GELLERT 



and blood-stained, and slew the dog 

 believing that it had killed his 

 child ; only to find, too late, that 

 the faithful dog had killed a wolf 

 that had attacked the boy. Gellert's 

 grave is shown at the village of 

 Beddgelert, in Wales, near Snow- 

 don. The story was common hi Eu- 

 rope in different forms long before, 

 and is probably of Eastern origin. 

 Gellert, CHRISTIAN FURCHTE- 

 GOTT (1715-69). German poet. 

 Born in Saxony, July 4, 1715, he 

 was professor 

 of moral phil- 

 osophy in the 

 university of 

 Leipzig, where 

 his lectures 

 were attended 

 by Goethe. 

 H i s Fables, 

 1746 - 48, 

 C. F. Gellert. gained him 

 German poet t h e name of 



After Anton draff tne L a Font- 



aine of Germany. His moral 

 writings are characterised by deep 

 religious feeling, and exercised a 

 most wholesome influence. He 

 died at Leipzig, Dec. 13, J769. 



Gelligaer. Urban district of 

 Glamorganshire, Wales. It is 14 m. 

 N. of Cardiff, on the Monmouth- 

 shire boundary. Its Norman 

 church of S. Cadocus was restored 

 in 1867. There are extensive col- 

 lieries in the surrounding district. 

 The council owns an electrical 

 undertaking. Gelligaer is near the 

 site of a Roman hill-fort of the 

 1st century A.D. The best preserved 

 example of the period, it illustrates 

 with exactitude Josephus's de- 

 scription of a Roman camp. Its 

 four-gated, turreted ramparts en- 

 close 2 acres, with headquarters, 

 six barracks, two granaries, and 

 extramural baths. Pop. 35,521. 



Gellius, AULUS. Roman writer, 

 who flourished in the 2nd cent. A.D. 

 After studying rhetoric and philo- 

 sophy at Rome and then at Athens, 

 he returned to Rome, where he was 

 entrusted with certain judicial 

 functions. He was the author of 

 Noctes Atticae, or Attic Nights, 

 so called from having been begun 

 during his stay in Athens, a mis- 

 cellany in 20 books, of which the 

 eighth is lost. Its great value lies 

 in the fact that it has preserved, in 

 the form of quotations, fragments 

 of earlier writers whose works have 

 perished, and contains conversa- 

 tions with learned men on lin- 

 guistic and literary matters. 



Gellivare. Town of Swedish 

 Lapland, hi the govt. of Norr- 

 botten. It is 116 m. by rly. N.W. 

 of Lulea, and there is also rly. con- 

 nexion with Narvik, at the mouth 

 of the Ofoten Fiord, on the W. 

 coast of Norway. It owes its im- 



portance to the extensive iron 

 mines of Malmberg, a hill 2,025 ft. 

 high, with a mining village. The 

 deposits are among the richest in 

 the world, some 1,100,000 tons 

 of iron being exported yearly. 

 The town itself is substantially 

 built, and possesses an old Lapp 

 chapel and an ancient cemetery. 

 Pop. 12,100. 



Gelnhausen. Town of Germany 

 in the Prussian prov. of Hesse- 

 Nassau. Situated on the Kinzig, a 

 tributary of the Main, 14 m. E.N.E. 

 of Hanau, it carries on a variety of 

 industries, including the manu- 

 facture of rubber goods, tobacco 

 and wine. Gelnhausen has had a 

 distinguished past, having been 

 made an imperial town in 1169 ; 

 and on an island in the Kinzig 

 are the ruins of a castle built by 

 Barbarossa. There is a notable 

 church, the Marien Kirche, in the 

 town, dating from the 13th century. 

 Pop. 4,859. 



Gelnica. Town in the Slovakia 

 division of the Czecho-Slovak re- 

 public, generally known as Golnicz- 

 banya (q.v.). 



Gelo (Gr. Gelon). Tyrant first 

 of Gela (491 B.C.) and afterwards of 

 Syracuse (485) in Sicily. In the 

 second Persian war he offered a 

 force of 30,000 men to help the 

 Greeks against the Persians, on 

 condition that he should have the 

 sole command. This the Greeks re- 

 fused, but Gelo had an oppor- 

 tunity of distinguishing himself 

 nearer home, when Sicily was in- 

 vaded by the Carthaginians with 

 an immense force under Hamilcar. 

