114 



GATTY 



GAULTHERIA 



Gatty, MARGARET. See EWING. 



Gau ? a German word meaning, in a general 

 way, district, but applied specially to a political 

 division of ancient Germany, having relation to 

 the arrangements for war and the administration 

 of justice. The division into such districts was 

 in force under the Franks in the 7th century ; and 

 at the head of the gau was the graf (see COUNT). 

 As the grafdoms became more and more hereditary, 

 the gau, as a political division, fell into disuse 

 (about the 12th century), and only in the names 

 of some places Rheingau, Breisgau, Aargau, &c. 

 do the traces of it remain. See HUNDRED, 

 FEUDALISM, VILLAGE COMMUNITIES. 



GaucllOS are the herdsmen of the great plains 

 of the Argentine Republic and Uruguay, where 

 they live in rude huts with scanty furniture, 

 and are chiefly employed in driving, catching, 

 and slaughtering cattle. They are mostly of 

 mixed Spanish and Indian descent,, sparely built, 

 and of great strength and endurance ; they are 

 most expert horsemen, and use the Lasso (q.v. ) 

 and Bolas (q.v.) with marvellous skill. Their 

 dress consists of a rough jacket and trousers, 

 over which a woollen poncho falls, heavy top- 

 boots, and a wide-brimmed hat. Cheerful and 

 hospitable, they are violent and vindictive when 

 enraged, and are much given to drink and gam- 

 bling. Inured to hardship and fatigue, they have 

 played an important part in the revolutions of 

 South America. 



Gaildeamus, the beginning of a famous 

 German students' song in dog-Latin rhymes, of 

 which the first line is Gaudeamus igitur juvenes 

 dum sum-us ( ' Let us therefore rejoice while we 

 are young'). It was first printed, in a somewhat 

 coarser form than the present, and with Latin and 

 German verses alternating, in 1776 ; and follows 

 rather closely the thought and expression of an 

 ancient Latin hymn of the year 1267. See 

 Schwetschke, Zur Geschickte des Gaudeamus ( Halle, 

 1877). 



Gauden, JOHN. See EIKON BASILIKE. 



Gauge* or GAGE, an apparatus for measuring 

 any special force or dimension ; thus we have 

 pressure-gauge, wind-gauge (see ANEMOMETER), 

 Rain-gauge (q.v.), ivire-gauge, button-gauge, &c. 

 The simplest form of gauge of dimension is the 

 common wire-gauge, by which the diameter of wire 

 is measured. It is simply an oblong plate of steel, 

 with notches of different widths cut upon the edge; 

 these are numbered, and the size of the wire is de- 

 termined by trying it in the different notches until 

 the one is found which it exactly fits. The thick- 

 ness of sheet-metal is tried by the same gauge. 

 There is a great want of uniformity in these gauges 

 the Birmingham gauge for iron-wire, sheet-iron, and 

 steel differing from that used for brass, silver, gold, 

 &c. ; and these again from the Lancashire gauges. 

 It has been proposed, in order to obtain uniformity, 

 and to enable definite descriptions and orders to 

 be given with accuracy and certainty, that, instead 

 of the arbitrary numbers of varying signification 

 now in use, decimal parts of an inch, tenths, hun- 

 dredths, thousandths, or still smaller fractions, if 

 necessary, be used, and that these be used for all 

 diameters and thicknesses, such as wires, sheet- 

 metals, buttons, watch-glasses, &c. ; but such a 

 scale has not yet come into general use. The 

 Birmingham wire-gauge has, however, been widely 

 adopted. The gauge commonly used for buttons 

 and such like larger diameters is a rule with a 

 groove cut lengthwise down the middle. Another 

 metal rule, with a brass head, slides in this, and 

 by means of a thumb-pin may be pushed out at 

 pleasure. The object to be measured is placed 

 between a and b ( fig. 1 ), and the width of this 



Fig. 1. 



space is measured by graduations on the middle 

 metal slide. 



A very elegant and delicate gauge is used for 

 measuring watch- 

 glasses, and is ap- 

 plicable to many 

 other purposes. 

 On an oblong 

 piece of sheet- 

 metal two straight 

 metal ridges are 

 fixed in such a 

 manner that they 

 shall be inclined 

 at a given angle 

 to each other, as 

 ab and cd (fig. 2). 

 Now, let us sup- 

 pose the angle to 

 oe such that the 

 distance between a 

 and c is 2 inches, 

 and that between 

 b and d is 1 inch, 



while the lengths ab and cd are 10 inches. 

 It is evident that for every inch of descent 

 from a and c towards b and d there will be a 

 narrowing equal to ^th of an inch ; and for every 

 tenth of an inch of such descent there will be a. 

 narrowing of T ^ T th of an inch, and so on : thus 

 we may, by graduating downwards from ac to bd, 

 measure tenths by units, hundredths by tenths, and 

 so on to still finer quantities if required. This is 

 applicable to lengths as well as diameters. By 

 means of fine screws with large graduated heads, 

 Messrs Whitworth have measured small pieces of 

 steel to the' one-millionth of an inch (see MICRO- 

 METER). Pressure-gauges, wind-gauges, &c. will 

 be treated under the special subjects. In railways, 

 the gauge means the distance between the rails ( see 

 RAILWAYS). The term GAUGING refers specially 

 to the gauging of the contents of casks ; and an 

 excise officer (as gauging casks containing excis- 

 able liquors) is often called 'gauger.' 



Gauliati. See ASSAM. 



Gaul. See FRANCE. 



Gaillt (a local name in Cambridgeshire for clay) 

 is one of the subdivisions of the Cretaceous System 

 (q.v.). The gault is a stiff, bluish-gray clay, 

 which here and there contains indurated nodules, 

 and septaria. Now and again it becomes somewhat 

 calcareous, or sandy and micaceous. In some 

 parts of Sussex a band of phosphatic nodules occurs 

 at its base. The deposit is of variable thickness 

 reaching in some places over 300 feet, while 

 occasionally it hardly attains a greater thickness 

 than 50 feet, and forms a well-marked geological 

 horizon forming the bottom member of the Upper 

 Cretaceous rocks. It is abundantly fossiliferous, the 

 remains being almost exclusively marine, only a few 

 drifted land-plants having been met with. One of 

 the best exposures of the gault in England is at 

 Folkestone. In the Isle of Wight this formation i* 

 known as the 'blue slipper,' from the readiness of 

 the overlying beds to slip or slide over its surfa,ce. 

 The picturesque ' Underclifl ' owes its origin to these 

 landslides. The gault is extensively employed in 

 the manufacture of bricks and tiles ; it forms a 

 retentive and rather unproductive soil. 



Ganltheria, a genus of small procumbent 

 evergreen shrubs, of the order Ericaceae, named 

 by the Swedish botanist Kalm in honour of Dr 

 Gaultier of Quebec. G. procumbens is a common 

 plant in North America as far south as Virginia, 

 and bears the names of Checkerberry, Partridge 

 Berry, Deer Berry, Wintergreen, and Mountain 

 Tea. It is about 4 or 5 inches in height, with 



