GORDIAN KNOT 



2537 



GORDON 



through its burrowing habit. Flooding the 

 burrows or forcing sulphur fumes into them 

 will kill the pests. Animals similar to gophers 



THE GOPHER 



are found in the plains of India, Russia, Tar- 

 tary and South Africa. 



GORDIAN KNOT, gawr'dian not, in ancient 

 mythology, the skilfully-tied knot with which 

 the Phrygian peasant, Gordius, fastened his 

 yoke and cart. According to the legend, this 

 peasant, through the intervention of the gods, 

 was made king of Phrygia. Gordius then dedi- 

 cated his cart and yoke to Zeus, and oracles 

 foretold that whoever should unloose the com- 

 plicated knot would be ruler of all Asia. After 

 many unsuccessful attempts of others, Alex- 

 ander the Great came to Gordium, a city in 

 Phrygia named for Gordius, and cut the knot 

 with his sword, asserting that by so doing he 

 had fulfilled the prophecy. From that orig- 

 inated the expression cutting the Gordian knot, 

 meaning to solve a difficult problem with un- 

 expected cleverness. 



Gordius was the father of the famous Midas 

 (which see), whose touch turned everything to 

 gold. 



GOR'DON, CHARLES GEORGE (1833-1885), an 

 English soldier, called CHINESE GORDON and 

 GORDON PASHA 

 because of illus- 

 trious service in 

 China and Egypt, 

 was born at 

 Woolwich. He 

 was educated at 

 Taunton, entered 

 the Royal Mili- 

 tary Academy at 

 Woolwich in 

 1848, obtained a 

 lieutenant's com- 

 mission upon 

 graduation in 

 1852, and almost 

 immediately saw active service in the Crimean 

 War. He took part in the expedition to 

 China in 1860, assisted in the capture of Peking 



CHARLES GEORGE 

 GORDON 



and commanded the Chinese force which sup- 

 pressed the Taiping rebels. In 1873 he was 

 appointed governor of the Sudan, resigning his 

 post in 1880 after his failure to arrange a 

 treaty between Egypt and Abyssinia. In 1884 

 he was again sent by his government to the 

 Sudan to assist the Khedive in withdrawing 

 the garrisons of the country. He made a 

 gallant? defense of Khartum, and was killed two 

 days before the arrival of the relief party 

 under Lord Wolseley. Gordon was a man of 

 deep religious convictions. His diaries and let- 

 ters have been published. 



GORDON, CHARLES WILLIAM (1860- ), a 

 novelist and Presbyterian clergyman whose 

 dramatic and realistic stories of life in the 

 Canadian Northwest have brought him into 

 the front rank of Canada's writers. To the 

 thousands who 

 have learned to 

 love his stories 

 he is best known 

 by his pen name 

 of RALPH CON- 

 NOR, "a name 

 that covers one 

 of the most hon- 

 est and genial of 

 the strong char- 

 acters that are 

 fighting the devil 

 and doing good 

 work for men all-over the world." A spiritual 

 touch animates all of his writings, and one feels 

 after reading any of his stories that the author 

 wrote from a sense of deep moral earnestness. 

 The underlying purpose of his work as a novel- 

 ist is best expressed in his own words, from 

 the preface of Black Rock, an early success: 



The men of the book are still there in the mines 

 and lumber camps of the mountains, fighting out 

 that eternal fight for manhood, strong, clean, 

 God-conquered. And, when the west winds blow, 

 to the open ear the sounds of battle come, telling 

 the fortunes of the fight. Because a man's life Is 

 all he has, and because the only hope of the 

 brave young West lies in Its men, this story Is 

 told. It may be that the tragic pity of a broken 

 life may move some to pray, and that 'the divine 

 power there is in a single brave heart to summon 

 forth hope and courage may move some to fight. 

 If so, this tale is not told in vain. 



Charles W. Gordon was the son of a Scotch 

 Presbyterian minister who came to Canada in 

 the early "forties" and settled in a forest sec- 

 tion of the County of Glengarry, Ontario. There 

 the author was born. On completing a high 

 school course at Saint Mary's, Ontario, he en- 



"RALPH CONNOR" 



