206 



GIBRALTAR 



GIBSON 



The eastern side is so precipitous as to be alto- 

 gether secure from assault. The annual cost to 

 the imperial government of maintaining the garri- 

 son and fortifications averages about 330,000. 

 In these days, however, of steam-ships and heavy 

 long-range guns, the military importance of Gib- 

 raltar has certainly diminished. 



The rock is composed of Jurassic limestone 

 resting on a Silurian basement. The surface pre- 

 sents a bare and repellent aspect, principally due 

 to the absence of trees ; nevertheless, there are 

 grassy, wooded glens in the nooks of the mountain. 

 The rocky mass is perforated by numerous caverns, 

 some of which penetrate for several hundred feet 

 into the rock. The largest, called the ' Hall of St 

 Michael,' is 220 feet long, 90 wide, and 70 high, 

 and its floor is connected with the roof by stalactite 

 pillars ranging up to 50 feet in height, linked by 

 arches on the top. The entrance lies about 1100 

 feet above the sea. Large stalactites are found in 

 most of the other caverns, and interesting fossils 

 abound throughout the peninsula. Gibraltar is the 

 only place in Europe where monkeys live wild 

 (see BARBARY APE) ; but, after an epidemic of 

 smallpox in 1894, only fifty remained. 



Gibraltar has been known in history since the 

 days of the early Phoenician navigators. The 

 Greeks called it Calpe, and it and Abyla (now 

 Ceuta) opposite formed the Pillars of Hercules, long 

 held to be the western boundary of the world. We 

 have no certain information of its natural strength 

 being made available for defensive or aggressive 

 purposes until the year 711 A.D.> when the Saracen 

 leader Tarik, a general of the Calif Al-Walid, 

 crossing from Africa for the invasion of the Visi- 

 gothic kingdom, fortified it, as a base of operations, 

 and a ready point of access from the Barbary coast. 

 From this chieftain it took the name of Gebel el- 

 Tarik, or Hill of Tarik, of which Gibraltar is a 

 corruption. One of the old towers of his early 

 castle still remains. In 1302 Ferdinand II. of 

 Castile won it from the Moors ; but in 1333 it. fell 

 to the army of the king of Fez, whom a siege by 

 the Castilian monarch failed to dislodge. In 1410 

 Yussuf, king of Granada, possessed himself of the 

 fortress, which, however, was finally wrested from 

 the Moors by the Spaniards in 1462, and by them 

 refortified and strengthened in every way. A com- 

 bined Dutch and English force, however, under Sir 

 George Rooke and Admiral Byrig, and the Prince of 

 Hesse-Darmstadt, after a vigorous bombardment, 

 and a landing in force, compelled the governor 

 to capitulate in 1704. 



Since 1704 Gibraltar has remained continuously 

 in the possession of the British, in spite of many 

 desperate efforts on the part of Spain and France 

 to dislodge them. Before the victors had been 

 able to add to the defences, their mettle was 

 severely tried by two attacks in 1704-5. The 

 most memorable of the sieges to which Gibraltar 

 has been exposed commenced 21st June 1779, 

 when, Britain being engaged in the struggle with 

 its revolted colonies, and at the same time at war 

 with France, Spain took the opportunity of joining 

 the coalition, and made a most determined attempt 

 to subdue the garrison of this isolated fortress. It 

 was, however, defended with heroic valour by 

 General Eliott (see HEATHFIELD) and 5000 men, 

 including 1100 Hanoverians. Several times the 

 defenders were on the point of starvation. On 26th 

 November 1781, in a desperate midnight sally, the 

 British succeeded in destroying the more advanced 

 of the enemy's lines on the land side, in setting 

 fire to many of his batteries, and in blowing up his 

 principal depot of ammunition. At length in July 

 1782 the Spaniards were reinforced by the French, 

 the Due de Crillon took command of the assailants, 

 and preparations were made for the grand assault. 



