 | |
| Fig. 1.—Gobius lentiginosus. | Fig. 2.—United Ventrals of Goby. |
| Fig. 3.—Periophthalmus koelreuteri. |
Close allies of the gobies are the walking fish or jumping fish (Periophthalmus), of which various species are found in great numbers on the mud flats at the mouths of rivers in the tropics, skipping about by means of the muscular, scaly base of their pectoral fins, with the head raised and bearing a pair of strongly projecting versatile eyes close together.
GOCH, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province, on the Niers, 8 m. S. of Cleves at the junction of the railways Cologne-Zevenaar and Boxtel-Wesel. Pop. (1905) 10,232. It has a Protestant and a Roman Catholic church and manufactures of brushes, plush goods, cigars and margarine. In the middle ages it was the seat of a large trade in linen. Goch became a town in 1231 and belonged to the dukes of Gelderland and later to the dukes of Cleves.
GOD, the common Teutonic word for a personal object of religious worship. It is thus, like the Gr. θεός and Lat. deus, applied to all those superhuman beings of the heathen mythologies who exercise power over nature and man and are often identified with some particular sphere of activity; and also to the visible material objects, whether an image of the supernatural being or a tree, pillar, &c. used as a symbol, an idol. The word “god,” on the conversion of the Teutonic races to Christianity, was adopted as the name of the one Supreme Being, the Creator of the universe, and of the Persons of the Trinity. The New English Dictionary points out that whereas the old Teutonic type of the word is neuter, corresponding to the Latin numen, in the Christian applications it becomes masculine, and that even where the earlier neuter form is still kept, as in Gothic and Old Norwegian, the construction is masculine. Popular etymology has connected the word with “good”; this is exemplified by the corruption of “God be with you” into “good-bye.” “God” is a word common to all Teutonic languages. In Gothic it is Guth; Dutch has the same form as English; Danish and Swedish have Gud, German Gott. According to the New English Dictionary, the original may be found in two Aryan roots, both of the form gheu, one of which means “to invoke,” the other “to pour” (cf. Gr. χέειν); the last is used of sacrificial offerings. The word would thus mean the object either of religious invocation or of religious worship by sacrifice. It has been also suggested that the word might mean a “molten image” from the sense of “pour.”
See [Religion]; [Hebrew Religion]; [Theism], &c.
GODALMING, a market-town and municipal borough in the Guildford parliamentary division of Surrey, England, 34 m. S.W. of London by the London & South-Western railway. Pop. (1901) 8748. It is beautifully situated on the right bank of the Wey, which is navigable thence to the Thames, and on the high road between London and Portsmouth. Steep hills, finely wooded, enclose the valley. The chief public buildings are the church of SS. Peter and Paul, a cruciform building of mixed architecture, but principally Early English and Perpendicular; the town-hall, Victoria hall, and market-house, and a technical institute and school of science and art. Charterhouse School, one of the principal English public schools, originally founded in 1611, was transferred from Charterhouse Square, London, to Godalming in 1872. It stands within grounds 92 acres in extent, half a mile north of Godalming, and consists of spacious buildings in Gothic style, with a chapel, library and hall, besides boarding-houses, masters’ houses and sanatoria. (See [Charterhouse].) Godalming has manufactures of paper, leather, parchment and hosiery, and some trade in corn, malt, bark, hoops and timber; and the Bargate stone, of which the parish church is built, is still quarried. The borough is under a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors. Area, 812 acres.