GLOVERSVILLE, a city of Fulton county, New York, U.S.A., at the foot-hills of the Adirondacks, about 55 m. N.W. of Albany. Pop. (1890) 13,864; (1900) 18,349, of whom 2542 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 20,642. It is served by the Fonda, Johnstown & Gloversville railway (connecting at Fonda, about 9 m. distant, with the New York Central), and by electric lines connecting with Johnstown, Amsterdam and Schenectady. The city has a public library (26,000 volumes in 1908), the Nathan Littauer memorial hospital, a state armoury and a fine government building. Gloversville is the principal glove-manufacturing centre in the United States. In 1900 Fulton county produced more than 57%, and Gloversville 38.8%, of all the leather gloves and mittens made in the United States; in 1905 Gloversville produced 29.9% of the leather gloves and mittens made in the United States, its products being valued at $5,302,196. Gloversville has more than a score of tanneries and leather-finishing factories, and manufactures fur goods. In 1905 the city’s total factory product was valued at $9,340,763. The extraordinary localization of the glove-making industry in Gloversville, Johnstown and other parts of Fulton county, is an incident of much interest in the economic history of the United States. The industry seems to have had its origin among a colony of Perthshire families, including many glove-makers, who were settled in this region by Sir William Johnson about 1760. For many years the entire product seems to have been disposed of in the neighbourhood, but about 1809 the goods began to find more distant markets, and by 1825 the industry was firmly established on a prosperous basis, the trade being handed down from father to son. An interesting phase of the development is that, in addition to the factory work, a large amount of the industry is in the hands of “home workers” both in the town and country districts. Gloversville, settled originally about 1770, was known for some time as Stump City, its present name being adopted in 1832. It was incorporated as a village in 1851 and was chartered as a city in 1890.
GLOW-WORM, the popular name of the wingless female of the beetle Lampyris noctiluca, whose power of emitting light has been familiar for many centuries. The luminous organs of the glow-worm consist of cells similar to those of the fat-body, grouped into paired masses in the ventral region of the hinder abdominal segments. The light given out by the wingless female insect is believed to serve as an attraction to the flying male, whose luminous organs remain in a rudimentary condition. The common glow-worm is a widespread European and Siberian insect, generally distributed in England and ranging in Scotland northwards to the Tay, but unknown in Ireland. Exotic species of Lampyris are similarly luminous, and light-giving organs are present in many genera of the family Lampyridae from various parts of the world. Frequently—as in the south European Luciola italica—both sexes of the beetle are provided with wings, and both male and female emit light. These luminous, winged Lampyrids are generally known as “fire-flies.” In correspondence with their power of emitting light, the insects are nocturnal in habit.
Elongate centipedes of the family Geophilidae, certain species of which are luminous, are sometimes mistaken for the true glow-worm.
GLOXINIA, a charming decorative plant, botanically a species of Sinningia (S. speciosa), a member of the natural order Gesneraceae and a native of Brazil. The species has given rise under cultivation to numerous forms showing a wonderful variety of colour, and hybrid forms have also been obtained between these and other species of Sinningia. A good strain of seed will produce many superb and charmingly coloured varieties, and if sown early in spring, in a temperature of 65° at night, they may be shifted on into 6-in. pots, and in these may be flowered during the summer. The bulbs are kept at rest through the winter in dry sand, in a temperature of 50°, and to yield a succession should be started at intervals, say at the end of February and the beginning of April. To prolong the blooming season, use weak manure water when the flower-buds show themselves.
GLUCINUM, an alternative name for Beryllium (q.v.). When L. N. Vauquelin in 1798 published in the Annales de chimie an account of a new earth obtained by him from beryl he refrained from giving the substance a name, but in a note to his paper the editors suggested glucine, from γλυκύς, sweet, in reference to the taste of its salts, whence the name Glucinum or Glucinium (symbol Gl. or sometimes G). The name beryllium was given to the metal by German chemists and was generally used until recently, when the earlier name was adopted.