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GERMINATION-GERSON.

(q. v.) often by umbilical cords (q. v.). There is often only one ovule in the germen; sometimes it consists of a number of Carpels (q.v.), with one ovule in each; occasionally the cavity of the germen is divided into cells, each of these containing one, and often many ovules. When there are many ovules, some of them are generally abortive. The germen is sometimes superior-that is, it is free in the centre of the flower, as in the poppy, stock, and carnation; occasionally inferior, the calyx being adherent to it throughout, and the upper part or limb of the calyx thus seeming to arise from its summit, as in the gooseberry, rose, campanula, and snowdrop; sometimes it is half inferior, as in Saxifraga granulata. The germen develops itself into the Fruit (q. v.), after the flowering is over. Some plants bend their flower-stalks to the ground after flowering, press the germen into the ground, and ripen their fruit in the earth, as a species of Clover (Trifolium subterraneum), and the Ground-nut (Arachis hypogœa). See ARACHIS.

GERMINATION (Lat. sprouting), the beginning of growth in a seed, or of the vital action by which it is converted into a new plant. See SEED; and for what is peculiar to acotyledonous plants, see SPORE.

GERO'NA (anc. Gerunda), a city of Spain, in lat. 41° 58′ N., long. 2° 50′ E., capital of the province of the same name, is situated at the confluence of the Ter, with its affluent the Oñar, 60 miles north-east of Barcelona. It consists of an old and new town, the latter irregularly built on the declivity of a rocky hill, but highly picturesque, and containing a beautiful and lofty Gothic cathedral, commenced in 1316, and approached by a superb flight of steps. Besides the cathedral, there are five churches and twelve convents. The inhabitants carry on the manufacture of paper, soap, and leather; and spinning and weaving. The city is fortified by high thick walls, and protected by four forts. Pop. 13,959.

G. was of Roman origin, and was formerly the residence of the kings of Aragon. It has suffered much from sieges, of which the most noteworthy was that of 1809, when the French with 35,000 men encompassed and assailed the town. The besieged, unprovided with everything, even with ammunition, maintained a defence for seven months and five days against seven open breaches, and were forced to capitulate only when their heroic governor was struck down by famine and disease.

GEROPIGIA, or JERUPIGIA. Of late years, a considerable quantity of this material has been sent from Portugal to this country. It consists of grape juice unfermented, and colouring matter, probably the extracts of rhatany-root and logwood, with sufficient brandy and sugar to preserve it from fermentation. It is used for giving a spurious strength and colour to red wines, more especially to those intended for exportation the factitious compound being mixed or vatted with the wines in bond. least 20,000 gallons are now imported annually, and this large trade has sprung up within the last fifteen years.

At

GERS, a department in the south-west of France, is formed of portions of the old provinces of Gascony and Guienne. The department of Landes intervenes between it and the Bay of Biscay, and that of Hautes-Pyrénées between it and the frontiers of Spain. It has an area of 2403 square miles, and a pop. of 304,497. The surface toward the south is mountainous, covered with ramifications of the Pyrenees, which extend northward in parallel lines. These lines decrease

in height as they advance, and are separated by fan-shaped valleys, which are only a few yards wide in the south, but expand to a width of several miles in the north of the department. The principa rivers are the Gers-which gives its name to the department-the Losse, the Baise, the Arratz, the Gimone, and the Save. The climate is healthy and temperate. The soil is a stiff loam, resting on thick layers of clay, and is only moderately productive More than one-half of the surface is devoted to agriculture, one-seventh is in vineyards, and the rest in meadows, heaths, and forests. Wine is produced in considerable quantity, but of an inferior quality; great part of it is converted into Armagnac brandy, which, after Cognac, is esteemed the best. The manufactures and exports are inconsiderable. The town of Auch is the capital.

