In flora, fauna and commerce Gazaland resembles the neighbouring regions of Portuguese East Africa. (q.v.).
See G. McCall Theal, History of South Africa since 1795, vol. v. (London, 1908).
GAZEBO (usually explained as a comic Latinism, for “I will gaze”; the New English Dictionary suggests a possible oriental origin now lost), a term used in the 18th century for a structure on the outer wall of a garden, having an upper storey with windows on each side so as to overlook the road. Similar buildings are found in Holland on the borders of the canals, which in some cases form very picturesque features.
GAZETTE, a name given to news-sheets or newspapers having an abstract of current events (see [Newspapers]). The London Gazette is the title of the English official organ for announcements by the government, and is published every Tuesday and Friday. It contains all proclamations, orders of council, promotions and appointments to commissions in the army and navy, all appointments to offices of state, and such other orders, rules and regulations as are directed by act of parliament to be published therein. It also contains notices of proceedings in bankruptcy, dissolutions of partnership, &c. By the Documentary Evidence Act 1868 the production of a copy of the Gazette is prima facie evidence of royal proclamations and government orders and regulations. Similar gazettes are also published in Edinburgh and Dublin. Most countries (the United States excepted) have official journals containing information more or less similar to that of the London Gazette, as the French Journal officiel, the German Deutscher Reichs-und Kgl. Preuss. Staats-Anzeiger, &c. The word “gazetteer” was originally applied to one who wrote for “gazettes,” but is now only used for a geographical dictionary arranged on an alphabetical plan.
GEAR (connected with “garb,” properly elegance, fashion, especially of dress, and with “gar,” to cause to do, only found in Scottish and northern dialects; the root of the word is seen in the Old Teut. garwjan, to make ready), an outfit, applied to the wearing apparel of a person, or to the harness and trappings of a horse or any draft animal, as riding-gear, hunting-gear, &c.; also to household goods or stuff. The phrase “out of gear,” though now connected with the mechanical application of the word, was originally used to signify “out of harness” or condition, not ready to work, not fit. The word is also used of apparatus generally, and especially of the parts collectively in a machine by which motion is transmitted from one part to another by a series of cog-wheels, continuous bands, &c. It is used in a special sense in reference to a bicycle, meaning the diameter of an imaginary wheel, the circumference of which is equal to the distance accomplished by one revolution of the pedals (see [Bicycle]).
GEBER. The name Geber has long been used to designate the author of a number of Latin treatises on alchemy, entitled Summa perfectionis magisterii, De investigatione perfectionis, De inventione veritatis, Liber fornacum, Testamentum Geberi Regis Indiae and Alchemia Geberi, and these writings were generally regarded as translations from the Arabic originals of Abu Abdallah Jaber ben Hayyam (Haiyan) ben Abdallah al-Kufi, who is supposed to have lived in the 8th or 9th century of the Christian era. About him, however, there is considerable uncertainty. According to the Kitāb-al-Fihrist (10th century), which gives his name as above, the authorities disagree, some asserting him to have been a writer on philosophy and rhetoric, and others claiming for him the first place among the adepts of his time in the art of making gold and silver. The writer of the Kitāb-al-Fihrist says he had been assured that Jaber only wrote one book and even that he never existed at all, but these statements he scouts as ridiculous, and expressing the conviction that Jaber really did exist, and that his works were numerous and important, goes on to quote the titles of some 500 treatises attributed to him. He is said to have resided most frequently at Kufa, where he prepared the “elixir,” but, according to others, he never spent long in one place, having reason to keep his whereabouts unknown. His patron or master is variously given as Ja’far ben Yahya, and as Ja’far es-Sadiq; in the Arabic Book of Royalty, professedly written by him, he addresses the last-named as his master. In addition to these details the Fihrist mentions a tradition that he originally came from Khorasan. Another story given by d’Herbelot (Bibliothèque orientale, s.v. “Giaber”) makes him a native of Harran in Mesopotamia and a Sabaean. Leo Africanus, who in 1526 gave an account of the Alchemists of Fez in Africa (see the English translation of his Africae descriptio by John Pory, A Geographical History of Africa, London, 1600, p. 155), states that their principal authority was Geber, a Greek who had apostatized to Mahommedanism and lived a century after Mahomet. In Albertus Magnus the name Geber occurs only once and then with the epithet “of Seville”; doubtless the reference is to the Arabian Jabir ben Aflah, who lived in that city in the 11th century, and wrote an astronomy in 9 books which is of importance in the history of trigonometry.