, 



GIACOMELLI 



GIAOUR 



nected by rly. Ghurian is built on 

 a hill, and possesses a fine and com- 

 manding castle and the residences 

 of the Troglodytes or cave-dwellers. 

 Pop. of town about 7,000, of dis- 

 trict about 42,000. 



Giacomelli, HECTOR (1820- 

 1904). French painter. Born in 

 Paris, he early showed talent in 

 draughtsmanship, and studied es- 

 pecially the drawing of birds, 

 flowers, and insects, for his dainty 

 pictures of which he later was 

 famous. His illustrations to Miche- 

 let's L'Oiseau, 1867, and L'Insecte. 

 1876, were justly popular. 



Giacosa, GIUSEPPE (1847-1906). 

 Italian novelist and dramatist. He 

 was born at Colleretto-Parella, in 

 Piedmont. Classed among the ro- 

 mantic realists of the period, he 

 wrote all forms of drama, in both 

 prose and verse, the best known of 

 his works being Tristi Amori, 1888 ; 

 Diritti dell' anima, a comedy, 1894 ; 

 La Signora di Challant ; and II piu 

 Forte, 1904. He was editor of the 

 monthly Lettura. 



Giant. Abnormally tall human 

 being. The Greek word gigas 

 denoted primarily manlike beings 

 of monstrous size, either wholly 

 mythical, such as Briareus, or 

 reminiscent of traditional over- 

 sized races, such as Polyphemus. 

 Similar Old Testament traditions 

 attach to the Anakim and Rephaim, 

 tall non-Semitic peoples who 

 occupied Palestine before the 

 Israelite immigration. Og, king of 

 Bashari, and Goliath of Gath, who 

 according to Josephus was 8 ft. 

 9 ins. high, were of Rephaite blood. 



European folklore is much con- 

 cerned with stories of giants such 

 as Blunderbore and Grim. It 

 attributed to their activities such 

 natural formations as the Giant's 

 Causeway and the Giant's Kettle, 

 together with megalithic struc- 

 tures such as Dutch Hunnel- 

 bedden. 



Classical and medieval tradition 

 have been brought to the touch- 

 stone of fact by measured records 

 of giants in modern times. The 

 tallest races, pre-eminently the 

 Patagonians and the Galloway 

 Scots, who are normally 5 ft. 10 ins., 

 seldom reach 6 ft. 4 ins. The 

 conventional limit of spectacular 

 giantism is 7 ft. The Royal College 

 of Surgeons in London possesses 

 the skeleton, 7 ft. 9 ins. long, of 

 O'Brien Charles Byrne, the 18th 

 century Irish giant. His con- 

 temporary Patrick Cottar, whose 

 skeleton was exhumed at Bristol in 

 1909, was shown to have been 

 7 ft. 10 ins. ; the skeleton of 

 Cornelius MacGrath, now in Dub- 

 lin, is 7 ft. 9 ins. long. The tallest 

 authentic measurement was the 

 9 ft. 3 ins. of the Russian Machnov ; 



Giant. A Russian giant in the U.S.A., 

 7 it. 9 ins. in height 



the same height was attributed to 

 John Middleton, of Hale, Lan- 

 cashire, who was introduced to 

 James I in 1620. See Dwarf; 

 consult also Giants and Dwarfs, 

 E. J. Wood, 1868. 



Giant's Causeway. Promon- 

 tory of columnar basalt on the N. 

 coast of co. Antrim, Ireland. It 

 consists of some 40,000 closely 

 packed polygonal pillars, the pent- 

 agonal and hexagonal formations 

 largely predominating. The cause- 

 way is 2J m. N.E. of Bushmills and 

 is divided by, 

 "whin dykes" 

 into three natural \ 

 platforms known ' 

 as the Little 

 Causeway, the 

 Middle or Honey- 

 comb Causeway, 

 and the Grand 

 Causeway. T h c 

 pillars have a 

 varying diameter 

 of from 15 to 20 

 ins., each consist- 

 ing of several 

 joints, concave 

 and convex at 

 the extremities, 

 which fit perfectly 

 into each other, 

 formation of the columns is gener- 

 ally ascribed to the cooling and 

 cracking of the lava.. 



The neighbouring cliffs exhibit 

 several remarkable features, such 

 as the " Wishing Chair," the 

 " Lady's Fan," the " Giant's 

 Loom," and the " Giant's Organ," 



the base of which the Giant's Kettle 

 is formed by the gyration of stones 

 brought by the stream. These 

 holes are often very deep. 



Giant's Ring. Name applied 

 to a prehistoric monument situated 

 some five miles S.W. of Belfast, on 

 the co. Down side of the river 

 Lagan. It consists of a circular 

 vallum measuring one-third of a 

 mile in circumference, and aver- 

 aging 15 ft. in height. Almost 

 in the centre of the flat enclosure 

 is a cromlech, or Druids' altar. 

 The ancient name of this monu- 

 ment, and all traditions relating 

 to it, are lost in antiquity. 



In 1917 a careful investigation 

 of the monument was carried out, 

 under the superintendence of the 

 Irish board of works, the custod- 

 ians of the monument. It was 

 found that under the cromlech the 

 incinerated remains of apparently 

 one human being had been buried 

 in the Soil without enclosure in 

 an urn ; the bones had been so 

 much burned and decayed by age 

 that no conclusions could be ar- 

 rived at as to sex or age. 



The monument is evidently the 

 tomb of an exalted personage of 

 the late stone age, possibly of about 

 2000 B.C. Near by many sepulchral 

 remains have been found, mostly 

 of the early bronze age. 



Giao-Chi. Ancient people of 

 Tibeto-Chinese stock in Indo- 

 China. The name in Chinese means 



Giant's Causeway. The Honeycomb Causeway, one of 

 the most striking portions of the locks 



The peculiar 



forked toes. This physical charac- 

 ter, recorded in early Chinese 

 annals, may have resulted from the 

 riding stirrup being grasped be- 

 tween the first and second toes. 

 Migrating southward across Tong- 

 king, their ethnic fusion with 

 Chams and others produced the 

 Annamese type and culture, a 



whose regular pillars present the mixture of Mongoloid and Indo 



appearance of organ pipes. nesian elements. 



Giant's Kettle. Large hole Giaour. Term applied by the 



found in the rock beds of former Turks to all non - Mahomedans, 



glaciers. A stream on the surface especially Christians, and particu- 



of the glacier descends a crevasse, larly to Indian-born Portuguese, 



wearing out a cavity or shaft, at It does not necessarily imply 