GERSON, JEAN DE, one of the most eminent scholars and divines of the 14th and 15th centuries. His proper name was Jean Charlier, the name of G. being given to him from the place of his birth (1363), the village of Gerson in the diocese of Paris, under the celebrated Peter d'Ailly. Here he Rheims. He was educated in the university of rose to the highest honours of the university, and ultimately to its chancellorship, having acquired by his extraordinary learning the title of The Most Christian Doctor.' During the unhappy contests which arose out of the rival claims of the two lines of pontiffs in the time of the Western Schism, the university of Paris took a leading part in the negotiations for union; and G. was one of the most active supporters of the proposal of that university for putting an end to the schism by the resignation of both the contending parties. With this view, he visited the other universities, in order to obtain their assent to the plan proposed by that of Paris. But although he had the satisfaction to see this plan carried out in the council of Pisa, it failed, as is well known, to secure the desired union. In a treatise inscribed to his friend D'Ailly, he renewed the proposal that the rival pontiffs (now not two, but three since the election of John XXIII. at Pisa) should be required to resign; and in the new council held at Constance in 1414, he was again the most zealous advocate of the same expedient of resignation. It is to him, also, that the great outlines of the plan of church reformation, then and afterwards proposed, are due. But his own personal fortunes were marred by the animosity of the Duke of Burgundy and his adherents, to whom G. had become obnoxious, and from whom he had already suffered much persecution, on account of the bold

ness with which he had denounced the murder of the Duke of Orleans. To escape their vengeance, he was forced to remain in exile; and he retired from Constance, in the disguise of a pilgrim, to Rattenberg in Bavaria, where he composed his celebrated work De Consolatione Theologia, in imitation of that of Boëthius, De Consolatione Philosophie, It was only after the lapse of several years that he was enabled to return to France, and take up his residence in a monastery at Lyon, of which his brother was the superior. He devoted himself in this retirement to works of piety, to study, and to the education of youth. He died in 1429, in his 66th year. His works, which are among the most remarkable of that age, till five volumes in folio. Among the books formerly ascribed to him was the celebrated spiritual treatise On the Imitation of Christ; but it is no longer doubtful that the true author is Thomas-a-Kempis. See KEMPIS. The authority of G. is much relied on by the advocates of Gallican principles; but the Ultramontanes allege that the principles laid down by him as

GERSTÄCKER-GESENIUS.

to the authority of the pope are only applicable at the court of Otho IV., emperor of Germany, to the exceptional case in which he wrote-viz., and appointed by that monarch marshal of the that of a disputed succession, in which the claim kingdom of Arles. He died about 1218. He of each of the rival popes, and therefore of the wrote a commentary upon Geoffrey of Monmouth's existing papacy itself, was doubtful. History of Britain, entitled Illustrationes Galfridi Monemuthensis, lib. iv. ; a History of the Holy Land (Historia Terra Sancta); a treatise, De Origine Burgundionum; and a History of the Kings of England and France, comprised in a work entitled Otia Imperialia, libri tres; also known under the titles, Mappa sive Descriptio Mundi, and De Mirabilibus Orbis. MSS. of the Otia Imperialia are preserved in the Cottonian Collection, and in the library of Corpus Christi, Cambridge. Nicolson ascribes to G. the Black Book of the Exchequer (Liber Niger edition of that work, makes Richard Nelson, Bishop Scaccarii). Madox, who published a very correct of London, the author.

GERSTÄCKER, FRIEDRICH, a German novelist and traveller, was born at Hamburg, 16th May 1816. In 1837, he went to America. After spending some months in New York, he began his wanderings through the United States, sometimes as a stoker or sailor in various steam-packets, sometimes as a silversmith, a woodcutter, a maker of pill-boxes, &c., working till he had earned money enough to enable him to proceed further. He also led for a considerable period a wild adventurous life as a hunter in the forests. In 1842, he set up a hotel at Point Coupée, in Louisiana; but in 1843, a strong desire to see his friends induced him to return to Germany. Here he published his admirable Streif- und- Jagdzüge durch die Vereinigten Staaten Nordamerikas (2 vols., Dresden, 1844). This was followed by his Die Regulatoren in Arkansas (3 vols., Leip. 1846), Die Flusspiraten des Mississippi (3 vols., Leip. 1848), Mississippibilder, Licht- und Schattenseiten transatlantischen Lebens (2 vols., Dresden, 1847), and Amerik. Wald- und Strombilder (2 vols., Leip. 1849). In his popular writings, as the Reisen um die Welt (6 vols., Leip. 1847), and Der Deutschen Auswanderer Fahrten und Schicksale (Leip. 1847), G. contrives to rivet the attention even of the uneducated reader. In 1849, G. again set out on his travels, and went from Rio Janeiro by Buenos Ayres to Valparaiso and California, whence he proceeded to the Sandwich Isles, crossed in a whaling-vessel to the Society Islands, went on to Sydney, travelled through Australia, and returned to Germany in 1852, where he has since resided. His contributions to the Ausland and Allgemeine Zeitung, containing an account of his recent travels, were collected and published under the title of Reisen (1853-1855). His works have been partly translated into French and English. GE'RUND (from Latin gero, I carry on) is a part of the Latin verb which, according to grammarians, declares that anything is to be done. Thus the gerund of scribo, I write, is scribendum; as, charta utilis ad scribendum, paper useful for writing. It is a sort of verbal noun, possessing the same power of government as its verb, but is scarcely ever found in the nominative, at least as a governing word. In French, the infinitive has almost entirely supplanted the gerund, the sole surviving remnant, we believe, being found after the preposition en, as en attendant. In English, the present participle does duty also for the gerund; as, he is reading novels (participle); he amuses himself with reading novels (gerund).

