(JA/A 



GAZKTT1 I I; 



119 





in ls-_>9 chief assayer to tin- mint. In is.T.t he was 

 made a peer of France. From the year 18H> he 

 was the editor, in a*M>ciation with AngO, of the 

 I/M / I'liiniii it (/> r/ti/xKjiif. He died at 

 !Mli May 1850. As a chemist Gay-Lussac in 

 distinguished by great accuracy, descriptive <-!ear 

 ness, ami undoubted genius. A complete list of 

 hi- papers U -i\fii in tlit- Koval Society s catalogue. 



Mis larger works, besides that already mentioned, 

 include MI//IH/,->: i sur /'. 1 iiiilifse tie f Air Atnu>- 

 tphtrique (1H04), ('ours de Physique (1827), and 



.!/ (Vi/i/H(1828). 



<>a/ll (now called Guzzeh), one of tlie five chief 

 [ties of the ancient Philistines, situated in the 

 .ill \\e-i >if Palestine, alxmt three miles from the 

 on the borders of the desert which separates 

 destine from Egypt. It is often mentioned in 

 the history of Samson, and was the scene of 

 constant si rubles between the Israelites and the 

 Philistines. In 333 B.C. it was taken after a five 

 months' siege by Alexander the Great, and from 

 that time down to 1799, when the French under 

 Klelier captured it, it witnessed the victories of the 

 Maccaliec-s, the Calif Abu-bekr, the Templars, and 

 the heroic Saladin. Constantine the Great, who 

 rebuilt the town, made it the seat of a bishop. 

 The modern Guzzeh is a scattered group of vil- 

 lages. Pop. 16,000. 



4. a/a. or GAZA-LAND, a large Portuguese terri- 

 tory in South-East Africa, between Sofala and the 

 Transvaal. Much of the land is fertile ; the in- 

 habitants are Bantus. 



I Gaza, THEODORUS, Greek scholar, was born at 

 Thessalonica in 1398, fled about 1444 before the 

 Turks to Italy, where he became teacher of Greek at 

 Ferrara, next of philosophy at Rome. After the 

 death of Pope Nicholas V. , King Alfonso invited him 

 to Naples ; but the death .of this new patron two 

 years later drove him back to Rome, where he was 

 befriended by Cardinal Bessarion, who obtained for 

 him a small benefice in Calabria. There he died in 

 1478. Gaza has been warmly praised by subsequent 

 scholars, such as Politian, Erasmus, Scaliger, 



Band Melanchthon. His principal work was a Greek 

 grammar in four books, first published by Aldus 

 Manntius at Venice in 1495. He translated into 

 Lai in portions of Aristotle, Theophrastus, St Chrys- 

 ostom, H ippocrates, and other Greek writers. 



Gazelle is a name given to some twenty dif- 

 ferent species of antelopes, which diti'er from each 

 other principally in the form of curvature of 

 the horns, in the presence or absence of horns in 

 the female, and in the colour. The true gazelle 

 (Gazella Dorcas) is a species about the size of 

 a roebuck, but of lighter and more graceful form, 

 with longer and more slender limbs, in these 

 respects exhibiting the typical characters of the 

 antelopes in their highest perfection. It is of a 

 light tawny colour, the under parts white ; a broad 

 brown band along each Hank ; the hair short and 

 .smooth. The face is reddish fawn-colour, with 

 white and dark stripes. The horns of the old 

 males are 9 or 10 inches long, bending outward and 

 then inward, like the sides of a lyre, also back- 

 ward at t he base arid forward at the tips, tapering 

 to a point, surrounded by thirteen or fourteen 

 permanent rings, the rings near the base bring 

 closest together and most perfect. The horns 

 of the female are smaller and obscurely ringed. 

 The ears are long, narrow, and pointed ; the eyes 

 \ct y large, soft, and black ; there is a tuft of ban- 

 on each knee ; the tail is short, with black hairs 

 on its upper surface only, and at its tip. The 

 gazelle is a native of the north of Africa, and of 

 Syria, Arabia, and Persia. Great herds of gazelles 

 frequent the northern borders of the Sahara; and 

 not withstanding their great speed, and the resist- 



ance which they are capable of making when 

 i-ompelleii to Htand at bay the herd clotting to- 

 ^iln-r with the femaleH and young in the centre, 

 and the males presenting their horns all around 

 lions and panthers destroy them in great numbers. 

 Tlx- speed of the gazelle in such that it cannot be 

 successfully hunted by any kind of dog, but in 

 some parts of the East it is taken with the assistance 

 of falcons of a small species, which fasten on its 

 head, and by the flapping of their wings blind and 

 confuse it, so that it soon falls a prey to the hunter. 



Gazella Granti. 



It is also captured in enclosures made near its 

 drinking-places. Although naturally very wild 

 and timid, it is easily domesticated, and, when 

 taken young, becomes extremely familiar. Tame 

 gazelles are very common in the Asiatic countries 

 of which the species is a native ; and the poetry of 

 these countries abounds in allusions both to the 

 beauty and the gentleness of the gazelle. Some 

 confusion has arisen among naturalists as to the 

 application of the name gazelle, originally Arabic ; 

 and it has not only been given to the leucoryx of 

 the ancients, a very different species, but even to 

 the gemsboc of South Africa. The true gazelle was 

 known to the ancients, and is accurately described 

 by .AClian under the name dorcas, which was also 

 given to the roe. 



Gazette, an abstract of news, a newspaper. 

 The word is derived, through the medium of French, 

 from Italian gazzetta, ' a gazette,' which may have 

 l>een originally a mere diminutive of gazza, ' mag- 

 pie,' with the sense of ' gossip, tittle-tattle ;' or, with 

 greater likelihood, gazzetta, 'a small coin* ((Jr. 

 gaza, 'a treasury,' a word ultimately of Persian 

 origin), the sum charged for a reading of the 

 first Venetian newspaper, which appeared about 

 1536. The London Gazette is an official organ, the 

 property of the government. It was founded in 

 1665, and appears twice a week. It is recognised 

 by law as the medium of official and legal announce- 

 ments, as also of many intimations with regard to 

 private transactions which are require*! by law to 

 l>e thus published, such as trust-deeds for creditors. 

 Similar official gazettes are published at Edin- 

 burgh and Dublin. To be ' put in the gazetce ' is in 

 Britain a popular synonym for becoming bankrupt. 



Gazetteer is in modern English a geographical 

 or topographical dictionary, or alphalwtieal arrange- 

 ment of place-names, with a more or less abund- 

 ant complement of information, descriptive, statis- 

 tical, and historical. The word (like the corre- 

 sponding French gazttier) was familiar in the 18th 

 century in the sense of a writer in the gazettes or 

 newspapers. That industrious compiler, Laurence 

 Echard or Eachard, published in 1703 The Gazct- 



