GUYTON DE MORVEAU, LOUIS BERNARD, Baron (1737-1816), French chemist, was born on the 4th of January 1737, at Dijon, where his father was professor of civil law at the university. As a boy he showed remarkable aptitude for practical mechanics, but on leaving school he studied law in the university of Dijon, and in his twenty-fourth year became advocate-general in the parlement of Dijon. This office he held till 1782. Devoting his leisure to the study of chemistry, he published in 1772 his Digressions académiques, in which he set forth his views on phlogiston, crystallization, &c., and two years later he established in his native town courses of lectures on materia medica, mineralogy and chemistry. An essay on chemical nomenclature, which he published in the Journal de physique for May 1782, was ultimately developed with the aid of A. L. Lavoisier, C. L. Berthollet and A. F. Fourcroy, into the Méthode d’une nomenclature chimique, published in 1787, the principles of which were speedily adopted by chemists throughout Europe. Constantly in communication with the leaders of the Lavoisierian school, he soon became a convert to the anti-phlogistic doctrine; and he published his reasons in the first volume of the section “Chymie, Pharmacie et Metallurgie” of the Encyclopédie méthodique (1786), the chemical articles in which were written by him, as well as some of those in the second volume (1792). In 1794 he was appointed to superintend the construction of balloons for military purposes, being known as the author of some aeronautical experiments carried out at Dijon some ten years previously. In 1791 he became a member of the Legislative Assembly, and in the following year of the National Convention, to which he was re-elected in 1795, but he retired from political life in 1797. In 1798 he acted as provisional director of the Polytechnic School, in the foundation of which he took an active part, and from 1800 to 1814 he held the appointment of master of the mint. In 1811 he was made a baron of the French Empire. He died in Paris on the 2nd of January 1816.
Besides being a diligent contributor to the scientific periodicals of the day, Guyton wrote Mémoire sur l’éducation publique (1762); a satirical poem entitled Le Rat iconoclaste, ou le Jésuite croqué (1763); Discours publics et éloges (1775-1782); Plaidoyers sur plusieurs questions de droit (1785); and Traité des moyens de désinfecter l’air (1801), describing the disinfecting powers of chlorine, and of hydrochloric acid gas which he had successfully used at Dijon in 1773. With Hugues Maret (1726-1785) and Jean François Durande (d. 1794) he also published the Élémens de chymie théorique et pratique (1776-1777).
GUZMICS, IZIDÓR (1786-1839). Hungarian theologian, was born on the 7th of April 1786 at Vámos-Család, in the county of Sopron. At Sopron (Oedenburg) he was instructed in the art of poetry by Paul Horváth. In October 1805 he entered the Benedictine order, but left it in August of the following year, only again to assume the monastic garb on the 10th of November 1806. At the monastery of Pannonhegy he applied himself to the study of Greek under Farkas Tóth and in 1812 he was sent to Pesth to study theology. Here he read the best German and Hungarian authors, and took part in the editorship of the Nemzeti (National) Plutarkus, and in the translation of Johann Hübner’s Lexicon. On obtaining the degree of doctor of divinity in 1816, he returned to Pannonhegy, where he devoted himself to dogmatic theology and literature, and contributed largely to Hungarian periodicals. The most important of his theological works are: A kath. anyaszentegyháznak hitbeli tanitása (The Doctrinal Teaching of the Holy Catholic Church), and A keresztényeknek vallásbeli egyesülésökröl (On Religious Unity among Christians), both published at Pesth in 1822; also a Latin treatise entitled Theologia Christiana fundamentalis et theologia dogmatica (4 vols., Györ, 1828-1829). His translation of Theocritus in hexameters was published in 1824. His versions of the Oedipus of Sophocles and of the Iphigenia of Euripides were rewarded by the Hungarian Academy, of which in 1838 he was elected honorary member. In 1832 he was appointed abbot of the wealthy Benedictine house at Bakonybél, a village in the county of Veszprém. There he built an asylum for 150 children, and founded a school of harmony and singing. He died on the 1st of September 1839.
GWADAR, a port on the Makran coast of Baluchistan, about 290 m. W. of Karachi. Pop. (1903), 4350. In the last half of the 18th century it was handed over by the khan of Kalat to the sultan of Muscat, who still exercises sovereignty over the port, together with about 300 sq. m. of the adjoining country. It is a place of call for the steamers of the British India Navigation Company.