GERVAS (Stachytarpheta Jamaicensis), a small shrub of the natural order Verbenacea, a native of the West Indies and warm parts of America. It has scattered hairy branches, oblong-ovate coarsely and sharply serrated leaves about two inches long, and long dense spikes of lilac flowers. It is regarded as a stimulant, febrifuge, anthelmintic, and vulnerary; a decoction of the leaves is applied to severe contusions; and the dried leaves are used as tea. In Austria, they are sold under the name of Brazilian Tea. In Britain, they are employed only for the adulteration of tea; but for this purpose they are perhaps more frequently used than any other kind of leaf.

GERVASE OF TILBURY, an historian of the 13th c., was born at Tilbury, in Essex. He is said to have been a nephew of King Henry II. of England. About 1208, he was received with great distinction

GERVINUS, GEORG GOTTFRIED, an historian of German literature and politician, was born at Darmstadt, 20th May 1805. He received a mercantile education, and was for some time employed in the counting-house of a merchant in his native town. By a diligent course of self-instruction, he supplied what was wanting in his school-education, and in 1826, was so far advanced as to be ready to enter the university of Heidelberg. After completing his studies, during which a taste for history had been awakened in him by Schlosser's lectures, he became teacher in an educational institution at Frankfurt-on-the-Maine. In 1835, he was appointed a professor extraordinary at Heidelberg. Previous to this, he had published his Geschichte der Angelsachsen im Ueberblick (Frank. 1830), which was followed by his Historische Schriften (Frank. 1833). In 1836, he was appointed ordinary professor of history and literature at Göttingen. He had now begun to pub lish his Geschichte der Poetischen Nationalliteratur der Deutschen (3 vols., Leip. 1835-1838; 3d edit. 1846-1848). This was followed by the Neuere Geschichte der Poetischen Nationalliteratur der Deutschen (2 vols., Leip. 1840-1842; 3d edit. 1852). Both of these works have attained to well-deserved popularity. In 1837, he was one of the Göttingen professors who signed the famous protest against the abolition of the Hanoverian constitution, in consequence of which he lost his chair, and was ordered to leave the country within three days. He first went to Darmstadt, then to Heidelberg, and in the spring of 1838, to Italy. He spent the winter in Rome, engaged in historical studies. In 1844, he was appointed honorary professor in the university of Heidelberg. From this period, his career was that of a political writer. Constitutional liberty was the object which he had in view, and for which he ardently laboured. His pamphlets and writings in different periodicals exercised a very great influence over the national mind. In July 1847, along with some others, he established the Deutsche Zeitung in Heidelberg, to advocate the political views of the Constitutionalists. In 1848, he was deputed to attend the diet in behalf of the Hanse towns, and was elected a member of the National Assembly by a district of Prussian Saxony. After the failure of the national democratic party in Ger many, G. returned to his literary pursuits, the fruits of which are his able and suggestive work on Shakspeare (4 vols., Leip. 1849-1850), his Geschichte der Deutschen Dichtung (5 vols., Leip. 1853), and his Geschichte des neunzehnten Jahrhundert (Leip. 1st vol., 1853; 3d vol., 1858; English translation, 1859).

