-Khaneh has under his jurisdiction all the communities engaged in this particular class of mines.

GUN,a general term for a weapon, tubular in form, from which a projectile is discharged by means of an explosive. When applied to artillery the word is confined to those pieces of ordnance which have a direct as opposed to a high-angle fire, in which case the terms “howitzer” and “mortar” are used (seeOrdnanceandMachine-Gun). “Gun” as applied to firearms which are carried in the hand and fired from the shoulder, the old “hand gun,” is now chiefly used of the sporting shot-gun, with which this article mainly deals; in military usage this type of weapon, whether rifle, carbine, &c., is known collectively as “small arms” (seeRifleandPistol). The origin of the word, which in Mid. Eng. isgonneorgunne, is obscure, but it has been suggested by Professor W. W. Skeat that it conceals a female name,GunnildeorGunhilda. The names,e.g.Mons Meg at Edinburgh Castle andfaule Grete(heavy Peg), known to readers of Carlyle’sFrederick the Great, will be familiar parallelisms. “Gunne” would be a shortened “pet name” of Gunnhilde. TheNew English Dictionaryfinds support for the suggestion in the fact that in Old Norwegiangunneandhildeboth mean “war,” and quotes an inventory of war material at Windsor Castle in 1330-1331, where is mentioned “una magna balista de cornu quae vocatur Domina Gunilda.” Another suggestion for the origin of the word is that the word represents a shortened form,gonne, of a supposed Frenchmangonne, a mangonel, but the French word ismangonneau.

Firearms are said to have been first used in European warfare in the 14th century. The hand gun (see fig. 1) came into practical use in 1446 and was of very rude construction. It consisted of a simple iron or brass tube with a touch-hole at the top fixed in a straight stock of wood, the end of which passed under the right armpit when the “gonne” was about to be fired. A similar weapon (see fig. 2) was also used by the horse-soldier, with a ring at the end of the stock, by which it was suspended by a cord round the neck; a forked rest, fitted by a ring to the saddlebow, served to steady the gun. This rest, when not in use, hung down in front of the right leg. A match was made of cotton or hemp spun slack, and boiled in a strong solution of saltpetre or in the lees of wine. The touch-hole was first placed on the top of the barrel, but afterwards at the side, with a small pan underneath to hold the priming, and guarded by a cover moving on a pivot.

An improvement in firearms took place in the first year of the reign of Henry VII., or at the close of Edward IV., by fixing a cock (Fr.serpentine) on the hand gun to hold the match, which was brought down to the priming by a trigger, whence the term matchlock. This weapon is still in use among the Chinese, Tatars, Sikhs, Persians and Turks. An improvement in the stock was also made during this period by forming it with a wide butt end to be placed against the right breast. Subsequently the stock was bent, a German invention, and the arm was called a hackbutt or hagbut, and the smaller variety a demihague. The arquebus and hackbutt were about a yard in length, including barrel and stock, and the demihague was about half the size and weight, the forerunner of the pistol. The arquebus was the standard infantry firearm in Europe from the battle of Pavia to the introduction of the heavier and more powerful musket. It did not as a rule require a rest, as did the musket. The wheel-lock, an improvement on the matchlock, was invented in Nuremberg in 1517; was first used at the siege of Parma in 1521; was brought to England in 1530, and continued in partial use there until the time of Charles II. This wheel-lock consisted of a fluted or grooved steel wheel which protruded into the priming pan, and was connected with a strong spring. The cock, also regulated by a spring, was fitted with a piece of iron pyrites. In order to discharge the gun thelock was wound up by a key, the cock was let down on the priming pan, the pyrites resting on the wheel; on the trigger being pressed the wheel was released and rapidly revolved, emitting sparks, which ignited the powder in the pan. The complicated and expensive nature of this lock, with its liability to injury, no doubt prevented its general adoption.

About 1540 the Spaniards constructed a larger and heavier firearm (matchlock), carrying a ball of 10 to the pound, called a musket. This weapon was introduced into England before the middle of the 16th century, and soon came into general use throughout Europe. The snaphance was invented about this period in Germany, and from its comparative cheapness was much used in England, France and Holland. It held a flint instead of the pyrites of the wheel or firelock, which ignited the powder in the pan by striking on a piece of furrowed steel, when released by the trigger, and emitting sparks.