GWALIOR, a native state of India, in the Central India agency, by far the largest of the numerous principalities comprised in that area. It is the dominion of the Sindhia family. The state consists of two well-defined parts which may roughly be called the northern and the southern. The former is a compact mass of territory, bounded N. and N.W. by the Chambal river, which separates it from the British districts of Agra and Etawah, and the native states of Dholpur, Karauli and Jaipur of Rajputana; E. by the British districts of Jalaun, Jhansi, Lalitpur and Saugor; S. by the states of Bhopal, Tonk, Khilchipur and Rajgarh; and W. by those of Jhalawar, Tonk and Kotah of Rajputana. The southern, or Malwa, portion is made up of detached or semi-detached districts, between which are interposed parts of other states, which again are mixed up with each other in bewildering intricacy. The two portions together have a total area of 25,041 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 2,933,001, showing a decrease of 13% in the decade.
The state may be naturally divided into plain, plateau and hilly country. The plain country extends from the Chambal river in the extreme southwards for about 80 m., with a maximum width from east to west of about 120 m. This plain, though broken in its southern portion by low hills, has generally an elevation of only a few hundred feet above sea-level. In the summer season the climate is very hot, the shade temperature rising frequently to 112° F., but in the winter months (from November to February inclusive) it is usually temperate and for short periods extremely cold. The average rainfall is 30 in., but the period 1891-1901 was a decade of low rainfall, and distress was caused by famine. South of this tract there is a gradual ascent to the Central India plateau, and at Sipri the general level is 1500 ft. above the sea. On this plateau lies the remainder of the state, with the exception of the small district of Amjhera in the extreme south. The elevation of this region gives it a moderate climate during the summer as compared with the plain country, while the winter is warmer and more equable. The average rainfall is 28 in. The remaining portion of the state, classed as hilly, comprises only the small district of Amjhera. This is known as the Bhil country, and lies among the Vindhya mountains with a mean elevation of about 1800 ft. The rainfall averages 23 in. In the two years 1899 and 1900 the monsoon was very weak, the result being a severe famine which caused great mortality among the Bhil population. Of these three natural divisions the plateau possesses the most fertile soil, generally of the kind known as “black cotton,” but the low-lying plain has the densest population. The state is watered by numerous rivers. The Nerbudda, flowing west, forms the southern boundary. The greater part of the drainage is discharged into the Chambal, which forms the north-western and northern and eastern boundary. The Sind, with its tributaries the Kuwari, Asar and Sankh, flows through the northern division. The chief products are wheat, millets, pulses of various kinds, maize, rice, linseed and other oil-seeds; poppy, yielding the Malwa opium; sugar-cane, cotton, tobacco, indigo, garlic, turmeric and ginger. About 60% of the population are employed in agricultural and only 15% in industrial occupations, the great majority of the latter being home workers. There is a leather-factory at Morar; cotton-presses at Morena, Baghana and Ujjain; ginning factories at Agar, Nalkhera, Shajapur and Sonkach; and a cotton-mill at Ujjain. The cotton industry alone shows possibilities of considerable development, there being 55,000 persons engaged in it at the time of the census of 1901.
The population is composed of many elements, among which Brahmans and Rajputs are specially numerous. The prevailing religion is Hinduism, 84% of the people being Hindus and only 6% Mahommedans. The revenue of the state is about one million sterling; and large reserves have been accumulated, from which two millions were lent to the government of India in 1887, and later on another million for the construction of the Gwalior-Agra and Indore-Neemuch railways. The railways undertaken by the state are: (1) from Bina on the Indian Midland to Goona; (2) an extension of this line to Baran, opened in 1899; (3) from Bhopal to Ujjain; (4) two light railways, from Gwalior to Sipri and Gwalior to Bhind, which were opened by the viceroy in November 1899. On the same occasion the viceroy opened the Victoria College, founded to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee; and the Memorial Hospital, built in memory of the maharaja’s father. British currency has been introduced instead of Chandori rupees, which were much depreciated. The state maintains three regiments of Imperial Service cavalry, two battalions of infantry and a transport corps.