 This force Gelo defeated at Himera 

 in 480 B.C. on the very day on 

 which the Greeks gained their vic- 

 tory over the Persians at Salamis. 

 A wise and beneficent ruler, he was 

 styled the saviour of his country, 

 and after his death (478) was hon- 

 oured as a hero. Pron. Jee-lo. 



Gelsemine (Ital. gelsomino ; 

 Arab, yasmin, jasmine). The chief 

 alkaloid con tamed in yellow j asmine 

 (Gelsemium sempervirens), another 

 alkaloid.gelseminine, being also pre- 

 sent. Gelsemine is extracted from 

 the finely powdered root by means 

 of alcohol. It is very poisonous, 

 and like strychnine has an intensely 

 bitter taste. The total alkaloids pre- 

 sent in the gelsemium root is about 

 0*25 p.c., three-fourths of which 

 consists of gelsemine. It is con- 

 sidered, however, that the medici- 

 nal activity of the drug is due to the 

 gelseminine. The tincture of gelse- 

 mium is prescribed for neuralgia. . 



Gelsenkirchen. Town of Ger- 

 many in the Prussian prov. of 

 Westphalia. It lies hi the heart of 

 the industrial district, 6 m. N.W. of 

 Bochum, and 5 m. N. of Essen, on 

 the Rhine-Herne canal. A modem 



QELM 



town, with a pop. of only 844 in 

 1852, it derives much of its pros- 

 perity from its coal mines. Other 

 important industries are iron and 

 steel works, the manufacture of 

 machinery, and chemical and brick 

 works. It also carries on a trade in 

 gram, wood, cattle, etc., much of 

 the traffic passing over the canal to 

 the Rhine. Gelsenkirchen, which 

 has absorbed many neighbouring 

 localities, became a city in 1875. 

 Pop. 181,600. 



Gem. Name given to precious 

 stones, especially diamonds, rubies, 

 sapphires, topazes and emeralds 

 after they have been cut and pol- 

 ished. It is used hi a secondary 

 sense for cameos, and the less pre- 

 cious stones, e.g. agates, garnets, 

 jaspers, onyxes. By a quaint con- 

 ceit the Romans divided gems into 

 male and female according to the 

 depth or lightness of their colour. 

 James Tassie (1735-99) and his 

 nephew William Tassie (1777- 

 1860) were reproducers of antique 

 gems hi a vitreous material of their 

 own composition. See Cameo : 

 Diamond ; Emerald, etc ; also Arti- 

 ficial Gem Stories and Colour Plate. 



GEM CUTTING. In its modern 

 sense of shaping the surfaces of 

 stones hi rectangular or triangular 

 planes called facets, gem cutting is 

 comparatively modern. But the 

 rougher dressing and polishing of 

 precious stones, as well as the carv- 

 ing of gems, was practised at least 

 as early as 4600 B.C., for turquoises, 

 amethysts, and lapis-lazuli have 

 been found in the form of spherical 

 beads, flat or slightly domed circles 

 and rectangles hi Egyptian tombs 

 of the early dynasties. In the East 

 precious stones were roughly 

 shaped by chipping or grinding 

 down to flat or domed surfaces and 

 then polished. 



Early Centres of Catting 



The art of gem cutting developed 

 in Paris about 1280, and nearly a 

 century later flourished at Nurem- 

 berg. A clever school of gem cutters 

 existed at Bruges in 1460 ; twenty 

 years later Amsterdam was a recog- 

 nized centre of the diamond-out- 

 ting trade, while the trade hi col- 

 oured stones was busiest at Lisbon. 

 But Paris retained its reputation, 

 which was enhanced by Cardinal 

 Mazarin's introduction of the " bril- 

 liant " form of faceting. The trade 

 was broken up at the Revolution. 

 In London little fine work was done 

 until about 1650, but since 1875 the 

 gem cutters of London and Bir- 

 mingham have rivalled in skill those 

 of Amsterdam, Antwerp, and Paris. 



There are various styles of cut- 

 ting : (1) Brilliants have a flat, 

 octagonal table, surrounded by 32 

 smafler facets sloping to the girdle : 

 the lower part is pyramidal, 24 



