THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA

A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE AND GENERAL INFORMATION

ELEVENTH EDITION

VOLUME XII SLICE IV
Grasshopper to Greek Language

Articles in This Slice

GRASSHOPPER (Fr. sauterelle, Ital. grillo, Ger. Grashüpfer, Heuschrecke, Swed. Gräshoppa), names applied to orthopterous insects belonging to the families Locustidae and Acridiidae. They are especially remarkable for their saltatory powers, due to the great development of the hind legs, which are much longer than the others and have stout and powerful thighs, and also for their stridulation, which is not always an attribute of the male only. The distinctions between the two families may be briefly stated as follows:—The Locustidae have very long thread-like antennae, four-jointed tarsi, a long ovipositor, the auditory organs on the tibiae of the first leg and the stridulatory organ in the wings; the Acridiidae have short stout antennae, three-jointed tarsi, a short ovipositor, the auditory organs on the first abdominal segment, and the stridulatory organ between the posterior leg and the wing. The term “grasshopper” is almost synonymous with Locust (q.v.). Under both “grasshopper” and “locust” are included members of both families above noticed, but the majority belong to the Acridiidae in both cases. In Britain the term is chiefly applicable to the large green grasshopper (Locusta or Phasgonura viridissima) common in most parts of the south of England, and to smaller and much better-known species of the genera Stenobothrus, Gomphocerus and Tettix, the latter remarkable for the great extension of the pronotum, which often reaches beyond the extremity of the body. All are vegetable feeders, and, as in all orthopterous insects, have an incomplete metamorphosis, so that their destructive powers are continuous from the moment of emergence from the egg till death. The migratory locust (Pachytylus cinerascens) may be considered only an exaggerated grasshopper, and the Rocky Mountain locust (Caloptenus spretus) is still more entitled to the name. In Britain the species are not of sufficient size, nor of sufficient numerical importance, to do any great damage. The colours of many of them assimilate greatly to those of their habitats; the green of the Locusta viridissima is wonderfully similar to that of the herbage amongst which it lives, and those species that frequent more arid spots are protected in the same manner. Yet many species have brilliantly coloured under-wings (though scarcely so in English forms), and during flight are almost as conspicuous as butterflies. Those that belong to the Acridiidae mostly lay their eggs in more or less cylindrical masses, surrounded by a glutinous secretion, in the ground. Some of the Locustidae also lay their eggs in the ground, but others deposit them in fissures in trees and low plants, in which the female is aided by a long flattened ovipositor, or process at the extremity of the abdomen, whereas in the Acridiidae there is only an apparatus of valves. The stridulation or “song” in the latter is produced by friction of the hind legs against portions of the wings or wing-covers. To a practised ear it is perhaps possible to distinguish the “song” of even closely allied species, and some are said to produce a sound differing by day and night.

GRASS OF PARNASSUS, in botany, a small herbaceous plant known as Parnassia palustris (natural order Saxifragaceae), found on wet moors and bogs in Britain but less common in the south. The white regular flower is rendered very attractive by a circlet of scales, opposite the petals, each of which bears a fringe of delicate filaments ending in a yellow knob. These glisten in the sunshine and look like a drop of honey. Honey is secreted by the base of each of the scales.

GRATE (from Lat. crates, a hurdle), the iron or steel receptacle for a domestic fire. When coal replaced logs and irons were found to be unsuitable for burning the comparatively small lumps, and for this reason and on account of the more concentrated heat of coal it became necessary to confine the area of the fire. Thus a basket or cage came into use, which, as knowledge of the scientific principles of heating increased, was succeeded by the small grate of iron and fire-brick set close into the wall which has since been in ordinary use in England. In the early part of the 19th century polished steel grates were extensively used, but the labour and difficulty of keeping them bright were considerable, and they were gradually replaced by grates with a polished black surface which could be quickly renewed by an application of black-lead. The most frequent form of the 18th-century grate was rather high from the hearth, with a small hob on each side. The brothers Adam designed many exceedingly elegant grates in the shape of movable baskets ornamented with the paterae and acanthus leaves, the swags and festoons characteristic of their manner. The modern dog-grate is a somewhat similar basket supported upon dogs or andirons, fixed or movable. In the closing years of the 19th century a “well-grate” was invented, in which the fire burns upon the hearth, combustion being aided by an air-chamber below.

GRATIAN (Flavius Gratianus Augustus), Roman emperor 375-383, son of Valentinian I. by Severa, was born at Sirmium in Pannonia, on the 18th of April (or 23rd of May) 359. On the 24th of August 367 he received from his father the title of Augustus. On the death of Valentinian (17th of November 375) the troops in Pannonia proclaimed his infant son (by a second wife Justina) emperor under the title of Valentinian II. (q.v.). Gratian acquiesced in their choice; reserving for himself the administration of the Gallic provinces, he handed over Italy, Illyria and Africa to Valentinian and his mother, who fixed their residence at Milan. The division, however, was merely nominal, and the real authority remained in the hands of Gratian. The eastern portion of the empire was under the rule of his uncle Valens. In May 378 Gratian completely defeated the Lentienses, the southernmost branch of the Alamanni, at Argentaria, near the site of the modern Colmar. When Valens met his death fighting against the Goths near Adrianople on the 9th of August in the same year, the government of the eastern empire devolved upon Gratian, but feeling himself unable to resist unaided the incursions of the barbarians, he ceded it to Theodosius (January 379). With Theodosius he cleared the Balkans of barbarians. For some years Gratian governed the empire with energy and success, but gradually he sank into indolence, occupied himself chiefly with the pleasures of the chase, and became a tool in the hands of the Frankish general Merobaudes and bishop Ambrose. By taking into his personal service a body of Alani, and appearing in public in the dress of a Scythian warrior, he aroused the contempt and resentment of his Roman troops. A Roman named Maximus took advantage of this feeling to raise the standard of revolt in Britain and invaded Gaul with a large army, upon which Gratian, who was then in Paris, being deserted by his troops, fled to Lyons, where, through the treachery of the governor, he was delivered over to one of the rebel generals and assassinated on the 25th of August 383.

The reign of Gratian forms an important epoch in ecclesiastical history, since during that period orthodox Christianity for the first time became dominant throughout the empire. In dealing with pagans and heretics Gratian, who during his later years was greatly influenced by Ambrose, bishop of Milan, exhibited severity and injustice at variance with his usual character. He prohibited heathen worship at Rome; refused to wear the insignia of the pontifex maximus as unbefitting a Christian; removed the altar of Victory from the senate-house at Rome, in spite of the remonstrance of the pagan members of the senate, and confiscated its revenues; forbade legacies of real property to the Vestals; and abolished other privileges belonging to them and to the pontiffs. For his treatment of heretics see the church histories of the period.

Authorities.—Ammianus Marcellinus xxvii.-xxxi.; Aurelius Victor, Epit. 47; Zosimus iv. vi.; Ausonius (Gratian’s tutor), especially the Gratiarum actio pro consulatu; Symmachus x. epp. 2 and 61; Ambrose, De fide, prolegomena to Epistolae 11, 17, 21, Consolatio de obitu Valentiniani; H. Richter, Das weströmische Reich, besonders unter den Kaisern Gratian, Valentinian II. und Maximus (1865); A. de Broglie, L’Église et l’empire romain au IVe siècle (4th ed., 1882); H. Schiller, Geschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit, iii., iv. 31-33; Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. 27; R. Gumpoltsberger, Kaiser Gratian (Vienna, 1879); T. Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders (Oxford, 1892), vol. i.; Tillemont, Hist. des empereurs, v.; J. Wordsworth in Smith’s Dictionary of Christian Biography.

