372 



GASCONY GASTROMANTIA. 



Tons. CwtR. Qr*. 



brought over 



17 

 9 

 2 

 

 

 

 10 

 



is 



Total, 55 14 2 



The retorts are three in number, one of which is 

 kept in reserve. The length of each is five feet, 

 depth one foot, and breadth two feet. The cross 

 section being of the saddle form, and the gasometer 

 having a capacity of 453-4 cubic feet. The expense 

 for Lesmahago coal for retorts amounts to 44 16s., 

 allowing 16s. Oil. per ton; coal for furnaces (used 

 along with coke and tar), seventy tons at 4s. Od. 

 per ton, being 14 Os. Od. For twenty-four bolls of 

 Irish lime, at Is. 3d. per boll ; attendant's wages, 

 17 Os. Od. ; in all 77 6s. Od., and, allowing about 

 23 for contingencies, the whole cost is 100. 



GASCONY ; before the revolution of 1789, a con- 

 siderable province of France, situated between the 

 Garonne, the sea, and the Pyrenees. Sometimes, 

 but improperly, under the name of Gascony, Langue- 

 doc and the whole of Guienne were included. The 

 Gascons have a great deal of spirit ; but their exag- 

 geration in describing their exploits has made the 

 term gasconade proverbial. The Gascons who dwell 

 near the Pyrenees, were originally from Spain. 



GASKET ; a sort of plaited cord fastened to the 

 sail-yards of a ship, and used to furl or tie up the sail 

 firmly to the yard by wrapping it round both. 



GASSENDI, PETER, an eminent French philo- 

 sopher and mathematician, was born in 1592, at 

 Chantersier, near Digne, in Provence. He early 

 displayed a lively and inquisitive genius, which deter- 

 mined his parents, although in moderate circum- 

 stances, to bestow upon him the best education in 

 their power. It is said that he delivered little ser- 

 mons when only four years old. Under the instruction 

 of an able master at Digne, he made a rapid progress 

 in the Latin language, and afterwards studied philo- 

 sophy at the university of Aix. At the age of nine- 

 teen, he was appointed to fill the" vacant chair of 

 philosophy at Aix, and, notwithstanding the authority 

 of Aristotle was still warmly maintained, he ventured 

 publicly to expose the detects of his system. His 

 lectures on this subject, which were delivered in the 

 indirect form of paradoxical problems, and published 

 under the title of Exercitationes Paradoxicee adversus 

 Aristotelem, gave great offence to the votaries of the 

 Aristotelian philosophy, but obtained him no small re- 

 putation with Peiresc and other learned men, through 

 whose interest, after being induced to take orders, he 

 was presented to a canonry in the cathedral church 

 of Digne, and made doctor of divinity. A second 

 book of Exercitationes excited so much enmity, that 

 he ceased all direct attacks on Aristotle, although he 

 still maintained the predilection he had formed for 

 the doctrines of Epicurus, which he defended with 

 great learning and ability. He strenuously main- 

 tained the atomic theory, in opposition to the views 

 of the Cartesians, and, in particular, asserted the 

 doctrine of a vacuum. On the subject of morals, he 

 explained the pleasure or indolence of Epicurus in a 

 sense the most favourable to morality. He was ap- 

 pointed lecturer on mathematics in the college-royal, 

 at Paris, in 1645. Here he delivered lectures on 

 astronomy to crowded audiences, and, by his great 

 application, so injured his health, that he was obliged 

 to return to Digne in 1647, from which place he did 

 not return until 1653, when he published the lives of 



Tycho Brahe, Copernicus, Peurbach, and Regio- 

 montanus (John Muller). He also resumed his astro- 

 nomical labours with an intensity to which his state 

 of health not being adequate, his former disorder 

 returned, and terminated his life, Oct. 25, 1655, in 

 the sixty-third year of his age. He is ranked by 

 Barrow amongst the most eminent mathematicians of 

 the age, and mentioned with Galileo, Gilbert, and 

 Descartes. Gassendi was the first person who obser- 

 ved the transit of Mercury over the sun. It is to the 

 credit of both philosophers, that although mutually 

 warm in their scientific controversies, Gassendi and 

 Descartes became friends in the sequel. The MSS. 

 which the former left behind him, and the treatises 

 published during his life, were, in 1658, collected by 

 Sorbiere, in 6 volumes, folio, and published at Lyons- 

 and by Averrani^also in 6 folio volumes, at Florence, 

 in 1728. They consist of the philosophy of Epicurus ; 

 the author's own philosophy ; the lives of Epicurus, 

 Peiresc, Muller, and others, in addition to those 

 already mentioned ; refutations of Descartes' epistles, 

 and other treatises. Gibbon calls Gassendi thegreat- 

 est philosopher among the learned, and the most learn- 

 ed of the philosophers of the age; but Descartes stands 

 higher for original thought, and in respect of style. 



GASTON DE FOIX, duke of Nemours, born 

 1488, son of John de Foix, count d'Estampes, and 

 Mary of Orleans, sister of Louis XII., was the 

 favourite of his royal uncle, who used to say with 

 exultation, " Gaston is my work ; I have educated 

 him, and formed him to the virtues which already 

 excite admiration." At the age of twenty-three, he 

 acquired great celebrity in the war which Louis car- 

 ried on in Italy. He routed a Swiss army, rapidly 

 crossed four rivers, drove the pope from Bologna, 

 won the celebrated battle of Ravenna, April 11, 1512, 

 and here ended his short, but glorious life, while 

 attempting to cut off a body of retreating Spaniards. 



GASTRIC; that which relates to digestion; from 

 yKtrrng, belly. 



GASTRIC JUICE ; a fluid of the utmost impor- 

 tance in the process of digestion. It does not act 

 indiscriminately on all substances ; nor is it the same 

 in all animals ; nor does it continue always of the 

 same nature, even in the same animal, changing 

 according to circumstances. It acts with a chemical 

 energy in dissolving food ; attacking the surface of 

 bodies, and uniting to the particles of them. It ope- 

 rates with more energy and rapidity the more the 

 food is divided ; and its action is increased by a warm 

 temperature. The food is not merely reduced to very 

 minute parts ; its taste and smell are quite changed ; 

 its sensible properties are destroyed ; and it acquires 

 new and very different ones. This fluid does not act 

 as a ferment ; it is a powerful antiseptic, and even 

 restores flesh already putrefied. 



GASTRIC SYSTEM comprehends all the parts of 

 the body which contribute to digestion. Gastric dis- 

 orders are those in which the digestion particularly 

 is deranged. As the precepts of health, with regard 

 to eating and drinking, are so often transgressed, the 

 quality of the food itself often bad, the gastric system 

 composed of many parts, and much affected by the 

 influence of the external temperature, gastric disor- 

 ders must necessarily be frequent. Their symptoms 

 are, want of appetite, a bitter and disagreeable taste, 

 a furred tongue, frequent and unpleasant rising from 

 the stomach, a sense of weight and oppression in the 

 belly, looseness or costiveness, &c. From the close 

 connexion of the organs of digestion with the other 

 parts of the body, gastric disorders are often com- 

 bined with others ; e. g. with fever. See Dyspepsia 

 and Digestion. 



GASTROMANTIA (from -yarr^, belly) ; a pecu- 

 liar kind of divination among the Greeks. They 



