GIBEONITES, the inhabitants of Gibeon, an Amorite or Hivite stronghold, the modern El-Jīb, 5 m. N.W. from Jerusalem. According to Joshua xviii. 25 it was one of the cities of Benjamin. When the Israelites, under Joshua, invaded Canaan, the Gibeonites by a crafty ruse escaped the fate of Jericho and Ai and secured protection from the invaders (Joshua ix.). Cheyne thinks this story the attempt of a later age to explain the long independence of Gibeon and the use of the Gibeonites as slaves in Solomon’s temple. An attempt on the part of Saul to exterminate the clan is mentioned in 2 Sam. xxi., and this slaughter may possibly be identified with the massacre at Nob recorded in 1 Sam. xxii. 17-19 (see Ency. Bib. col. 1717). The place is also associated with the murders of Asahel (2 Sam. ii. 12), Amasa (2 Sam. xx. 8) and Gedaliah (Jer. xli. 12), and with the wrathful intervention of Yahweh referred to by Isaiah (xxviii. 21), which we may identify with the memorable victory of David over the Philistines recorded in 2 Sam. v. 25 (reading Gibeon for Geba). Gibeon was the seat of an old Canaanitish sanctuary afterwards used by the Israelites; it was here that Solomon, immediately after his coronation, went to consult the oracles and had the dream in which he chose the gift of wisdom (1 Kings iii.).
GIBRALTAR, a British fortress and crown colony at the western entrance to the Mediterranean. The whole territory is rather less than 3 m. in length from north to south and varies in width from ¼ to ¾ m. Gibraltar is called after Tariq (or Tarik) ben Zaid, its name being a corruption of Jebel Tariq (Mount Tariq). Tariq invaded Andalusia in A.D. 711 with an army of 12,000 Arabs and Berbers, and in the last days of July of that year destroyed the Gothic power in a three days’ fight on the banks of the river Guadalete near where Jerez de la Frontera now stands. In order to secure his communications with Africa he ordered the building of a strong castle upon the Rock, known to the Romans as Mons Calpe. This work, begun in the year of the great battle, was completed in 742. It covered a wide area, reaching from the shores of the bay to a point half-way up the north-western slope of the rock; here the keep, a massive square tower, still stands and is known as the Moorish castle.
The Rock itself is about 2½ m. in length, and at its northern end rises almost perpendicularly from the strip of flat sandy ground which connects it with the Spanish mainland. At the north end, on the crest of the Rock 1200 ft. above sea-level, is the Rock gun, famous in the great siege. Some six furlongs to the south is the signal station (1255 ft.), through which the names and messages of passing ships are cabled to all parts of the world. Rather less than ¾ m. south of the signal station is O’Hara’s Tower (1408 ft.), the highest point of the Rock. South of O’Hara’s Tower the ground falls steeply to Windmill Hill, a fairly even surface about 1⁄8 of a sq. m. in area, and sloping from 400 to 300 ft. above the sea-level. South of Windmill Hill are Europa Flats, a wall-like cliff 200 ft. or more in height dividing them. Europa Flats, sloping south, end in cliffs 50 ft. high, which at and around Europa Point plunge straight down into deep water. Europa Point is the most southern point of the Rock, and is distant 11½ nautical miles from the opposite African coast. On Europa Point is the lighthouse in 5° 21′ W. and 36° 6′ 30″ N. On the Mediterranean side the Rock is almost as steep and inaccessible as it is from the north. Below the signal station, at the edge of the Mediterranean, lies Catalan Bay, where there is a little village chiefly inhabited by fishermen and others who make their living upon the waters; but Catalan Bay can only be approached by land from the north or by a tunnel through the Rock from the dockyard; from Catalan Bay to Europa Point the way is barred by impassable cliffs. On the west side of the Rock the slopes are less steep, especially as they near the sea, and on this side lie the town, the Alameda or public gardens, the barracks and the dockyard.
Geology.—The rock of Gibraltar consists, for the most part, of pale grey limestone of compact and sometimes crystalline structure, generally stratified but in places apparently amorphous. Above the limestone are found layers of dark grey-blue shales with intercalated beds of grit, mudstone and limestone. Both limestone and shales are of the Lower Jurassic age. Professors A. C. Ramsay and James Geikie (Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, London, August 1878) found also in the superficial formations of the Rock various features of interest to the students of Pleistocene geology, including massive accumulations of limestone breccia or agglomerate, bone breccias, deposits of calcareous sandstone, raised beaches and loose sands. The oldest of these superficial formations is the limestone breccia of Buena Vista, devoid of fossils and apparently formed under the stress of hard frosts, indicating conditions of climate of great severity. To account for frosts like these, it is suggested that the surface of the Rock must have been raised to an elevation much greater than its present height. In that case Europe and Africa would probably have been connected by an isthmus across some part of the present site of the Straits, and there would have been a wider area of low ground round the base of the Rock. The low ground at this, and probably at a later period, must have been clothed with a rich vegetation, necessary for the support of a varied mammalian fauna, whose remains have been found in the Genista caves. After this there would seem to have been a subsidence to a depth of some 700 ft. below the existing level. This would account for the ledges and platforms which have been formed by erosion of the sea high above the present sea-level, and for the deposits of calcareous sandstone containing sea shells of existing Mediterranean species. The extent of some of these eroded ledges shows that pauses of long duration intervened between the periods of depression. The Rock seems after this to have been raised to a level considerably above that at which it now stands; Europe and Africa would then again have been united. At a later date still the Rock sank once more to its present level.
Many caves, some of them of great extent, penetrate the interior of the rock; the best known of these are the Genista and St Michael’s caves. St Michael’s cave, about 1100 ft. above sea-level at its mouth, slopes rapidly down and extends over 400 ft. into the Rock; its extreme limits have not, however, been fully explored. It consists of a series of five or more chambers of considerable extent, connected by narrow and crooked passages. The outermost cave is 70 ft. in height and 200 in length, with massive pillars of stalactite reaching from roof to floor. The second cave was named the Victoria cave by its discoverer Captain Brome; beyond these are three caves known as the Leonora caves. “Nothing,” writes Captain Brome, “can exceed the beauty of the stalactites; they form clusters of every imaginable shape—statuettes, pillars, foliages, figures,” and he adds that American visitors have admitted that even the Mammoth cave itself could not rival these giant stalactites in picturesque beauty.
The mammalian remains of the Genista cave have been described by G. Busk (“Quaternary Fauna of Gibraltar” in Trans. of Zool. Soc. vol. x. p. 2, 1877). They were found to contain remains of a bear, probably Ursus fossilis of Goldfuss; of a hyena, H. crocuta or spelaea; of cats varying from a leopard to a wild cat in size; of a rhinoceros, resembling in species remains found in the Thames valley; two forms of ibex; the hare and rabbit. No trace has been found as yet of Rhinoceros tichorinus, of Ursus spelaeus or of the reindeer; and of the elephant only a molar tooth of Elephas antiquus.
Further details may be found in the Quarterly Journ. of Geol. Soc. (James Smith of Jordanhill), vol. ii. and in vol. xxi. (Fossil Contents of the Genista Cave, G. Busk and Hugh Falconer; reprinted in Palaeontological Memoirs, H. Falconer, London, 1868).