GYM 



GYM 



twenty to thirty feet in height. It is a na- 

 tive of Surinam and Cayenne. 



GUTTA serena, a disease in which the 

 patient, without any apparent fault in the 

 eye, is entirely deprived of sight. 



GUTTLE, in architecture, are drops 

 depending from the soffit of the mutules 

 under the corona of the entablature, be- 

 ing in shape either the frustra of cones, 

 or cylindrical sections half their diameter 

 in height. In the Greek doric each mu- 

 tule contains three rows of guttx, six in 

 number ; they are also six in number at 

 the base of each triglyph, immediately 

 under the regula. 



GUTTER, in architecture, a channel on 

 the roofs of houses, serving to receive and 

 carry off the rain. 



GUTTURAL, a term applied to let- 

 ters or sounds pronounced or formed 

 as it were in the throat, viz. ynnx, 

 which, for memory's sake, are termed 

 ahachah. 



GUTTY, in heraldry, a term used when 

 any thing is charged or sprinkled with 

 drops. In blazoning, the colour of the 

 drops is to be named, as gutty of sable, of 

 gules, &c. 



GUY, in a ship, is any rope used for 

 keeping oft' things from bearing or fall- 

 ing against the ship's sides when they are 

 hoisting in. 



That rope, which at one end is made 

 fast to the fore-mast, and seized to a sin- 

 gle block at the pendant of the garnet, is 

 called the guy of the garnet. 



GYBING, the art of shifting any boom- 

 sail from one side of the vessel to ano- 

 ther. By a boom-sail is meant -any sail, 

 the bottom of which is extended by a 

 boom, (see BOOM) the fore-end of which 

 is hooked to its respective mast, so as to 

 swing occasionally on either side of the 

 vessel, describing an arch, of which the 

 mast is the centre. As the wind changes, 

 it becomes necessary to change the posi- 

 tion of the boom, together with its sail, 

 which is accordingly shifted to the other 

 side of the vessel, as a door turns upon 

 its hinges. 



GYMNANTHES, in botany, a genus 

 of the Monoecia Monodelphia class and 

 order. Essential character : male ament 

 naked; perianth and corolla none ; sta- 

 mina pedicels three-parted or three- 

 forked, anther bearing; female ament 

 or germ pedicelled ; corolla none : style 

 trifid ; capsule tricoccous, three-celled. 

 There are two species, natives of the 

 "West Indies. 



GYMNASTICS. This word, derived 

 from the Greek, comprehends all those 



VOL VI. 



athletic exercises by which the ancients 

 rendered the body pliant and healthy, 

 and enabled the muscles to do their of- 

 fices with treble effect. The variety of 

 methods contrived for this purpose was 

 very numerous, and the ardour with 

 which they were pursued, at every op- 

 portunity, contributed to banish all 

 dread of personal danger, and prepared 

 the youth of each nation for the military 

 life. 



Persons were appointed to teach the 

 various sports, and the gymnasium was a 

 public receptacle for their performance ; 

 the exercises amounted to nearly sixty 

 descriptions, and the parties concerned 

 in them originally appeared in drawers, 

 but afterwards totally naked, in order 

 to give full scope to their limbs. The 

 gymnasium was under the superinten- 

 dance of a master, styled gymnasiarch, 

 who had two assistants, the xystarch and 

 the gymnastis. The master was selected 

 from the higher classes of the people, as 

 his office was of considerable impor- 

 tance, and his deputies presided over 

 the inferior persons employed in teach- 

 ing; the former directing the wrestlers, 

 and the latter the progress of the other 

 exercises, that the youths might neither 

 suffer through accident or too violent ex- 

 ertion. 



It has been asserted, that the whole 

 system of education amongst the Greeks 

 was comprehended in two essential points, 

 gymnastics and music ; dancing, under 

 several divisions, invariably accompanied 

 their music in warlike, festive, and bac- 

 chanalian movements, to which they 

 added, at proper times, tumbling, nume- 

 rous modes of playing with the ball, leap- 

 ing, foot-races, pitching the discus, throw- 

 ing the javelin, wrestling, boxing, &c. 

 Tumbling was entitled cubistics; the 

 amusements of the ball they comprehend- 

 ed under the term spheristics; the exer- 

 cises of leaping, foot-racing, the discus, 

 the javelin, and wrestling, they included 

 in the word palestrics. 



The moralists and medical men of an- 

 tiquity highly approved of those sports 

 which were calculated to bring health, 

 strength, and grace, in their train ; but 

 were energetic and vehement in their 

 censures of the athletes, who wrestled 

 and boxed with angry violence, and after- 

 wards indulged in vicious excesses. 



Leaping a considerable distance with 

 ease was one of the innocent and useful 

 acquirements of the Grecian youth, which 

 they soon attained, but which they ap- 

 pear to have despised, as incapable of 



X 