(J. H. F.)

GRATIANUS, FRANCISCUS, compiler of the Concordia discordantium canonum or Decretum Gratiani, and founder of the science of canon law, was born about the end of the 11th century at Chiusi in Tuscany or, according to another account, at Carraria near Orvieto. In early life he appears to have been received into the Camaldulian monastery of Classe near Ravenna, whence he afterwards removed to that of San Felice in Bologna, where he spent many years in the preparation of the Concordia. The precise date of this work cannot be ascertained, but it contains references to the decisions of the Lateran council of 1139, and there is fair authority for believing that it was completed while Pope Alexander III. was still simply professor of theology at Bologna,—in other words, prior to 1150. The labours of Gratian are said to have been rewarded with the bishopric of Chiusi, but if so he appears never to have been consecrated; at least his name is not in any authentic list of those who have occupied that see. The year of his death is unknown.

For some account of the Decretum Gratiani and its history see [Canon Law]. The best edition is that of Friedberg (Corpus juris canonici, Leipzig, 1879). Compare Schultze, Zur Geschichte der Litteratur über das Decret Gratians (1870), Die Glosse zum Decret Gratians (1872), and Geschichte der Quellen und Litteratur des kanonischen Rechts (3 vols., Stuttgart, 1875).

GRATRY, AUGUSTE JOSEPH ALPHONSE (1805-1872), French author and theologian, was born at Lille on the 10th of March 1805. He was educated at the École Polytechnique, Paris, and, after a period of mental struggle which he has described in Souvenirs de ma jeunesse, he was ordained priest in 1832. After a stay at Strassburg as professor of the Petit Séminaire, he was appointed director of the Collège Stanislas in Paris in 1842 and, in 1847, chaplain of the École Normale Supérieure. He became vicar-general of Orleans in 1861, professor of ethics at the Sorbonne in 1862, and, on the death of Barante, a member of the French Academy in 1867, where he occupied the seat formerly held by Voltaire. Together with M. Pététot, curé of Saint Roch, he reconstituted the Oratory of the Immaculate Conception, a society of priests mainly devoted to education. Gratry was one of the principal opponents of the definition of the dogma of papal infallibility, but in this respect he submitted to the authority of the Vatican Council. He died at Montreux in Switzerland on the 6th of February 1872.

His chief works are: De la connaissance de Dieu, opposing Positivism (1855); La Logique (1856); Les Sources, conseils pour la conduite de l’esprit (1861-1862); La Philosophie du credo (1861); Commentaire sur l’évangile de Saint Matthieu (1863); Jésus-Christ, lettres à M. Renan (1864); Les Sophistes et la critique (in controversy with E. Vacherot) (1864); La Morale et la loi de l’histoire, setting forth his social views (1868); Mgr. l’évêque d’Orléans et Mgr. l’archevêque de Malines (1869), containing a clear exposition of the historical arguments against the doctrine of papal infallibility. There is a selection of Gratry’s writings and appreciation of his style by the Abbé Pichot, in Pages choisies des Grands Écrivains series, published by Armand-Colin (1897). See also the critical study by the oratorian A. Chauvin, L’Abbé Gratry (1901); Le Père Gratry (1900), and Les Derniers Jours du Père Gratry et son testament spirituel, (1872), by Cardinal Adolphe Perraud, Gratry’s friend and disciple.

GRATTAN, HENRY (1746-1820), Irish statesman, son of James Grattan, for many years recorder of Dublin, was born in Dublin on the 3rd of July 1746. He early gave evidence of exceptional gifts both of intellect and character. At Trinity College, Dublin, where he had a distinguished career, he began a lifelong devotion to classical literature and especially to the great orators of antiquity. He was called to the Irish bar in 1772, but never seriously practised the law. Like Flood, with whom he was on terms of friendship, he cultivated his natural genius for eloquence by study of good models, including Bolingbroke and Junius. A visit to the English House of Lords excited boundless admiration for Lord Chatham, of whose style of oratory Grattan contributed an interesting description to Baratariana (see [Flood, Henry]). The influence of Flood did much to give direction to Grattan’s political aims; and it was through no design on Grattan’s part that when Lord Charlemont brought him into the Irish parliament in 1775, in the very session in which Flood damaged his popularity by accepting office, Grattan quickly superseded his friend in the leadership of the national party. Grattan was well qualified for it. His oratorical powers were unsurpassed among his contemporaries. He conspicuously lacked, indeed, the grace of gesture which he so much admired in Chatham; he had not the sustained dignity of Pitt; his powers of close reasoning were inferior to those of Fox and Flood. But his speeches were packed with epigram, and expressed with rare felicity of phrase; his terse and telling sentences were richer in profound aphorisms and maxims of political philosophy than those of any other statesman save Burke; he possessed the orator’s incomparable gift of conveying his own enthusiasm to his audience and convincing them of the loftiness of his aims.

The principal object of the national party was to set the Irish parliament free from constitutional bondage to the English privy council. By virtue of Poyning’s Act, a celebrated statute of Henry VII., all proposed Irish legislation had to be submitted to the English privy council for its approval under the great seal of England before being passed by the Irish parliament. A bill so approved might be accepted or rejected, but not amended. More recent English acts had further emphasized the complete dependence of the Irish parliament, and the appellate jurisdiction of the Irish House of Lords had also been annulled. Moreover, the English Houses claimed and exercised the power to legislate directly for Ireland without even the nominal concurrence of the parliament in Dublin. This was the constitution which Molyneux and Swift had denounced, which Flood had attacked, and which Grattan was to destroy. The menacing attitude of the Volunteer Convention at Dungannon greatly influenced the decision of the government in 1782 to resist the agitation no longer. It was through ranks of volunteers drawn up outside the parliament house in Dublin that Grattan passed on the 16th of April 1782, amidst unparalleled popular enthusiasm, to move a declaration of the independence of the Irish parliament. “I found Ireland on her knees,” Grattan exclaimed, “I watched over her with a paternal solicitude; I have traced her progress from injuries to arms, and from arms to liberty. Spirit of Swift, spirit of Molyneux, your genius has prevailed! Ireland is now a nation!” After a month of negotiation the claims of Ireland were conceded. The gratitude of his countrymen to Grattan found expression in a parliamentary grant of £100,000, which had to be reduced by one half before he would consent to accept it.