GESE'NIUS, FRIEDRICH HEINRICH WILHELM, one of the greatest modern German Orientalists and biblical scholars, was born at Nordhausen, in Prussian Saxony, 3d February 1785, and educated

GESNER GESNERACEÆ.

into his house, and instructed him gratuitously for three years in Latin, Greek, dialectics, and oratory. He subsequently studied for three or four years at Paris, whence he was summoned back to Zürich, to become a teacher in the school in which he had derived the elements of his own education. He devoted all his spare time to the study of medicine and botany, in the hope of ultimately rising from the office of a schoolmaster to that of a professor. The hope was gratified upon the opening of the university of Lausanne, when he was appointed professor of Greek. After holding the office three years, he went to Montpellier, where he attended medical lectures, and to Basel, where, after additional study, and the usual disputations, he was admitted to the degree of Doctor of Medicine. He then, at the age of twenty-five years, returned to his native town. In a very short time, he received the appointment of professor of philosophy, which he held until his death. He likewise practised medicine, and published from time to time the fruit of his studies. As, in the course of his life, he published no less than seventy-two works, besides leaving at his death eighteen that were in progress, it will be impossible for us to notice more than a few of the most important. His first great work, the Bibliotheca Universalis, appeared when he was only twenty-nine years old. It contained the titles of all the books then known in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, with criticisms and summaries of each; and as an index to authors who wrote before the year 1545, it remains to this day very valuable. Ten years later (in 1555), his Mithridates, de Differentiis Linguarum appeared, which contained histories of one-hundred-and-thirty ancient and modern languages. But by far the greatest of his literary works was his Historia Animalium, which was planned in six books, of which only four were completed. The first treats of viviparous, and the second of ovipar

first at the gymnasium of his native town, afterwards at the universities of Helmstedt and Göttingen. After having been a short time teacher in the pædagogium at Helmstedt, he became in 1806 a theological Repetent in Göttingen; and in 1809, on the proposal of Johann von Müller, was appointed professor of ancient literature in the gymnasium of Heiligenstadt. In 1810, however, he received a call to Halle as extraordinary professor of theology, and was made an ordinary professor in the following year. In 1810-1812, he published, in two volumes, a Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary of the Old Testament, which underwent improvements in several subsequent editions, after he had made a journey to Paris and Oxford in the summer of 1820, to make researches in the Semitic languages. In the two years following the publication of this Dictionary, appeared his Hebrüisches Elementarbuch (2 Bde., Halle, 1813-1814), consisting of a Hebrew grammar and reading-book. This work, as it has been improved in the recent editions of G.'s distinguished pupil and literary executor, Professor Rödiger of Halle, and the lexicon already mentioned, are still the grammar and dictionary of the Old Testament most in use not only throughout Germany, but in Great Britain and in America. The best English translations of the dictionary founded on the Latin edition are those of Robinson (American), and of Tregelles; the best of the grammar are those of Davies (London) and of Conant (New York). In 1815, another work was published by G. on the history of the Hebrew language (Kritische Gesch. d. Hebr. Sprache u. Schrift, Leip.), and a treatise, De Pentateuchi Samaritani Origine, indole et auctoritate (Halle). Besides a translation of Isaiah with a commentary in three vols. (Leip. 1820-1821), we are indebted to G. for a larger Hebrew Grammar (Grammatisch-kritisches Lehrgebäude d. Hebr. Sprache, 2 Bde., Leip. 1817), as well as for a larger lexicogra-ous quadrupeds (tortoises, lizards, &c.), the third of phical work (Thesaurus philologico-criticus Linguæ Hebraica et Chaldaica Veteris Testamenti), of which the first part was published in 1829, but which was completed only in 1858 by Professor Rödiger. G. contributed also some papers on Oriental Antiquity to Ersch and Gruber's Allgemeine Encyclopädie; and his notes to the German translation of Burckhardt's Travels in Syria and Palestine, throw light on many points connected with biblical geography. He died 23d October 1842, and a memorial of him appeared in the following year (G., eine Erinnerung an seine Freunde, Berlin, 1843).-Many of the results of the rationalising method of interpreting the Old Testament, which characterises all the works of G., have been unable to stand the progress of biblical science, and he has certainly been surpassed by Ewald in insight into the genius of the Hebrew language, and its bearing on the interpretation of Hebrew life and thought, as well as in all that qualifies the critic for a true historical, æsthetical, and religious appreciation of the literature preserved to us in the Old Testament. Yet his intense devotion to his favourite studies, and the advance which he made beyond all his predecessors in the establishment of more certain principles of Hebrew philology, andoubtedly entitle him to be regarded as having constituted a new epoch in the scientific study of

the Old Testament.

