GLYPTIC GNAT. 



489 



sufferer is then rather an object of pity than of disgust 

 or contempt. Fuller, in his "worthies' 7 mentions a 

 man named Nicholas Wood, of Harrison, in Kent, who 

 had once eaten a whole sheep, raw, at a single meal ; 

 and, at another time, thirty dozen of pigeons ; who 

 once, at lord Wotton's, devoured eighty-lour rabbits, 

 and ate eighteen yards of black pudding for a break- 

 fast. There was also a counsellor at law, named 

 Mallet, who lived in the reign of Charles the First, 

 who, at one meal, ate up a whole ordinary provided 

 in Westminster for thirty men ; and his income not 

 being adequate to procure him a sufficiency of good 

 food, he generally fed upon offals, ox livers, hearts, 

 and other entrails. But this man having lived to be 

 sixty years old, during the last seven years of his life 

 a change took place in his constitution, and he ate as 

 moderately as other men. In the Roman History 

 many instances are related of the most disgusting 

 gluttony, both amongst the Roman emperors them- 

 selves and their subjects. Hardiknute, too, who was 

 the last of the Danish race of kings in England, was 

 addicted to this horrible propensity, to which he fell 

 a victim, having dropt down dead during a wedding 

 banquet in his palace at Lambeth. 



Gluttony is also a symptom attendant upon a very 

 dangerous and fatal disease called diabetes mellitus, 

 which consists in an excessive secretion of urine, 

 amounting, at times, to thirty or forty quarts in the 

 course of twenty-four hours. 



GLYPTIC (from y\v$ta, I engrave); the art of 

 engraving figures, &c., on stones and other hard 

 substances. See Gem-Sculpture. 



GLYPTOTHECA ; a building in Munich appro- 

 priated to the reception of the remains of ancient 

 sculpture. It forms a square, enclosing a court. 

 The works of art are distributed in ten rooms, which 

 exhibit historically to the eye the growth of Greek 

 art from Egyptian roots, its rise and progress in 

 Rome, its decline and subsequent revival. There 

 are, besides, three other rooms, appropriated to festi- 

 vals connected with the arts. Among several 

 hundreds of these works of art, in general but little 

 known, we here see the remains of ./Eginetic art 

 (q. v.) ; the sleeping faun ; the colossal muse ; Nero 

 and the group of Isis, from the Barberini palace ; 

 the Pallas; the Leucothea; the fauna colla macchia, 

 and the colossal Antinous, from the Albani palace ; 

 the Rondanini muse ; the Gabinian Diana of Brasihi ; 

 the Pallas and Roma of Fesch, &c. The whole is 

 perhaps the most appropriate building for its purpose 

 in modern times. The saloons, devoted to meetings, 

 have been painted in fresco by Cornelius, (q. v.) 



GMELIN ; 1. JOHN GEORGE, professor of botany 

 and chemistry in Tubingen, where he was born in 

 1709, and where he studied until 1727. He then 

 went to Petersburg, with his teachers, Bilfinger and 

 Duvernoi, and in 1731 became professor of chemistry 

 and natural history. In 1733, at the command and 

 at the expense of the empress of Russia, he travelled 

 to Siberia, in order to examine the country. From 

 this laborious but highly instructive expedition he 

 did not return until 1743. He died in 1755, at Tubin- 

 gen, where he was then professor. He early became 

 acquainted with natural history and chemistry, for 

 the study of which latter science he had a good 

 opportunity in the house of his father, who was a 

 respectable apothecary. His persevering efforts 

 obtained him the reputation of being one of the 

 greatest botanists of his time. His principal works 

 are his Flora Sibirica and his Travels. 



2, Philip Frederic, brother of the preceding, was 

 born at Tubingen, in 1721. After his brother's 

 death, he became professor of botany and chemistry 

 at Tubingen, where he died in 1768. He wrote 

 several botanical and medical works. 



3. Samttet Gottlieb, a nephew of the preceding, 

 was barn in 1744, at Tubingen, where fie studied 

 physic, and, in 1763, took the degree of doctor of 

 medicine. He afterwards visited Holland and France, 

 and, in 1767, received an invitation to a professor- 

 ship in the academy at Petersburg. The year fol- 

 lowing, by the command of the empress, he com- 

 menced, together with Pallas, Guldenstadt, and 

 Lepechin, a scientific tour through Russia. In 1769, 

 he travelled along the western side of the Don, and 

 passed the winter in Astrachan ; in 1770 and 1771, 

 examined the Persian provinces on the south and 

 south-west side of the Caspian sea ; in 1772, returned 

 again to Astraclian, and there surveyed the regions on 

 the Wolga, and, in 1773, the dangerous countries 

 east of tne Caspian sea. On his return, however, in 

 1774, he was imprisoned by the Khan of the Chaitaks, 

 and died in confinement, July 27, of the dysentery. 

 His widow received from the Russian empress 2000 

 rubles. His most important works are his Historia 

 Fucorum, and his Travels in Russia (Reisen durch 

 Russland zu untersuchung der drei Naturreiche.) 



4. William Frederic, a distinguished engraver, 

 was born at Badenweiler in the Brisgau, in 1745. 

 and died at Rome, in 1821. His parents sent him to 

 Basle. Here, guided only by his genius, he over- 

 came numerous obstacles. In 1788, Gmelin went to 

 Rome, and subsequently to Naples. At the close of 

 1790, he returned to Rome, and there actively en- 

 gaged in painting from nature, for the most part in 

 Indian ink. He did not diminish the effect by de- 

 scending to minute detail, but knew how to seize upon 

 the peculiar characteristics of every view, and his 

 style evinces a deep study of nature. He also en- 

 graved a good deal. His engravings are among the 

 finest productions of the art. In some of his later 

 productions, indeed, a hardness and an exaggerated 

 expression are perceptible. He cut his plates very 

 deep, probably to enable him to take many impres- 

 sions. Gmelin amassed a considerable fortune, as 

 his engravings were in great demand. 



GNADE (the German for grace) ; a word with 

 which the names of many places founded by the 

 Moravians begin ; as Gnadenberg, in Silesia, with 

 460 inhabitants, one of the chief places of that frater- 

 nity ; Gnadenfeld, a village also in Silesia ; Gnaden- 

 frey, also in Silesia, with 800 inhabitants, and a 

 Moravian institution for education ; Gnadenhiltten, a 

 Moravian village in Ohio ; Gnadenthal, a colony of 

 1377 inhabitants, among the Hottentots ; and many 

 others. 



GNAT (culex). These well known and trouble- 

 some insects are distinguished by having the body 

 and feet very long and downy, antennas garnished 

 with hairs ; large eyes ; a proboscis composed of a 

 membranous cylindrical tube, terminated by two lips ; 

 forming a little button, and sucker formed of five 

 scaly filaments, producing the effect of a needle : the 

 wings are placed horizontally over each other. The 

 gnat of this country is comparatively harmless ; but 

 those of warmer climates are peculiarly annoying, 

 especially in marshy situations. They pursue the 

 inhabitants, enter the houses, especially in the 

 evening, announcing their arrival by a sharp buzzing 

 noise. When they bite, the sucker is plunged 

 through the skin, and, as it buries itself, the sheath 

 or trunk is drawn up towards the breast. The p<iin 

 of the wound is occasioned by a venomous fluid which 

 they inject into it ; the best remedy for which are 

 preparations of ammonia. It is a curious fact, that it 

 is only the females which are thus tormenting. One 

 species of these insects is known under the name of 

 mosquitoes, against whose attacks various means have 

 been resorted to in different countries, as curtains of 

 gauze, and various essential oils ; the latter of which 