As a sporting weapon the gun may be said to date from the invention of the wheel-lock in the beginning of the 16th century, though firearms were used for sporting purposes in Italy, Spain, Germany, and to some extent in France, in the 15th century. Before that period the longbow in England and the crossbow on the Continent were the usual weapons of the chase. In Great Britain little use appears to have been made of firearms for game shooting until the latter half of the 17th century, and the arms then used for the purpose were entirely of foreign make.

The French gunmakers of St-Étienne claim for their town that it is the oldest centre of the firearms industry. They do not appear to have made more than the barrels of the finest sporting arms, and these even were sometimes made in Paris. The production of firearms by the artists of Paris reached its zenith about the middle of the 17th century. The Italian, German, Spanish and Russian gunsmiths also showed great skill in the elegance and design of their firearms, the Spaniards in particular being makers of fine barrels. The pistol (q.v.) is understood to have been made for the first time about 1540 at Pistoia in Italy. About 1635 the modern firelock or flint-lock was invented, which only differed from the snaphance by the cover of the pan forming part of the furrowed steel struck by the flint. Originally the priming was put into the pan from a flask containing a fine-grained powder called serpentine powder. Later the top of the cartridge was bitten off and the pan filled therefrom before loading. The mechanism of the flint-lock musket rendered all this unnecessary, as, in loading, a portion of the charge passed through the vent into the pan, where it was held by the cover or hammer. The matchlock, as a military weapon, gradually gave way to the firelock, which came into general use in the last half of the 17th century, and was the weapon of Marlborough’s and Wellington’s armies. This was the famous “Brown Bess” of the British army. The highest development of the flint-lock is found in the fowling-pieces of the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, particularly those made by Joseph Manton, the celebrated English gunsmith and inventor. The Napoleonic wars afforded English gunmakers an opportunity, which they fully utilized, of gaining the supremacy over their foreign competitors in the gunmaking trade. English gunmakers reduced the weight, improved the shooting powers, and perfected the lock mechanism of the sporting gun, and increased the range and efficiency of the rifle. This transference of the gunmaking craft from the Continent to England was also assisted by the tyranny of the foreign gunmaking gilds. In 1637 the London gunmakers obtained their charter of incorporation. The important gunmaking industry of Birmingham dates from 1603, and soon rivalled that of London. Double shot-guns do not appear to have been generally used until the 19th century. The first successful double guns were built with the barrels over and under, and not side by side, and were invented about 1616 by one Guilliano Bossi of Rome. In 1784 double shot guns were described as a novelty. Joseph Manton patented the elevated rib which rested on the barrels. The general success of the double gun was eventually due to the light weight which the better material and workmanship of the best gunmakers made possible, and to the quickness and certainty of ignition of the modern cartridge.

The objections to the flint-lock were that it did not entirely preserve the priming from wet, and that the flint sparks sometimes failed to ignite the charge. In 1807 the Rev. Alexander John Forsyth obtained a patent for priming with a fulminating powder made of chlorate of potash, sulphur and charcoal, which exploded by concussion. This important improvement in firearms was not recognized and adopted by the military authorities until more than thirty years later. In the meantime it was gradually developed, and the copper percussion cap invented, by various gunmakers and private individuals. Thomas Shaw of Philadelphia first used fulminate in a steel cap in 1814, which he changed to a copper cap in 1816. It was not until the introduction of the copper cap that the percussion gun could be considered in every way superior to the flint. In 1834, in the reign of William IV., Forsyth’s invention was tested at Woolwich by firing 6000 rounds from six flint-lock muskets, and a similar number from six percussion muskets, in all weathers.This trial established the percussion principle. The shooting was found to be more accurate, the recoil less, the charge of powder having been reduced from 6 to 4½ drs., the rapidity of firing greater and the number of miss-fires much reduced, being as 1 to 26 nearly in favour of the percussion system. In consequence of this successful trial the military flint-lock in 1839 was altered to suit the percussion principle. This was easily accomplished by replacing the hammer and pan by a nipple with a hole through its centre to the vent or touch-hole, and by replacing the cock which held the flint by a smaller cock or hammer with a hollow to fit on the nipple when released by the trigger. On the nipple was placed the copper cap containing the detonating composition, now made of three parts of chlorate of potash, two of fulminate of mercury and one of powdered glass.

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