One of the first acts of “Grattan’s parliament” was to prove its loyalty to England by passing a vote for the support of 20,000 sailors for the navy. Grattan himself never failed in loyalty to the crown and the English connexion. He was, however, anxious for moderate parliamentary reform, and, unlike Flood, he favoured Catholic emancipation. It was, indeed, evident that without reform the Irish House of Commons would not be able to make much use of its newly won independence. Though now free from constitutional control it was no less subject than before to the influence of corruption, which the English government had wielded through the Irish borough owners, known as the “undertakers,” or more directly through the great executive officers. “Grattan’s parliament” had no control over the Irish executive. The lord lieutenant and his chief secretary continued to be appointed by the English ministers; their tenure of office depended on the vicissitudes of English, not Irish, party politics; the royal prerogative was exercised in Ireland on the advice of English ministers. The House of Commons was in no sense representative of the Irish people. The great majority of the people were excluded as Roman Catholics from the franchise; two-thirds of the members of the House of Commons were returned by small boroughs at the absolute disposal of single patrons, whose support was bought by a lavish distribution of peerages and pensions. It was to give stability and true independence to the new constitution that Grattan pressed for reform. Having quarrelled with Flood over “simple repeal” Grattan also differed from him on the question of maintaining the Volunteer Convention. He opposed the policy of protective duties, but supported Pitt’s famous commercial propositions in 1785 for establishing free trade between Great Britain and Ireland, which, however, had to be abandoned owing to the hostility of the English mercantile classes. In general Grattan supported the government for a time after 1782, and in particular spoke and voted for the stringent coercive legislation rendered necessary by the Whiteboy outrages in 1785; but as the years passed without Pitt’s personal favour towards parliamentary reform bearing fruit in legislation, he gravitated towards the opposition, agitated for commutation of tithes in Ireland, and supported the Whigs on the regency question in 1788. In 1792 he succeeded in carrying an Act conferring the franchise on the Roman Catholics; in 1794 in conjunction with William Ponsonby he introduced a reform bill which was even less democratic than Flood’s bill of 1783. He was as anxious as Flood had been to retain the legislative power in the hands of men of property, for “he had through the whole of his life a strong conviction that while Ireland could best be governed by Irish hands, democracy in Ireland would inevitably turn to plunder and anarchy.”[1] At the same time he desired to admit the Roman Catholic gentry of property to membership of the House of Commons, a proposal that was the logical corollary of the Relief Act of 1792. The defeat of Grattan’s mild proposals helped to promote more extreme opinions, which, under French revolutionary influence, were now becoming heard in Ireland.

The Catholic question had rapidly become of the first importance, and when a powerful section of the Whigs joined Pitt’s ministry in 1794, and it became known that the lord-lieutenancy was to go to Lord Fitzwilliam, who shared Grattan’s views, expectations were raised that the question was about to be settled in a manner satisfactory to the Irish Catholics. Such seems to have been Pitt’s intention, though there has been much controversy as to how far Lord Fitzwilliam (q.v.) had been authorized to pledge the government. After taking Grattan into his confidence, it was arranged that the latter should bring in a Roman Catholic emancipation bill, and that it should then receive government support. But finally it appeared that the viceroy had either misunderstood or exceeded his instructions; and on the 19th of February 1795 Fitzwilliam was recalled. In the outburst of indignation, followed by increasing disaffection in Ireland, which this event produced, Grattan acted with conspicuous moderation and loyalty, which won for him warm acknowledgments from a member of the English cabinet.[2] That cabinet, however, doubtless influenced by the wishes of the king, was now determined firmly to resist the Catholic demands, with the result that the country rapidly drifted towards rebellion. Grattan warned the government in a series of masterly speeches of the lawless condition to which Ireland had been driven. But he could now count on no more than some forty followers in the House of Commons, and his words were unheeded. He retired from parliament in May 1797, and departed from his customary moderation by attacking the government in an inflammatory “Letter to the citizens of Dublin.”

At this time religious animosity had almost died out in Ireland, and men of different faiths were ready to combine for common political objects. Thus the Presbyterians of the north, who were mainly republican in sentiment, combined with a section of the Roman Catholics to form the organization of the United Irishmen, to promote revolutionary ideas imported from France; and a party prepared to welcome a French invasion soon came into existence. Thus stimulated, the increasing disaffection culminated in the rebellion of 1798, which was sternly and cruelly repressed. No sooner was this effected than the project of a legislative union between the British and Irish parliaments, which had been from time to time discussed since the beginning of the 18th century, was taken up in earnest by Pitt’s government. Grattan from the first denounced the scheme with implacable hostility. There was, however, much to be said in its favour. The constitution of Grattan’s parliament offered no security, as the differences over the regency question had made evident that in matters of imperial interest the policy of the Irish parliament and that of Great Britain would be in agreement; and at a moment when England was engaged in a life and death struggle with France it was impossible for the ministry to ignore the danger, which had so recently been emphasized by the fact that the independent constitution of 1782 had offered no safeguard against armed revolt. The rebellion put an end to the growing reconciliation between Roman Catholics and Protestants; religious passions were now violently inflamed, and the Orangemen and Catholics divided the island into two hostile factions. It is a curious circumstance, in view of the subsequent history of Irish politics, that it was from the Protestant Established Church, and particularly from the Orangemen, that the bitterest opposition to the union proceeded; and that the proposal found support chiefly among the Roman Catholic clergy and especially the bishops, while in no part of Ireland was it received with more favour than in the city of Cork. This attitude of the Catholics was caused by Pitt’s encouragement of the expectation that Catholic emancipation, the commutation of tithes, and the endowment of the Catholic priesthood, would accompany or quickly follow the passing of the measure.

When in 1799 the government brought forward their bill it was defeated in the Irish House of Commons. Grattan was still in retirement. His popularity had temporarily declined, and the fact that his proposals for parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation had become the watchwords of the rebellious United Irishmen had brought upon him the bitter hostility of the governing classes. He was dismissed from the privy council; his portrait was removed from the hall of Trinity College; the Merchant Guild of Dublin struck his name off their rolls. But the threatened destruction of the constitution of 1782 quickly restored its author to his former place in the affections of the Irish people. The parliamentary recess had been effectually employed by the government in securing by lavish corruption a majority in favour of their policy. On the 15th of January 1800 the Irish parliament met for its last session; on the same day Grattan secured by purchase a seat for Wicklow; and at a late hour, while the debate was proceeding, he appeared to take his seat. “There was a moment’s pause, an electric thrill passed through the House, and a long wild cheer burst from the galleries.”[3] Enfeebled by illness, Grattan’s strength gave way when he rose to speak, and he obtained leave to address the House sitting. Nevertheless his speech was a superb effort of oratory; for more than two hours he kept his audience spellbound by a flood of epigram, of sustained reasoning, of eloquent appeal. After prolonged debates Grattan, on the 26th of May, spoke finally against the committal of the bill, ending with an impassioned peroration in which he declared, “I will remain anchored here with fidelity to the fortunes of my country, faithful to her freedom, faithful to her fall.”[4] These were the last words spoken by Grattan in the Irish parliament.

The bill establishing the union was carried through its final stages by substantial majorities. The people remained listless, giving no indications of any eager dislike of the government policy. “There were absolutely none of the signs which are invariably found when a nation struggles passionately against what it deems an impending tyranny, or rallies around some institution which it really loves.”[5] One of Grattan’s main grounds of opposition to the union had been his dread of seeing the political leadership in Ireland pass out of the hands of the landed gentry; and he prophesied that the time would come when Ireland would send to the united parliament “a hundred of the greatest rascals in the kingdom.”[6] Like Flood before him, Grattan had no leaning towards democracy; and he anticipated that by the removal of the centre of political interest from Ireland the evil of absenteeism would be intensified.