GESNER, KONRAD VON, a celebrated Swiss naturalist, was born at Zürich in 1516, and died there of the plague 13th December 1565. His father, who was a leather-seller, was too poor to pay for more than the first years of his education at the town-school; but John Jacob Ammianus, pressor of Latin and oratory in the college, saw In the boy so much promise, that he took him

birds, and the fourth of fishes and aquatic animals. The fifth book was to have contained the history of serpents, and the sixth that of insects. Each of the four published books is a folio of considerable thickness, and with closely printed pages. In this work, which will ever remain a monument of his untiring industry, he aimed at bringing together all that was known in his time concerning every animal. The information which he collected regarding each animal was arranged under eight heads, represented by the first eight letters of the alphabet. These four volumes contain the complete history, up to the middle of the sixteenth century, of beasts, birds, and fishes, and well entitle their author to the designation which he often received of 'the German Pliny.'

Botany was probably the section of natural history with which he had the greatest practical acquaintance. He had collected more than five hundred plants undescribed by the ancients, and was arranging the results of his labours in this department at the time of his death. He appears to have been the first who made the great step towards a scientific classification of distinguishing genera by a study of the fructification.

GESNERA'CEÆ, a natural order of exogenous plants, allied to Scrophulariaceae, and consisting of herbaceous plants and soft-wooded shrubs, gene rally tropical or sub-tropical. They frequently spring from scaly tubers. The leaves are wrinkled and destitute of stipules. The calyx is 5-parted; the corolla, tubular, 5-lobed, more or less irregular. The stamens are generally four, two long and two short, with the rudiment of a fifth. The germen is half inferior, surrounded at its base by glands or a fleshy ring; it is one-celled, and has parietal placenta.

GESSLER-GETÆ.

The fruit is either a capsule or a berry, many-seeded. -There are about 120 species, exclusive of those sometimes formed into a distinct order under the aame Cyrtandracea or Didymocarpeæ, of which there are about 140. The true Gesneracea are all natives of the warmer parts of America, where some of them grow upon trees. The Cyrtandracea are more widely distributed.-Some plants of this order have mucilaginous and sweetish edible fruits; but it is chiefly remarkable for beauty of flowers, containing some of the most admired ornaments of our hothouses, as species of Gloxinia, Achimenes, &c.

von

GESSLER, ALBRECHT, called also G. Bruneck, was in 1300 appointed joint-governor along with Berenger von Landenberg, of the Waldstädten or Forest Cantons (Schwytz, Unterwalden, and Uri), by Albrecht I. of Austria. According to the traditions connected with Tell (q. v.), his oppressive edicts and wanton cruelty so enraged the inhabitants that a conspiracy was formed against him, and he was shot by Tell in a narrow pass near Küssnacht in 1307.

GESSNER, SALOMON, a German poet and artist, was born at Zürich, 1st April 1730, and apprenticed to a bookseller in Berlin in 1749, but soon ran away from his master, and endeavoured to earn a livelihood by landscape painting. From Berlin he went to Hamburg, where he formed an intimate friendship with Hagedorn. On his return to Zürich, he published Daphnis, which was followed by Inkle und Yarico, a small volume of idylls, and Tod Abels (the Death of Abel), a species of idyllic heroic prose poem, which, though the feeblest of all his productions, is the best known, and the one on which his claim to the notice of posterity rests. He afterwards turned his attention for several years exclusively to painting and engraving, in the latter of which arts he attained high excellence. Some of the engravings with which he illustrated his feeble poetry are said to be worthy of the first masters. In 1772, he published a second volume of idylls, and a series of letters on landscape painting. He died 2d March 1787.

Notes. The later German fabulists and novelists, such as Hans Sachs, Burkard Waldis, and others, made abundant use of this great storehouse. But soon after the Reformation it was thrown into the background, and even in the monasteries, where for a long time it maintained its footing, it was at length forgotten. Recently, however, amid the general revival of interest in the literature of the past, it has received special attention. Its author has been supposed by some to have been Petrus Berchorius or Bercheur of Poitou, who died prior of the Benedictine Abbey of St Eloi in Paris in 1362, but it is now believed that he only added the moralisings; and Grässe, in an appendix to his German translation (2 vols., Dresd. and Leip. 1842), has shewn that a certain Elinandus is the author or compiler of the work. This Elinandus was undoubtedly a monk, and was either an Eng lishman or German, as is clear from the numerous Germanisms and Anglicisms that pervade the Gesta. The most recent edition of the original text is that of Keller (Stutt. and Tüb. 1842).

