(JAI'NT 



GAUSS 



115 



,-... 



mall whitish Mowers and red 'berrie.s, 1 which 

 .liable, but not safe in any considerable 

 quantity, lii-caiise <>i the pungent volatile oil which 

 tlic\ contain, Brandy in which they have been 

 steeped is used as a tonic. The whole plant has 

 .rrceable iiroinatii: odour and last* 1 , and the 

 latile nil IN u-e.l in medicine as a stimulant, also 

 I'm llav. mring syrups, and in perfumery, under the 

 name <!' il f ll'iiitfi-ifi-i-rtt. An infusion of the 

 lu-i lies (hence called ' tea berries 'j was used as tea 

 liming iht> war of independence. Tlie berries are 

 employed for flavouring l>eer and other drinks, as 

 si i for tooth-powders and hair-washes. The leaf is 

 1 1 -indent, and is used in medicine. The Shallon 



Shallon (Gaultheria shallon). 



(G. shallon) is a large species (2-3 feet), with 

 purple berries ('salal-berries'), which are largely 

 iten by the Indians of north-west America, 

 grows well in woods, and is sometimes planted 

 I'.ritain to afford food for game. G. hispida 

 < Wax-cluster) is a native of Van Diemen's Land, 

 raring snow-white berries. Other species, some 

 rant, some producing edible berries, and all 

 uitiful little shrubs, are found in mountain 

 throughout the world. The Australian 

 antipoda is said to be a finer fruit than G. 



Gaunt* See GHENT ; and for John of Gaunt, 

 JOHN OF GA-UNT. 



Gauntlet, less correctly GANTLET (formed 

 ith double diminutives from Old Fr. gant, ' a 

 ;love,' itself a word of Scandinavian origin), an 



n glove, which formed part of the armour of 



ights and men-at-arms. The back of the hand 

 \\ as covered with plates jointed together, so as to 

 permit the hand to close. Gauntlets were intro- 

 duced about the 13th century. They were often 

 thrown down by way of challenge, like gloves. 

 They are of frequent occurrence in heraldry. 



In the phrase 'to run the gantlet,' the word is 

 ue to a confusion with the foregoing of the 

 original word gantlope or gatlope, the Swedish 

 !/iitt/ij>, made up of gata, 'a street,' and lopp, 

 ' a course,' from lopa, ' to run ' a cognate of Eng. 

 /"</. Professor Skeat suggests that the word may 

 be due to the wars of Gustavus Adolphus, who 

 "ed at Liit/en in 1632. The German form is 



i&senlaufen, ' lane-run,' both alike meaning a 

 military punishment, which consists in making 

 tli<- i-ulpnt, naked to the waist, pass repeatedly 

 through a lane formed of two rows of soldiers, eacn 

 of whom gives linn a stroke as he passes with a 

 short stick or other similar weapon. 



Gaur, the medieval capital of Bengal, also 

 called Lakhnauti, is said to have been founded by 

 tlie Vaidya king Lakshmanasena, at the close of 

 the llth century, and, on the Mohammedan con- 

 quest, a hundred years later, became the chief seat 

 of the viceroys who governed Bengal under the 

 Pathan kings of Delhi, and afterwards (but not 

 always) of the independent kings of Bengal. On 

 the Mogul conquest in 1575 a terrible pestilence 

 broke out at Gaur, and thousands of the inhabit- 



ants perished ; and from tliat time the city d i- 

 appean* from history, and its place i taken 

 successively by Tandan, Dacca, and Mumhidabad. 

 The ruins of Gaur still cover a Hpace of seven miles 

 by two, on a branch of the < Janges, and include 

 Hindu buildings as well an several interesting l.">th- 

 century Mnlianimcdan mosques, Itesides extensive 

 n--.Tv.iii-. channels, and embanked roads. The 

 vast accumulations of brick testify to the former 

 density of the population, while the neighbouring 

 ruins of Panduah and Tandan point to the > 

 ence of important suburbs, many of which have 

 wholly disappeared. See Ravenshaw, Gaur, its 

 Ruiiui and Inscriptions ( 1878) ; Fergusson, History 

 of Indian Architecture; Lane-Poole, Catalogue of 

 Indian Coins tn the British Museum. 



Gaur* or GOUR (Bos Gaums), a species of ox, 

 inhabiting some of the mountain jungles of India. 

 It is of very large size, although apparently inferior 

 to the Arnee (q.v. ). It bears a considerable resem- 

 blance to the Gayal (q.v.), but differs from it in 

 the form of its head, and in the total want of a 

 dewlap, in which it more nearly agrees with the 

 Banteng of the Eastern Archipelago, although dis- 

 tinguished from it by important anatomical peculi- 

 arities (see BANTENG). It is supposed to be in- 

 capable of domestication ; frequent attempts for 

 this purpose are said to have been made in Nepal. 

 From its ferocity its pursuit is reckoned in India 

 as exciting as that of tiger or elephant. 



Gauss, JOHANN KARL FRIEDRICH, German 

 mathematician, born at Brunswick, 30th April 

 1777, in 1801 published an important work on 

 the theory of numbers and other analytical sub- 

 jects, Disquisitiones Arithmetic*?. Shortly after- 

 wards his attention was attracted to astronomy ; 

 and he invented, and used in brilliant fashion, 

 new methods for the calculation of the orbits 

 of planets, comets, &c. The fruits of his 

 researches in this department appeared, two 

 years after his appointment as professor of 

 Mathematics and director of the observatory 

 at Gottingen, in his Theoria Motus Corporum 

 Caelestium (1809). He also laboured with equally 

 brilliant success in the science of geodesy, oeing 

 appointed by the Hanoverian government to con- 

 duct the trigonometrical survey of the kingdom 

 and to measure an arc of the meridian. \\ hilst 

 engaged in this work he invented the instrument 

 then called heliotrope (see HELIOGRAPHY). Later 

 in life (in 1843-46) he published a collection 

 of valuable memoirs on surface geometry, in Ueber 

 Geyenstande der hohern Geoddsie. In the mean- 

 time he had also begun to study the problems 

 arising out of the earth's magnetic properties. In 

 1833 he wrote his first work on the theory of 

 magnetism, Intensitas Vis Magneticce Terrestris ; 

 and in conjunction with W. E. Weber he invented 

 the declination needle and a magnetometer. He 

 was also mainly instrumental in founding a 

 Magnetic Association, which published valuable 

 papers, entitled Eesultate (1836-39), including two 

 by Gauss on the law of magnetic attraction. In 

 applied mathematics he investigated the problems 

 connected with the passage or light through a 

 system of lenses, in Dioptrische Untersurhitiujfn 

 (1840). Besides the researches already mentioned 

 he wrote papers or works on probability, the 

 method of least squares, the theory of biquadratic 

 residues, constructed tables for the conversion of 

 fractions into decimals and of the number of 

 classes of binary quadratic forms, and discussed 

 hypergeometric series, interpolation, curved sur- 

 faces, and the projection of surfaces on maps, all 

 of which, with others, are printed in the seven 

 vols. of his collected works ( G6tt. 1863-71 ). Gauss 

 died at Gottingen, 23d February, 1855. See Lives 