For the next five years Grattan took no active part in public affairs; it was not till 1805 that he became a member of the parliament of the United Kingdom. He modestly took his seat on one of the back benches, till Fox brought him forward to a seat near his own, exclaiming, “This is no place for the Irish Demosthenes!” His first speech was on the Catholic question, and though some doubt had been felt lest Grattan, like Flood, should belie at Westminster the reputation made in Dublin, all agreed with the description of his speech by the Annual Register as “one of the most brilliant and eloquent ever pronounced within the walls of parliament.” When Fox and Grenville came into power in 1806 Grattan was offered, but refused to accept, an office in the government. In the following year he showed the strength of his judgment and character by supporting, in spite of consequent unpopularity in Ireland, a measure for increasing the powers of the executive to deal with Irish disorder. Roman Catholic emancipation, which he continued to advocate with unflagging energy though now advanced in age, became complicated after 1808 by the question whether a veto on the appointment of Roman Catholic bishops should rest with the crown. Grattan supported the veto, but a more extreme Catholic party was now arising in Ireland under the leadership of Daniel O’Connell, and Grattan’s influence gradually declined. He seldom spoke in parliament after 1810, the most notable exception being in 1815, when he separated himself from the Whigs and supported the final struggle against Napoleon. His last speech of all, in 1819, contained a passage referring to the union he had so passionately resisted, which exhibits the statesmanship and at the same time the equable quality of Grattan’s character. His sentiments with regard to the policy of the union remained, he said, unchanged; but “the marriage having taken place it is now the duty, as it ought to be the inclination, of every individual to render it as fruitful, as profitable and as advantageous as possible.” In the following summer, after crossing from Ireland to London when out of health to bring forward the Catholic question once more, he became seriously ill. On his death-bed he spoke generously of Castlereagh, and with warm eulogy of his former rival, Flood. He died on the 6th of June 1820, and was buried in Westminster Abbey close to the tombs of Pitt and Fox. His statue is in the outer lobby of the Houses of Parliament at Westminster. Grattan had married in 1782 Henrietta Fitzgerald, a lady descended from the ancient family of Desmond, by whom he had two sons and two daughters.

The most searching scrutiny of his private life only increases the respect due to the memory of Grattan as a statesman and the greatest of Irish orators. His patriotism was untainted by self-seeking; he was courageous in risking his popularity for what his sound judgment showed him to be the right course. As Sydney Smith said with truth of Grattan soon after his death: “No government ever dismayed him. The world could not bribe him. He thought only of Ireland; lived for no other object; dedicated to her his beautiful fancy, his elegant wit, his manly courage, and all the splendour of his astonishing eloquence.”[7]

Bibliography.—Henry Grattan, Memoirs of the Life and Times of the Right Hon. H. Grattan (5 vols., London, 1839-1846); Grattan’s Speeches (ed. by H. Grattan, junr., 1822); Irish Parl. Debates; W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century (8 vols., London, 1878-1890) and Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland (enlarged edition, 2 vols., 1903). For the controversy concerning the recall of Lord Fitzwilliam see, in addition to the foregoing, Lord Rosebery, Pitt (London, 1891); Lord Ashbourne, Pitt: Some Chapters of his Life (London, 1898); The Pelham Papers (Brit. Mus. Add. MSS., 33118); Carlisle Correspondence; Beresford Correspondence; Stanhope Miscellanies; for the Catholic question, W. J. Amhurst, History of Catholic Emancipation (2 vols., London, 1886); Sir Thomas Wyse, Historical Sketch of the late Catholic Association of Ireland (London, 1829); W. J. MacNeven, Pieces of Irish History (New York, 1807) containing an account of the United Irishmen; for the volunteer movement Thomas MacNevin, History of the Volunteers of 1782 (Dublin, 1845); Proceedings of the Volunteer Delegates of Ireland 1784 (Anon. Pamph. Brit. Mus.). See also F. Hardy, Memoirs of Lord Charlemont (London, 1812); Warden Flood, Memoirs of Henry Flood (London, 1838); Francis Plowden, Historical Review of the State of Ireland (London, 1803); Alfred Webb, Compendium of Irish Biography (Dublin, 1878); Sir Jonah Barrington, Rise and Fall of the Irish Nation (London, 1833); W. J. O’Neill Daunt, Ireland and her Agitators; Lord Mountmorres, History of the Irish Parliament (2 vols., London, 1792); Horace Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III. (4 vols., London, 1845 and 1894); Lord Stanhope, Life of William Pitt (4 vols., London, 1861); Thomas Davis, Life of J. P. Curran (Dublin, 1846)—this contains a memoir of Grattan by D. O. Madden, and Grattan’s reply to Lord Clare on the question of the Union; Charles Phillips, Recollections of Curran and some of his Contemporaries (London, 1822); J. A. Froude, The English in Ireland (London, 1881); J. G. McCarthy, Henry Grattan: an Historical Study (London, 1886); Lord Mahon’s History of England, vol. vii. (1858). With special reference to the Union see Castlereagh Correspondence; Cornwallis Correspondence; Westmorland Papers (Irish State Paper Office).

(R. J. M.)

[1] W. E. H. Lecky, Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland, i. 127 (enlarged edition, 2 vols., 1903).

[2] Ibid. i. 204.

[3] Ibid. i. 241.

[4] Grattan’s Speeches, iv. 23.

[5] W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century, viii. 491. Cf. Cornwallis Correspondence, iii. 250.

[6] W. E. H. Lecky, Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland, i. 270.

[7] Sydney Smith’s Works, ii. 166-167.

GRATTIUS [FALISCUS], Roman poet, of the age of Augustus, author of a poem on hunting (Cynegetica), of which 541 hexameters remain. He was possibly a native of Falerii. The only reference to him in any ancient writer is incidental (Ovid, Ex Ponto, iv. 16. 33). He describes various kinds of game, methods of hunting, the best breeds of horses and dogs.

There are editions by R. Stern (1832); E. Bährens in Poëtae Latini Minores (i., 1879) and G. G. Curcio in Poeti Latini Minori (i., 1902), with bibliography; see also H. Schenkl, Zur Kritik des G. (1898). There is a translation by Christopher Wase (1654).

GRAUDENZ (Polish Grudziadz), a town in the kingdom of Prussia, province of West Prussia, on the right bank of the Vistula, 18 m. S.S.W. of Marienwerder and 37 m. by rail N.N.E. of Thorn. Pop. (1885) 17,336, (1905) 35,988. It has two Protestant and three Roman Catholic churches, and a synagogue. It is a place of considerable manufacturing activity. The town possesses a museum and a monument to Guillaume René Courbière (1733-1811), the defender of the town in 1807. It has fine promenades along the bank of the Vistula. Graudenz is an important place in the German system of fortifications, and has a garrison of considerable size.

Graudenz was founded about 1250, and received civic rights in 1291. At the peace of Thorn in 1466 it came under the lordship of Poland. From 1665 to 1759 it was held by Sweden, and in 1772 it came into the possession of Prussia. The fortress of Graudenz, which since 1873 has been used as a barracks and a military depot and prison, is situated on a steep eminence about 1½ m. north of the town and outside its limits. It was completed by Frederick the Great in 1776, and was rendered famous through its defence by Courbière against the French in 1807.