Additional batteries were constructed on the land 

 side, and floating-batteries built to bombard the 

 fortress from the sea. Covered boats destined to 

 disembark 40,000 troops were at the same time 

 prepared. The effective force with which General 

 Eliott had to withstand these efforts comprised 

 about 7000 men. The attack commenced on the 8th 

 September by a furious bombardment simultane- 

 ously on all sides, and it was kept up without inter- 

 mission until the 14th ; but by means of red-hot 

 balls and incendiary shells the otherwise in- 

 vulnerable floating-batteries were all set on fire 

 and destroyed, and the attack was completely 

 repulsed, with a loss to the heroic garrison of only 

 16 killed and 68 wounded. Since then the fortress 

 has enjoyed immunity from attack. See Drink- 

 water's History of the Siege of Gibraltar (1785) ; 

 Gilbard's History of Gibraltar (1881); H. M. 

 Field, Gibraltar (New York, 1889). 



Gibraltar, STRAITS OF (anciently the Straits 

 of Hercules), connect the Mediterranean with the 

 Atlantic. They narrow toward the east, their width 

 between Point Europa and Cape Ceuta being only 

 15 miles, at the western extremity 24 ; the narrow- 

 est part measures 9 miles. The length (from east 

 to west) is 36 miles. A constant surface-current 

 which runs in from the Atlantic is counterbalanced 

 by an under-current from the Mediterranean. 



Gibson, JOHN, sculptor, was born a market- 

 gardener's son, at Gyfhn, near Conway, North 

 Wales, in 1790, but from his tenth year was 

 brought up at Liverpool, where at fourteen he was 

 apprenticed to cabinet-making. This he exchanged 

 for carving, first in wood, then in stone, his love 

 of art having manifested itself strongly even while 

 he was a mere boy at school. He found a patron 

 in Roscoe ; and, proceeding to Rome in 1817, 

 became a pupil of Canova, and after his death of 

 Thorwaldsen. Gibson then fixed his residence in 

 that city, and very seldom revisited his native 

 country. At first he was a faithful follower of 

 Canova. whose graceful softness he made his own. 

 But, advancing to the study of the antique, he 

 finally rose to ideal purity and a thorough realisa- 

 tion of the grace of form. Amongst his finest works 

 may be mentioned ' The Hunter and Dog,' ' The- 

 seus and the Robber,' 'Amazon thrown from her 

 Horse,' the two bas-reliefs of 'The Hours leading 

 the Horses of the Sun ' and ' Phaethon driving 

 the Chariot of the Sun,' and 'Hero and Leander. ' 

 In these the most characteristic trait is perhaps 

 that of passionate expression ; they are, moreover, 

 thoroughly classical, and are marked by a refined 

 and noble severity. The innovation of tinting his 

 figures (e.g. his Venus), which he defended by 

 a reference to Grecian precedents, has not com- 

 mended itself to the public taste. Among his 

 portrait-statues, those ef Huskisson, Dudley 

 North, Peel, George Stephenson, and Queen 

 Victoria are the best. In 1833 he was elected an 

 associate, in 1836 a member of the Royal Academy, 

 to which he left a representative collection of his 

 works. He died at Rome, 27th January 1866. See 

 Life by Lady Eastlake (1869). 



Gibson, THOMAS MILNER, English politician, 

 was born at Trinidad, 1807, and educated at 

 Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated 

 in 1830. He entered parliament for Ipswich as a 

 Conservative in 1837 ; but shortly afterwards be- 

 came a convert to Liberalism, and was returned 

 for Manchester (1841). He had previously dis- 

 tinguished himself by his advocacy of free trade ; 

 during the succeeding five years he occupied a 

 prominent position among the orators of the Anti- 

 corn-law League. When the Whigs came into office, 

 in July 1846, he was made a privy-councillor and 

 vice-president of the Board of Trada, but resigned 



