253 



GADUIX 



GAGE. 



251 



the roof ; false gables are not uncommon in Italian ecclesiastical archi- 

 tecture. 



In ecclesiastical architecture of the Romanesque and pointed Gothic 

 periods the gables are very important features. In our own country, 

 church gables of the Norman and Early English periods are usually 

 finished with a flat or moulded coping at the sides ; and frequently 

 terminated with a cross or finial at the apex. Sometimes in rich 

 Early English and Decorated examples crockets are carried up the 

 coping. Gables of Decorated and Perpendicular date, sometimes have 

 a parapet, either plain, pierced, panelled, or battlemented. In old 

 English secular architecture also, the gable was made a highly decora- 

 tive feature either constructively or by the addition of ornamental 

 barge-boards. [BARGE-BOARD.] Numerous examples of all the kinds of 

 gables ;here referred to will be found in Messrs. Brandon's ' Parish 

 Churches,' and Paley's ' Ornamental Gables." For examples of some of 

 the many varieties of Elizabethan gables see ELIZABETHAN ARCHI- 

 TECTURE. In some English houses of the tune of Elizabeth and James I., 

 and commonly in old Scottish and continental buildings (especially 

 those of Flanders, Holland, and Germany) the sides of gables are formed 

 like a series of steps : these are known as stepped-r/ables, in Scotland 

 they are termed corbie-ttept. The small gable-like ornaments over 

 niches, on buttresses, &c., in Gothic architecture are called Goblets : see 

 examples under BUTTRESS, col. 472. 



GADUIN. A brown matter said to be contained in cod-liver oil. 

 Ite composition is unknown, and its existence as a distinct compound 

 very doubtful. 



GAEL, GAELIC. Although the language spoken by the Scottish 

 Highlanders is familiarly known among the Lowlanders by the name 

 of the Erie, or, according to the more usual pronunciation, the Ersh, 

 that is, plainly, the Eirish or Irish, the people themselves are never 

 called by that name. Among the Highlanders the name Erse is 

 unknown, either as that of the nation or of the Language. They call 

 themselves only the Gadhel, also sometimes written and always pro- 

 nounced Gael ; and their language the Gaedlteily, pronounced Gaeily, 

 or, nearly, Gaelic. The name Gaelic is also in familiar use among the 

 Lowlanders as that of the language. Further, the only name by which 

 the Irish are known to the Scottish Highlanders is Gael ; the latter 

 call themselves Gael Albinnich, or the Gael of Albin, and the Irish 

 Gael Erinnich, or the Gael of Erin. The Irish also call themselves the 

 Gadhel, or Gael ; and their language the Gaelic. Finally, the Welsh 

 call the Irish Gwyddel, which is evidently the same word with Oadhel, 

 or Gael. 



This is nearly all that can be stated as matter of fact in regard to 

 the name Gael. The rest is all speculation and conjecture ; of that, 

 however, few words have given rise to so much. We shall not here 

 attempt to do more than to indicate and arrange the various points as 

 to which many volumes of philological and historical controversy have 

 been written. 



It has been generally assumed and admitted that the modern Gael 

 are a portion of the Galli, or Gauls, of antiquity, the people who gave 

 its former name to the country now called France, and who were prin- 

 cipally, though by no means exclusively, known to the Greeks and 

 Romans as the inhabitants of that region. This opinion has been 

 adopted upon the grounds of the similarity of the two names, some 

 historical and traditional testimony to the fact that South Britain was 

 originally peopled from Gaul, some traces, rather faint and disputable, 

 of identity of institutions and customs, and, what would be the 

 strongest argument, if it were well made out, the evidences of identity 

 of language conceived to be established by the comparison of the names 

 of places in France, and a few other remains of the old language spoken 

 there, with the modern Gaelic of Scotland and Ireland. The Rev. 

 Archdeacon Williams, in an essay printed in the ' Transactions of the 

 Royal Society of Edinburgh,' vol. xiii., has been the strongest supporter 

 of this theory, and maintains that the Galli Veteres, or Umbrians, of 

 the Romans, the inhabitants of Gallia Cisalpina, were of the Cumic or 

 < 'ymric races ; that their language " formed some portion of the non- 

 Hellenic elements of the Latin tongue; that the race was cognate 

 with the Cymri of Wales, and that they were Celts, and not Germans." 

 Supposing the Gael to be the Galli of the Roman writers, and the 

 Galutai (rdXoToi), or Kellai (KtAroi), of the Greeks, sometimes spoken 

 of by the ancients as a general name for the Gauls, sometimes as the 

 mme of only a certain portion of the Gauls, the question arises, whence 

 did the Gaels of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales derive their origin ? A 

 tradition exists that Ireland was colonised from Spain, where Celtic 

 tiil.i-.i certainly existed, and that the Highlands of Scotland were 

 peopled from Ireland. This is not improbable; and Wales might 

 have received the stock from the coast of France. This would account 

 for the variations of the dialects. Diefenbach (' Sprachliche Docu- 

 ment* zur Geschichte der Kelten ') conjectures Galloway and Northum- 

 berland to have received the Celtic element from Ireland, and concludes 

 flint, tin' 1'icts were the sea-rovers of Scandinavia. See also Zeuss's 

 ' 'iriumniitica Celtica e monument vetustistam Hibernicae ling, quam 

 Britannicae Dialect! Cambricne, Cornicae, Armoricae, nee non c Gallicae 

 priacae reliquiis cmistnixit,' Leipsic, 1853, as well as J. von Gorres 

 ' ]>'n; dreiQrund-Wiirzelit <}< Celtischen Stammes in Gallien und ihre 

 Kinwrmderung.' Munich, 1845-6. 



a wnrld nf controversy, also, about the origin and 

 iiig of both Gael and Celt (anciently, it is to be remembered, 



pronounced Kelt) ; the confusion here again being increased by the 

 difference of opinion as to whether these are different words or only 

 different forms of the same word. The Greek Galatai and Kdtai, the 

 Latin Galli, the Gael of the Scotch and Irish, and the Galks of the 

 French for Wales, seem all but variations of the same word. It is 

 hardly necessary to enter into the meanings which the words Gael and 

 Celt bear in the ancient Gaelic language, though they have caused much 

 discussion. 