GRAUN, CARL HEINRICH (1701-1759), German musical composer, the youngest of three brothers, all more or less musical, was born on the 7th of May 1701 at Wahrenbrück in Saxony. His father held a small government post and he gave his children a careful education. Graun’s beautiful soprano voice secured him an appointment in the choir at Dresden. At an early age he composed a number of sacred cantatas and other pieces for the church service. He completed his studies under Johann Christoph Schmidt (1664-1728), and profited much by the Italian operas which were performed at Dresden under the composer Lotti. After his voice had changed to a tenor, he made his début at the opera of Brunswick, in a work by Schürmann, an inferior composer of the day; but not being satisfied with the arias assigned him he re-wrote them, so much to the satisfaction of the court that he was commissioned to write an opera for the next season. This work, Polydorus (1726), and five other operas written for Brunswick, spread his fame all over Germany. Other works, mostly of a sacred character, including two settings of the Passion, also belong to the Brunswick period. Frederick the Great, at that time crown prince of Prussia, heard the singer in Brunswick in 1735, and immediately engaged him for his private chapel at Rheinsberg. There Graun remained for five years, and wrote a number of cantatas, mostly to words written by Frederick himself in French, and translated into Italian by Boltarelli. On his accession to the throne in 1740, Frederick sent Graun to Italy to engage singers for a new opera to be established at Berlin. Graun remained a year on his travels, earning universal applause as a singer in the chief cities of Italy. After his return to Berlin he was appointed conductor of the royal orchestra (Kapellmeister) with a salary of 2000 thalers (£300). In this capacity he wrote twenty-eight operas, all to Italian words, of which the last, Merope (1756), is perhaps the most perfect. It is probable that Graun was subjected to considerable humiliation from the arbitrary caprices of his royal master, who was never tired of praising the operas of Hasse and abusing those of his Kapellmeister. In his oratorio The Death of Jesus Graun shows his skill as a contrapuntist, and his originality of melodious invention. In the Italian operas he imitates the florid style of his time, but even in these the recitatives occasionally show considerable dramatic power. Graun died on the 8th of August 1759, at Berlin, in the same house in which, thirty-two years later, Meyerbeer was born.

GRAVAMEN. (from Lat. gravare, to weigh down; gravis, heavy), a complaint or grievance, the ground of a legal action, and particularly the more serious part of a charge against an accused person. In English the term is used chiefly in ecclesiastical cases, being the technical designation of a memorial presented from the Lower to the Upper House of Convocation, setting forth grievances to be redressed, or calling attention to breaches in church discipline.

GRAVE. (1) (From a common Teutonic verb, meaning “to dig”; in O. Eng. grafan; cf. Dutch graven, Ger. graben), a place dug out of the earth in which a dead body is laid for burial, and hence any place of burial, not necessarily an excavation (see [Funeral Rites] and [Burial]). The verb “to grave,” meaning properly to dig, is particularly used of the making of incisions in a hard surface (see [Engraving]). (2) A title, now obsolete, of a local administrative official for a township in certain parts of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire; it also sometimes appears in the form “grieve,” which in Scotland and Northumberland is used for sheriff (q.v.), and also for a bailiff or under-steward. The origin of the word is obscure, but it is probably connected with the German graf, count, and thus appears as the second part of many Teutonic titles, such as landgrave, burgrave and margrave. “Grieve,” on the other hand, seems to be the northern representative of O.E. gerefa, reeve; cf. “sheriff” and “count.” (3) (From the Lat. gravis, heavy), weighty, serious, particularly with the idea of dangerous, as applied to diseases and the like, of character or temperament as opposed to gay. It is also applied to sound, low or deep, and is thus opposed to “acute.” In music the term is adopted from the French and Italian, and applied to a movement which is solemn or slow. (4) To clean a ship’s bottom in a specially constructed dock, called a “graving dock.” The origin of the word is obscure; according to the New English Dictionary there is no foundation for the connexion with “greaves” or “graves,” the refuse of tallow, in candle or soap-making, supposed to be used in “graving” a ship. It may be connected with an O. Fr. grave, mod. grève, shore.

GRAVEL, or Pebble Beds, the name given to deposits of rounded, subangular, water-worn stones, mingled with finer material such as sand and clay. The word “gravel” is adapted from the O. Fr. gravele, mod. gravelle, dim. of grave, coarse sand, sea-shore, Mod. Fr. grève. The deposits are produced by the attrition of rock fragments by moving water, the waves and tides of the sea and the flow of rivers. Extensive beds of gravel are forming at the present time on many parts of the British coasts where suitable rocks are exposed to the attack of the atmosphere and of the sea waves during storms. The flint gravels of the coast of the Channel, Norfolk, &c., are excellent examples. When the sea is rough the lesser stones are washed up and down the beach by each wave, and in this way are rounded, worn down and finally reduced to sand. These gravels are constantly in movement, being urged forward by the shore currents especially during storms. Large banks of gravel may be swept away in a single night, and in this way the coast is laid bare to the erosive action of the sea. Moreover, the movement of the gravel itself wears down the subjacent rocks. Hence in many places barriers have been erected to prevent the drift of the pebbles and preserve the land, while often it has been found necessary to protect the shores by masonry or cement work. Where the pebbles are swept along to a projecting cape they may be carried onwards and form a long spit or submarine bank, which is constantly reduced in size by the currents and tides which flow across it (e.g. Spurn Head at the mouth of the Humber). The Chesil Bank is the best instance in Britain of a great accumulation of pebbles constantly urged forward by storms in a definite direction. In the shallower parts of the North Sea considerable areas are covered with coarse sand and pebbles. In deeper water, however, as in the Atlantic, beyond the 100 fathom line pebbles are very rare, and those which are found are mostly erratics carried southward by floating icebergs, or volcanic rocks ejected by submarine volcanoes.

In many parts of Britain, Scandinavia and North America there are marine gravels, in every essential resembling those of the sea-shore, at levels considerably above high tide. These gravels often lie In flat-topped terraces which may be traced for great distances along the coast. They are indications that the sea at one time stood higher than it does at present, and are known to geologists as “raised beaches.” In Scotland such beaches are known 25, 50 and 100 ft. above the present shores. In exposed situations they have old shore cliffs behind them; although their deposits are mainly gravelly there is much fine sand and silt in the raised beaches of sheltered estuaries and near river mouths.

River gravels occur most commonly in the middle and upper parts of streams where the currents in times of flood are strong enough to transport fairly large stones. In deltas and the lower portions of large rivers gravel deposits are comparatively rare and indicate periods when the volume of the stream was temporarily greatly increased. In the higher torrents also, gravels are rare because transport is so effective that no considerable accumulations can form. In most countries where the drainage is of a mature type, river gravels occur in the lower parts of the courses of the rivers as banks or terraces which lie some distance above the stream level. Individual terraces usually do not persist for a long space but are represented by a series of benches at about the same altitude. These were once continuous, and have been separated by the stream cutting away the intervening portions as it deepened and broadened its channel. Terraces of this kind often occur in successive series at different heights, and the highest are the oldest because they were laid down at a time when the stream flowed at their level and mark the various stages by which the valley has been eroded. While marine terraces are nearly always horizontal, stream terraces slope downwards along the course of the river.

The extensive deposits of river gravels in many parts of England, France, Switzerland, North America, &c., would indicate that at some former time the rivers flowed in greater volume than at the present day. This is believed to be connected with the glacial epoch and the augmentation of the streams during those periods when the ice was melting away. Many changes in drainage have taken place since then; consequently wide sheets of glacial and fluvio-glacial gravel lie spread out where at present there is no stream. Often they are commingled with sand, and where there were temporary post-glacial lakes deposits of silt, brick clay and mud have been formed. These may be compared to the similar deposits now forming in Greenland, Spitzbergen and other countries which are at present in a glacial condition.