GESTA TION, in Physiology, is the term applied to the period that intervenes in the mammalia between impregnation and the bringing forth of the young. The period and the number of young produced at a birth vary extremely in different mammals, but usually stand in an inverse ratio to one another. Thus, in the larger herbivora, as, for example, the elephant, the horse, the ox, and the camel, the female seldom produces more than one at a time, but the period of gestation is long; while in the smaller ones the progeny is numerous, but the period of gestation only a few weeks. In the elephant, the period of gestation extends over twenty or twenty-one months; in the giraffe, it is fourteen months; in the dromedary, it is twelve months; in the mare, upwards of eleven months; in the tapir, between ten and eleven; in the cow, nine; and in many of the larger deer somewhat more than eight months. In the sheep and goat, the period is five months. In the sow, which produces a numerous litter, the period is four months. In the rodentia, the progeny is numerous and imperfectly developed, GE'STA ROMANO'RUM is the title of the in the beaver, one of the largest of the order, it is and the period of gestation is comparatively short: oldest legendary work of the middle ages. The four months; in the rabbit and hare, from thirty to stories are written in Latin, and for the most part forty days; in the dormouse, thirty-one days; in are either taken from the histories of the Roman the squirrel and rat, four weeks; and in the guineaemperors, or at least are referred to the period pig, three weeks or less. The young of the car in which these flourished. At a later period, moralising expositions were added, whence the work nivora, like the young of the rodentia, are born with their eyes closed, and in a very immature condition; tion is far shorter than in the larger ruminantia or and in even the larger carnivora the period of gestapachydermata: it is six months in the bear; one hundred and eight days in the lion (the period in this animal is stated by Van der Hoeven at three months); seventy-nine days in the puma; sixty-two fox; and fifty-five or fifty-six days in the cat. In the or sixty-three days in the dog, the wolf, and the marsupial animals, which, from a structural pecustate than any other mammals, the period of gestaliarity, produce their young in a far more immature tion is very short, being thirty-nine days in the kangaroo, the largest of the marsupial animals, and is known regarding the period of gestation of the only twenty-six days in the opossum. Nothing certain

obtained the name of Historia Moralista. The

G. R. belongs to that class of works with which the monks were wont to beguile their leisure hours, and which were appointed to be read in the refectory. The stories are short, and destitute of rhetorical ornament; neither have they any dialogues or tragic incidents. Their attractiveness lies in the charm of their naïveté and childlike simplicity, although their artless piety often passes into a deep mysticism. Down to the 16th c., the G. R. was one of the most widely read books among the learned, as the number of manuscripts and of printed impressions shortly after the invention of printing (the first was issued at Cologne in 1472) prove. At an early period, it was translated into French, English, German, and Dutch. The oldest Dutch translation was published at Gouda by Gerard Leeu in 1481; the oldest German translation at Augsburg, by Hans Schobser, in 1489. Among the older English translations may be mentioned that by R. Robinson (Lond. 1577). Recently (1824), the Rev. C. Swan published Gesta Romanorum, translated from the Latin, with Preliminary Observations, and Copious

cetacea.

The quadrumana produce one, sometimes two, at a birth; and the period of gestation, as far as has been observed, seems to be seven months. In the human race, forty weeks is the usual period of gestation, but this period is liable to certain devia tions, which are noticed in the article FOETUS.

GETÆ, a people of Thracian extraction, who, when first mentioned in history, inhabited the

GETHSEMANE GEYSER.

country which is now called Bulgaria. They were a warlike people, and for a long time successfully resisted the attempts of Alexander the Great and Pyrrhus to subdue them. They afterwards removed to the north bank of the Danube, having the Dnieper as their boundary on the east, while westward they encroached on the Roman empire, with which from this time they were continually at war. They were called Daci by the Romans, and their country Dacia, and are often mentioned in the literature of the Augustan era as savage and unconquerable foes. During the reign of Domitian, they overcame the Romans, and exacted an annual tribute. But in 106, their gallant king, Decebalus, was defeated by Trajan, and the people completely subdued. A Roman colony was settled in the country, and becoming incorporated with the G., gave rise to a mixed race, the modern Wallachs.

meadows and woods, and sometimes even in very alpine situations. Both are aromatic, tonic, and astringent, and are employed to restrain mucous discharges, and in cases of dysentery and intermittent fever. The root of G. rivale is also nsed in diseases of the bladder. The root of G. urbanum, when fresh, has a clove-like flavour, which it communicates to ale; and for this purpose it is gathered in spring before the stem grows up. G. Canadense, the CHOCOLATE ROOT or BLOOD ROOT of North America, has some reputation as a mild tonic. It is much employed in the United States in diseases of the bladder. It much resembles the British species in its leaves, and has erect flowers like G. urbanum. A number of other species are known, natives of the temperate and colder regions both of the northern and southern hemispheres.