It would occupy much more space than we can afford to enumerate 

 even the more important works in which these various controverted 

 points have been discussed in our own and other languages. We shall 

 only mention ' The Highlanders of Scotland, their Origin, History, and 

 Antiquities," by W. F. Skene, 2 vols., 8vo, London, 1837, being an 

 essay to which a prize had been awarded by the Highland Society of 

 London. Mr. Skene's views and reasonings are of considerable inge- 

 nuity ; but whatever may be thought of the part of it which relates to 

 the origin of the Gael, the work is an important contribution to early 

 Scottish history. The essay by the Rev. Archdeacon Williams, ' On 

 One Source of the Non-Hellenic Portion of the Latin Language," 

 printed in vol. xiii. of the 'Transactions of the Royal Society of 

 Edinburgh," read in March, 183b', has much ingenious argument and 

 learning in support of the theory we have already mentioned. 



GAGE or GAUGE, any apparatus for measuring the state of a 

 phenomenon. But the term is usually restricted to some particular 

 instruments, such as the gage of the air-pump, which points out the 

 degree of exhaustion in the receiver ; the steam-gage, for measuring the 

 pressure of steam ; and the gas-gage for that of gas ; also the wind-gage 

 [ANEMOMETER], the tide-gage, &c., all of which are mentioned in con- 

 nection with their several subjects. There are also various gages used 

 in certain trades and manufactures, such as the rod-Iron gage, the nail- 

 rod gaye, the button maker's gage ; others are used in watch-icork ; there 

 are also the gun-maker's gage, and gages for measuringjwires and sheet 

 metals. These generally consist of thick plates of steel of several sizes 

 and forms, around and near the edges of which holes are drilled, with 

 a notch leading from the edge into each hole. There is no system in 

 the gages in common use, so that much confusion arises in attempting 

 to reduce the measure to a common standard. Thus, the Birmingham 

 gage for iron-wire, sheet-iron, and steel, differs from that used for 

 sheet-brass, gold, silver, &c., and both these differ from the Lancashire 

 gage for round steel wire. To render the confusion worse, gages 

 nominally of the same value are made by different manufacturers 

 without sufficiently agreeing as to the unity of measure. 



To avoid these inconveniences, our best tool makers have long 

 advocated the adoption of a uniform scale. Mr. Holtzapffel, in the 

 appendix to the second volume of his ' Mechanical Manipulation," 

 proposes to employ only the decimal divisions of the inch, and those 

 under their true appellations only. The division of the inch into a 

 hundred parts would be sufficiently minute ; and the measures 1, 2, 5, 

 10, 50, &c. hundreds would be sufficiently impressive on the mind. 

 It does not follow that the entire hundred notches should be used ; as 

 in the greater thicknesses of wire and sheet metal the gradations from 

 one size to another are not so minute as in those of the thinner kind. 

 In the measurement of precious metal, where a hundredth of an inch 

 might be too much, either there might be half-degrees or numbers, or 

 a finer scale might be adopted below one-tenth of an inch. Holtzapffel 

 enumerates the following advantages as likely to result from the use of 

 such a decimal scale for denoting the thickness of wires, sheets, plates, 

 &c. : It would introduce a system which would be easily and equally 

 known to all whom it might concern, and who would all interpret it in 

 the same sense. It would facilitate the employing of verbal and 

 written instructions, by lessening the chances of mistake or misinter- 

 pretation. It would render very easy the proportioning of various 

 magnitudes so as to form a series. It would enable quantities to be 

 written down more easily ;md accurately than at present. It would 

 facilitate the comparison of one size with another; seeing that in 

 vulgar fractions each has a specific relation to the unit, whereas in 

 decimal fractious all have a general relation in common. It would 

 bring all foreign measures within more easy reach of our knowledge. 

 It would allow the exact weight in every superficial foot of sheet 

 metals and other substances to be readily arrived at, by taking the 

 specific gravity as the other element in the calculation. Lastly it 

 would furnish constant multipliers for determining, from the specific 

 gravities of substances, the exact thicknesses of plates or sheets of the 

 same which shall precisely weigh one ounce or one pound, troy or 

 avoirdupois. The graduation into hundredths being effected, the 

 nomenclatures would follow easily ; let a wire one-tenth of an inch in 

 diameter, or a plate or sheet one-tenth of an inch thick, be called No. 

 10, and so on for other dimensions : there will then be swept away a 

 large amount of confusion which now besets our factories and work- 

 shops. 



Nearly related to this subject is Mr. Whitworth's exquisite con- 

 trivance for gaging or measuring minute quantities. In the Proceed- 

 ings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, for 1859, an account 

 of this remarkable machine is given ; showing it to be the most accurate 

 measuring apparatus yet devised. Newton's colures of thin plates, 

 interpreted by formulae of later introduction, show that a millionth of 

 ;ni inch is an appreciable quantity in relation to the breadth of waves 

 i'f light; but Mr. Whitworth is the first who has felt justified in 