As a rule gravels consist mainly of the harder kinds of stone because these alone can resist attrition. Thus the gravels formed from chalk consist almost entirely of flint, which is so hard that the chalk is ground to powder and washed away, while the flint remains little affected. Other hard rocks such as chert, quartzite, felsite, granite, sandstone and volcanic rocks very frequently are largely represented in gravels, while coal, limestone and shale are far less common. The size of the pebbles varies from a fraction of an inch to several feet; it depends partly on the fissility of the original rocks and partly on the strength of the currents of water; coarse gravels indicate the action of powerful eroding agents. In the Tertiary systems gravels occur on many horizons, e.g. the Woolwich and Reading beds, Oldhaven beds and Bagshot beds of the Eocene of the London basin. They do not essentially differ from recent gravel deposits. But in course of time the action of percolating water assisted by pressure tends to convert gravels into firm masses of conglomerate by depositing carbonate of lime, silica and other substances in their interstices. Gravels are not usually so fossiliferous as finer deposits of the same age, partly because their porous texture enables organic remains to be dissolved away by water, and partly because shells and other fossils are comparatively fragile and would be broken up during the accumulation of the pebbles. The rock fragments in conglomerates, however, sometimes contain fossils which have not been found elsewhere.

(J. S. F.)

GRAVELINES (Flem. Gravelinghe), a fortified seaport town of northern France, in the department of Nord and arrondissement of Dunkirk, 15 m. S.W. of Dunkirk on the railway to Calais. Pop. (1906) town, 1858; commune, 6284. Gravelines is situated on the Aa, 1¼ m. from its mouth in the North Sea. It is surrounded by a double circuit of ramparts and by a tidal moat. The river is canalized and opens out beneath the fortifications into a floating basin. The situation of the port is one of the best in France on the North Sea, though its trade has suffered owing to the nearness of Calais and Dunkirk and the silting up of the channel to the sea. It is a centre for the cod and herring fisheries. Imports consist chiefly of timber from Northern Europe and coal from England, to which eggs and fruit are exported. Gravelines has paper-manufactories, sugar-works, fish-curing works, salt-refineries, chicory-roasting factories, a cannery for preserved peas and other vegetables and an important timber-yard. The harbour is accessible to vessels drawing 18 ft. at high tides. The greater part of the population of the commune of Gravelines dwells in the maritime quarter of Petit-Fort-Philippe at the mouth of the Aa, and in the village of Les Huttes (to the east of the town), which is inhabited by the fisher-folk.

The canalization of the Aa by a count of Flanders about the middle of the 12th century led to the foundation of Gravelines (grave-linghe, meaning “count’s canal.”). In 1558 it was the scene of the signal victory of the Spaniards under the count of Egmont over the French. It finally passed from the Spaniards to the French by the treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659.

GRAVELOTTE, a village of Lorraine between Metz and the French frontier, famous as the scene of the battle of the 18th of August 1870 between the Germans under King William of Prussia and the French under Marshal Bazaine (see [Metz] and [Franco-German War]). The battlefield extends from the woods which border the Moselle above Metz to Roncourt, near the river Orne. Other villages which played an important part in the battle of Gravelotte were Saint Privat, Amanweiler or Amanvillers and Sainte-Marie-aux-Chênes, all lying to the N. of Gravelotte.

GRAVES, ALFRED PERCEVAL (1846-  ), Irish writer, was born in Dublin, the son of the bishop of Limerick. He was educated at Windermere College, and took high honours at Dublin University. In 1869 he entered the Civil Service as clerk in the Home Office, where he remained until he became in 1874 an inspector of schools. He was a constant contributor of prose and verse to the Spectator, The Athenaeum, John Bull, and Punch, and took a leading part in the revival of Irish letters. He was for several years president of the Irish Literary Society, and is the author of the famous ballad of “Father O’Flynn” and many other songs and ballads. In collaboration with Sir C. V. Stanford he published Songs of Old Ireland (1882), Irish Songs and Ballads (1893), the airs of which are taken from the Petrie MSS.; the airs of his Irish Folk-Songs (1897) were arranged by Charles Wood, with whom he also collaborated in Songs of Erin (1901).

His brother, Charles L. Graves (b. 1856), educated at Marlborough and at Christ Church, Oxford, also became well known as a journalist, author of two volumes of parodies, The Hawarden Horace (1894) and More Hawarden Horace (1896), and of skits in prose and verse. An admirable musical critic, his Life and Letters of Sir George Grove (1903) is a model biography.

GRAVESEND, a municipal and parliamentary borough, river-port and market town of Kent, England, on the right bank of the Thames opposite Tilbury Fort, 22 m. E. by S. of London by the South-Eastern & Chatham railway. Pop. (1901) 27,196. It extends about 2 m. along the river bank, occupying a slight acclivity which reaches its summit at Windmill Hill, whence extensive views are obtained of the river, with its windings and shipping. The older and lower part of the town is irregularly built, with narrow and inconvenient streets, but the upper and newer portion contains several handsome streets and terraces. Among several piers are the town pier, erected in 1832, and the terrace pier, built in 1845, at a time when local river-traffic by steamboat was specially prosperous. Gravesend is a favourite resort of the inhabitants of London, both for excursions and as a summer residence; it is also a favourite yachting centre. The principal buildings are the town-hall, the parish church of Gravesend, erected on the site of an ancient building destroyed by fire in 1727; Milton parish church, a Decorated and Perpendicular building erected in the time of Edward II.; and the county courts. Milton Mount College is a large institution for the daughters of Congregational ministers. East of the town are the earthworks designed to assist Tilbury Fort in obstructing the passage up river of an enemy’s force. They were originally constructed on Vauban’s system in the reign of Charles II. Rosherville Gardens, a popular resort, are in the western suburb of Rosherville, a residential quarter named after James Rosher, an owner of lime works. They were founded in 1843 by George Jones. Gravesend, which is within the Port of London, has some import trade in coal and timber, and fishing, especially of shrimps, is carried on extensively. The principal other industries are boat-building, ironfounding, brewing and soap-boiling. Fruit and vegetables are largely grown in the neighbourhood for the London market. Since 1867 Gravesend has returned a member to parliament, the borough including Northfleet to the west. The town is governed by a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors. Area, 1259 acres.

In the Domesday Survey “Gravesham” is entered among the bishop of Bayeux’s lands, and a “hythe” or landing-place is mentioned. In 1401 Henry IV. granted the men of Gravesend the sole right of conveying in their own vessels all persons travelling between London and Gravesend, and this right was confirmed by Edward IV. in 1462. In 1562 the town was granted a charter of incorporation by Elizabeth, which vested the government in 2 portreeves and 12 jurats, but by a later charter of 1568 one portreeve was substituted for the two. Charles I. incorporated the town anew under the title of the mayor, jurats and inhabitants of Gravesend, and a further charter of liberties was granted by James II. in 1687. A Thursday market and fair on the 13th of October were granted to the men of Gravesend by Edward III. in 1367; Elizabeth’s charters gave them a Wednesday market and fairs on the 24th of June and the 13th of October, with a court of pie-powder; by the charter of Charles I. Thursday and Saturday were made the market days, and these were changed again to Wednesday and Saturday by a charter of 1694, which also granted a fair on the 23rd of April; the fairs on these dates have died out, but the Saturday market is still held.

From the beginning of the 17th century Gravesend was the chief station for East Indiamen; most of the ships outward bound from London stopped here to victual. A customs house was built in 1782. Queen Elizabeth established Gravesend as the point where the corporation of London should welcome in state eminent foreign visitors arriving by water. State processions by water from Gravesend to London had previously taken place, as in 1522, when Henry VIII. escorted the emperor Charles V. A similar practice was maintained until modern times; as when, on the 7th of March 1863, the princess Alexandra was received here by the prince of Wales (King Edward VII.) three days before their marriage. Gravesend parish church contains memorials to “Princess” Pocahontas, who died when preparing to return home from a visit to England in 1617, and was buried in the old church. A memorial pulpit from the state of Indiana, U.S.A., made of Virginian wood, was provided in 1904, and a fund was raised for a stained-glass window by ladies of the state of Virginia.

