GEORGIAN BAY, the N.E. section of Lake Huron, separated from it by Manitoulin Island and the peninsula comprising the counties of Grey and Bruce, Ontario. It is about 100 m. long and 50 m. wide, and is said to contain 30,000 islands. It receives numerous rivers draining a large extent of country; of these the chief are the French river draining Lake Nipissing, the Maganatawan draining a number of small lakes, the Muskoka draining the Muskoka chain of lakes (Muskoka, Rosseau, Joseph, &c.) and the Severn draining Lake Simcoe. Into its southern extremity, known as Nottawasaga Bay, flows the river of the same name. The Trent valley canal connects Georgian Bay with the Bay of Quinte and Lake Ontario, and a canal system has long been projected to Montreal by way of the French and Ottawa rivers and Lake Nipissing.
GEORGSWALDE, a town of Bohemia, Austria, 115 m. N.E. of Prague by rail. Pop. (1900) 8131, including Neu-Georgswalde, Wiesenthal and Philippsdorf, which form together a single commune. Georgswalde is one of the oldest industrial places of Bohemia, and together with the neighbouring town of Rumburg is the principal centre of the linen industry. The village of Philippsdorf, now incorporated with Georgswalde, has become since 1866 a famous place of pilgrimage, owing to the miracles attributed to an image of the Virgin, placed now in a magnificent new church (1885).
GEPHYREA, the name used for several groups of worm-like animals with certain resemblances but of doubtful affinity. In the article “Annelida” in the 9th edition of this Encyclopaedia, W.C. McIntosh followed the accepted view in associating in this group the Echiuridae, Sipunculidae and Priapulidae. E. Ray Lankester, in the preface to the English translation of C. Gegenbaur’s Comparative Anatomy (1878), added the Phoronidae to these forms. Afterwards the same author (article “Zoology,” Ency. Brit., 9th ed.) recognized that the Phoronidae had other affinities, and placed the other “gephyreans” in association with the Polyzoa as the two classes of a phylum Podaxonia. In the present state of knowledge the old group Gephyrea is broken up into Echiuroidea (q.v.) or Gephyrea armata, which are certainly Annelids; the Sipunculoidea (q.v.) or Gephyrea achaeta, an independent group, certainly coelomate, but of doubtful affinity; the Priapuloidea (q.v.), equally of doubtful affinity; and the Phoronidea (q.v.), which are almost certainly Hemichordata.
GERA, a town of Germany, capital of the principality of Reuss-Schleiz (called also Reuss younger line), situated in a valley on the banks of the White Elster, 45 m. S.S.W. of Leipzig on the railway to Probstzella. Pop. (1885) 34,152; (1905) 47,455. It has been mostly rebuilt since a great fire in 1780, and the streets are in general wide and straight, and contain many handsome houses. There are three Evangelical churches and one Roman Catholic. Among other noteworthy buildings are the handsome town-hall (1576, afterwards restored) and the theatre (1902). Its educational establishments include a gymnasium, a commercial and a weaving school. The castle of Osterstein, the residence of the princes of Reuss, dates from the 9th century, but has been almost entirely rebuilt in modern times. Gera is noted for its industrial activity. Its industries include wool-weaving and spinning, dyeing, iron-founding, the manufacture of cotton and silk goods, machinery, sewing machines and machine oil, leather and tobacco, and printing (books and maps) and flower gardening.
Gera (in ancient chronicles Geraha) was raised to the rank of a town in the 11th century, at which time it belonged to the counts of Groitch. In the 12th century it came into the possession of the lords of Reuss. It was stormed and sacked by the Bohemians in 1450, was two-thirds burned down by the Swedes in 1639 during the Thirty Years’ War, and suffered afterwards from great conflagrations in 1686 and 1780, being in the latter year almost completely destroyed.