GEY'SER (Icelandic, geysa, to burst forth violently, allied to Eng. gush) is a term applied in GETHSEMANE (Heb. Gath, a wine-press,' and Iceland to the eruptive thermal springs and wells Shemen, oil'), the scene of our Saviour's agony which are found in various parts of its surface on the night before his Passion, was a small farm in evident connection with the volcanic forces or estate at the foot of Mount Olivet, and rather at work below. The most remarkable group of more than half a mile from the city of Jerusalem. these singular objects is one about 70 miles, or Attached to it was a garden or orchard, a favourite a two days' ride from Reikiavik, 16 miles north resort of Christ and his disciples. The spot pointed out to modern travellers as the site of the garden of G. corresponds sufficiently with the requirements of the Scripture narrative, and the statements of Jerome and Eusebius. It is a place about 50 paces quare, enclosed by a low wall of loose stones, and contains eight very old olive-trees, regarded with pious superstition as having existed in the time of our Lord.

GE'UM, a genus of plants of the natural order Rosacea, sub-order Potentillea, nearly allied to Potentilla, but distinguished by the hardened hooked styles which crown the carpels, so that the fruit becomes a bur. The carpels are dry. Two species are common natives of Britain, G. urbanum, called COMMON AVENS, or HERB BENNETT, a herbaceous plant, about 1-2 feet high, and G. rivale, called

a b

Geum Rivale:

a, carpel and awn; b, petal; c, stamen; d, pistil. WATER AVENS, about one foot high, both of which have the radical leaves interruptedly pinnate and lyrate, and the cauline leaves ternate, but G. urbanum has erect yellow flowers, and G. rivale has nodding flowers of a brownish hue. The former grows in hedges and thickets, the latter in wet

of Skalholt, and within sight of the volcano of Hecla. On the slope of a low trap-hill, overlooking the wide grassy valley of the Whitae, or White River, a space of ground measuring perhaps half a mile each way is thickly interspersed with boiling or hot springs, of various sizes, from jets not greater than an overboiling tea-kettle, up to great caldrons, besides vestiges of others no longer in operation. All are surrounded by silicious incrustations, formed in the course of time by the minute charge of silica infused into the water. The chief apertures are two, respectively called the Great Geyser and the Strokr (i. e. Churn), which are little more than a hundred yards apart. The latter is an irregular aperture of from six to eight feet diameter, down which one may in general safely look, when he sees the water noisily working in a narrower passage about 20 feet below. If, by throwing in a sufficient quantity of turf, he can temporarily choke this gullet, the water will in a few minutes overcome the resistance, and, so to speak, perform an eruption with magnificent effect, bursting up 60 feet into the air, brown with the turf that has been infused into it, and diffusing steam in vast volumes around.

The appearance of the Great Geyser is considerably different. On the summit of a mount which rises about 15 feet above the surrounding ground, is a circular pool or cup of hot water, 72 feet across at its greatest diameter, and about four feet deep, being entirely formed of silicious crust of a dull gray colour. At the edge, this water has been found to be 188° F.; in the centre, it is considerably higher. From the centre descends a pit of eight feet width, and 83 feet deep, up which a stream of highly heated water is continually but slowly ascending, the surplus finding its way out by a small channel in the edge of the cup, and trickling down the exterior of the crusty eminence. Every few hours, the water, with a rumbling noise, rises tumultuously through the pit, and jets for a few feet above the surface of the pool; by and by, it subsides, and all is quiet again. Once a day, however, or thereabouts, this tumult ends in a terrific paroxysm, which lasts perhaps a quarter of an hour, and during which the water is thrown in repeated jets from 60 to 80 feet high, mingled with such volumes of steam as obscure the country for half a mile round. If a visitor be tolerably near on the windward-side, he may catch glimpses of this grand spectacle-the eruption of a

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