GRAVINA, GIOVANNI VINCENZO (1664-1718), Italian littérateur and jurisconsult, was born at Roggiano, a small town near Cosenza, in Calabria, on the 20th of January 1664. He was descended from a distinguished family, and under the direction of his maternal uncle, Gregorio Caloprese, who possessed some reputation as a poet and philosopher, received a learned education, after which he studied at Naples civil and canon law. In 1689 he came to Rome, where in 1695 he united with several others of literary tastes in forming the Academy of Arcadians. A schism occurred in the academy in 1711, and Gravina and his followers founded in opposition to it the Academy of Quirina. From Innocent XII. Gravina received the offer of various ecclesiastical honours, but declined them from a disinclination to enter the clerical profession. In 1699 he was appointed to the chair of civil law in the college of La Sapienza, and in 1703 he was transferred to the chair of canon law. He died at Rome on the 6th of January 1718. He was the adoptive father of Metastasio.

Gravina is the author of a number of works of great erudition, the principal being his Origines juris civilis, completed in 3 vols. (1713) and his De Romano imperio (1712). A French translation of the former appeared in 1775, of which a second edition was published in 1822. His collected works were published at Leipzig in 1737, and at Naples, with notes by Mascovius, in 1756.

GRAVINA, a town and episcopal see of Apulia, Italy, in the province of Bari, from which it is 63 m. S.W. by rail (29 m. direct), 1148 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 18,197. The town is probably of medieval origin, though some conjecture that it occupies the site of the ancient Blera, a post station on the Via Appia. The cathedral is a basilica of the 15th century. The town is surrounded with walls and towers, and a castle of the emperor Frederick II. rises above the town, which later belonged to the Orsini, dukes of Gravina; just outside it are dwellings and a church (S. Michele) all hewn in the rock, and now abandoned.

Prehistoric remains in the district (remains of ancient settlements, tumuli, &c.) are described by V. di Cicco in Notizie degli scavi (1901), p. 217.

GRAVITATION (from Lat. gravis, heavy), in physical science, that mutual action between masses of matter by virtue of which every such mass tends toward every other with a force varying directly as the product of the masses and inversely as the square of their distances apart. Although the law was first clearly and rigorously formulated by Sir Isaac Newton, the fact of the action indicated by it was more or less clearly seen by others. Even Ptolemy had a vague conception of a force tending toward the centre of the earth which not only kept bodies upon its surface, but in some way upheld the order of the universe. John Kepler inferred that the planets move in their orbits under some influence or force exerted by the sun; but the laws of motion were not then sufficiently developed, nor were Kepler’s ideas of force sufficiently clear, to admit of a precise statement of the nature of the force. C. Huygens and R. Hooke, contemporaries of Newton, saw that Kepler’s third law implied a force tending toward the sun which, acting on the several planets, varied inversely as the square of the distance. But two requirements necessary to generalize the theory were still wanting. One was to show that the law of the inverse square not only represented Kepler’s third law, but his first two laws also. The other was to show that the gravitation of the earth, following one and the same law with that of the sun, extended to the moon. Newton’s researches showed that the attraction of the earth on the moon was the same as that for bodies at the earth’s surface, only reduced in the inverse square of the moon’s distance from the earth’s centre. He also showed that the total gravitation of the earth, assumed as spherical, on external bodies, would be the same as if the earth’s mass were concentrated in the centre. This led at once to the statement of the law in its most general form.

The law of gravitation is unique among the laws of nature, not only in its wide generality, taking the whole universe in its scope, but in the fact that, so far as yet known, it is absolutely unmodified by any condition or cause whatever. All other forms of action between masses of matter, vary with circumstances. The mutual action of electrified bodies, for example, is affected by their relative or absolute motion. But no conditions to which matter has ever been subjected, or under which it has ever been observed, have been found to influence its gravitation in the slightest degree. We might conceive the rapid motions of the heavenly bodies to result in some change either in the direction or amount of their gravitation towards each other at each moment; but such is not the case, even in the most rapidly moving bodies of the solar system. The question has also been raised whether the action of gravitation is absolutely instantaneous. If not, the action would not be exactly in the line adjoining the two bodies at the instant, but would be affected by the motion of the line joining them during the time required by the force to pass from one body to the other. The result of this would be seen in the motions of the planets around the sun; but the most refined observations show no such effect. It is also conceivable that bodies might gravitate differently at different temperatures. But the most careful researches have failed to show any apparent modification produced in this way except what might be attributed to the surrounding conditions. The most recent and exhaustive experiment was that of J. H. Poynting and P. Phillips (Proc. Roy. Soc., 76A, p. 445). The result was that the change, if any, was less than 1⁄10 of the force for one degree change of temperature, a result too minute to be established by any measures.

Another cause which might be supposed to modify the action of gravitation between two bodies would be the interposition of masses of matter between them, a cause which materially modifies the action of electrified bodies. The question whether this cause modifies gravitation admits of an easy test from observation. If it did, then a portion of the earth’s mass or of that of any other planet turned away from the sun would not be subjected to the same action of the sun as if directly exposed to that action. Great masses, as those of the great planets, would not be attracted with a force proportional to the mass because of the hindrance or other effect of the interposed portions. But not the slightest modification due to this cause is shown. The general conclusion from everything we see is that a mass of matter in Australia attracts a mass in London precisely as it would if the earth were not interposed between the two masses.

We must therefore regard the law in question as the broadest and most fundamental one which nature makes known to us.

It is not yet experimentally proved that variation as the inverse square is absolutely true at all distances. Astronomical observations extend over too brief a period of time to show any attraction between different stars except those in each other’s neighbourhood. But this proves nothing because, in the case of distances so great, centuries or even thousands of years of accurate observation will be required to show any action. On the other hand the enigmatical motion of the perihelion of Mercury has not yet found any plausible explanation except on the hypothesis that the gravitation of the sun diminishes at a rate slightly greater than that of the inverse square—the most simple modification being to suppose that instead of the exponent of the distance being exactly −2, it is −2.000 000 161 2.

The argument is extremely simple in form. It is certain that, in the general average, year after year, the force with which Mercury is drawn toward the sun does vary from the exact inverse square of its distance from the sun. The most plausible explanation of this is that one or more masses of matter move around the sun, whose action, whether they are inside or outside the orbit of Mercury, would produce the required modification in the force. From an investigation of all the observations upon Mercury and the other three interior planets, Simon Newcomb found it almost out of the question that any such mass of matter could exist without changing either the figure of the sun itself or the motion of the planes of the orbits of either Mercury or Venus. The qualification “almost” is necessary because so complex a system of actions comes into play, and accurate observations have extended through so short a period, that the proof cannot be regarded as absolute. But the fact that careful and repeated search for a mass of matter sufficient to produce the desired effect has been in vain, affords additional evidence of its non-existence. The most obvious test of the reality of the required modifications would be afforded by two other bodies, the motions of whose pericentres should be similarly affected. These are Mars and the moon. Newcomb found an excess of motions in the perihelion of Mars amounting to about 5″ per century. But the combination of observations and theory on which this is based is not sufficient fully to establish so slight a motion. In the case of the motion of the moon around the earth, assuming the gravitation of the latter to be subject to the modification in question, the annual motion of the moon’s perigee should be greater by 1.5″ than the theoretical motion. E. W. Brown is the first investigator to determine the theoretical motions with this degree of precision; and he finds that there is no such divergence between the actual and the computed motion. There is therefore as yet no ground for regarding any deviation from the law of inverse square as more than a possibility.

(S. N.)

Gravitation Constant and Mean Density of the Earth

The law of gravitation states that two masses M1 and M2, distant d from each other, are pulled together each with a force G. M1M2/d², where G is a constant for all kinds of matter—the gravitation constant. The acceleration of M2 towards M1 or the force exerted on it by M1 per unit of its mass is therefore GM1/d². Astronomical observations of the accelerations of different planets towards the sun, or of different satellites towards the same primary, give us the most accurate confirmation of the distance part of the law. By comparing accelerations towards different bodies we obtain the ratios of the masses of those different bodies and, in so far as the ratios are consistent, we obtain confirmation of the mass part. But we only obtain the ratios of the masses to the mass of some one member of the system, say the earth. We do not find the mass in terms of grammes or pounds. In fact, astronomy gives us the product GM, but neither G nor M. For example, the acceleration of the earth towards the sun is about 0.6 cm/sec.² at a distance from it about 15 × 1012 cm. The acceleration of the moon towards the earth is about 0.27 cm/sec.² at a distance from it about 4 × 1010 cm. If S is the mass of the sun and E the mass of the earth we have 0.6 = GS/(15 × 1012)² and 0.27 = GE/(4 × 1010)² giving us GS and GE, and the ratio S/E = 300,000 roughly; but we do not obtain either S or E in grammes, and we do not find G.

The aim of the experiments to be described here may be regarded either as the determination of the mass of the earth in grammes, most conveniently expressed by its mass ÷ its volume, that is by its “mean density” Δ, or the determination of the “gravitation constant” G. Corresponding to these two aspects of the problem there are two modes of attack. Suppose that a body of mass m is suspended at the earth’s surface where it is pulled with a force w vertically downwards by the earth—its weight. At the same time let it be pulled with a force p by a measurable mass M which may be a mountain, or some measurable part of the earth’s surface layers, or an artificially prepared mass brought near m, and let the pull of M be the same as if it were concentrated at a distance d. The earth pull may be regarded as the same as if the earth were all concentrated at its centre, distant R.

Then

w = G · 4⁄3 πR³Δm/R² = G · 4⁄3 πRΔm,

(1)

and

p = GMm/d².

(2)

By division

If then we can arrange to observe w/p we obtain Δ, the mean density of the earth.

But the same observations give us G also. For, putting m = w/g in (2), we get

In the second mode of attack the pull p between two artificially prepared measured masses M1, M2 is determined when they are a distance d apart, and since p = G·M1M2/d² we get at once G = pd²/M1M2. But we can also deduce Δ. For putting w = mg in (1) we get

Experiments of the first class in which the pull of a known mass is compared with the pull of the earth maybe termed experiments on the mean density of the earth, while experiments of the second class in which the pull between two known masses is directly measured may be termed experiments on the gravitation constant.

We shall, however, adopt a slightly different classification for the purpose of describing methods of experiment, viz:—

1. Comparison of the earth pull on a body with the pull of a natural mass as in the Schiehallion experiment.

2. Determination of the attraction between two artificial masses as in Cavendish’s experiment.

3. Comparison of the earth pull on a body with the pull of an artificial mass as in experiments with the common balance.

It is interesting to note that the possibility of gravitation experiments of this kind was first considered by Newton, and in both of the forms (1) and (2). In the System of the World (3rd ed., 1737, p. 40) he calculates that the deviation by a hemispherical mountain, of the earth’s density and with radius 3 m., on a plumb-line at its side will be less than 2 minutes. He also calculates (though with an error in his arithmetic) the acceleration towards each other of two spheres each a foot in diameter and of the earth’s density, and comes to the conclusion that in either case the effect is too small for measurement. In the Principia, bk. iii., prop. x., he makes a celebrated estimate that the earth’s mean density is five or six times that of water. Adopting this estimate, the deviation by an actual mountain or the attraction of two terrestrial spheres would be of the orders calculated, and regarded by Newton as immeasurably small.

Whatever method is adopted the force to be measured is very minute. This may be realized if we here anticipate the results of the experiments, which show that in round numbers Δ = 5.5 and G = 1/15,000,000 when the masses are in grammes and the distances in centimetres.

Newton’s mountain, which would probably have density about Δ/2 would deviate the plumb-line not much more than half a minute. Two spheres 30 cm. in diameter (about 1 ft.) and of density 11 (about that of lead) just not touching would pull each other with a force rather less than 2 dynes, and their acceleration would be such that they would move into contact if starting 1 cm. apart in rather over 400 seconds.

From these examples it will be realized that in gravitation experiments extraordinary precautions must be adopted to eliminate disturbing forces which may easily rise to be comparable with the forces to be measured. We shall not attempt to give an account of these precautions, but only seek to set forth the general principles of the different experiments which have been made.

I. Comparison of the Earth Pull with that of a Natural Mass.

Bouguer’s Experiments.—The earliest experiments were made by Pierre Bouguer about 1740, and they are recorded in his Figure de la terre (1749). They were of two kinds. In the first he determined the length of the seconds pendulum, and thence g at different levels. Thus at Quito, which may be regarded as on a table-land 1466 toises (a toise is about 6.4 ft.) above sea-level, the seconds pendulum was less by 1/1331 than on the Isle of Inca at sea-level. But if there were no matter above the sea-level, the inverse square law would make the pendulum less by 1/1118 at the higher level. The value of g then at the higher level was greater than could be accounted for by the attraction of an earth ending at sea-level by the difference 1/1118 − 1/1331 = 1/6983, and this was put down to the attraction of the plateau 1466 toises high; or the attraction of the whole earth was 6983 times the attraction of the plateau. Using the rule, now known as “Young’s rule,” for the attraction of the plateau, Bouguer found that the density of the earth was 4.7 times that of the plateau, a result certainly much too large.

In the second kind of experiment he attempted to measure the horizontal pull of Chimborazo, a mountain about 20,000 ft. high, by the deflection of a plumb-line at a station on its south side. Fig. 1 shows the principle of the method. Suppose that two stations are fixed, one on the side of the mountain due south of the summit, and the other on the same latitude but some distance westward, away from the influence of the mountain. Suppose that at the second station a star is observed to pass the meridian, for simplicity we will say directly overhead, then a plumb-line will hang down exactly parallel to the observing telescope. If the mountain were away it would also hang parallel to the telescope at the first station when directed to the same star. But the mountain pulls the plumb-line towards it and the star appears to the north of the zenith and evidently mountain pull/earth pull = tangent of angle of displacement of zenith.

Bouguer observed the meridian altitude of several stars at the two stations. There was still some deflection at the second station, a deflection which he estimated as 1/14 that at the first station, and he found on allowing for this that his observations gave a deflection of 8 seconds at the first station. From the form and size of the mountain he found that if its density were that of the earth the deflection should be 103 seconds, or the earth was nearly 13 times as dense as the mountain, a result several times too large. But the work was carried on under enormous difficulties owing to the severity of the weather, and no exactness could be expected. The importance of the experiment lay in its proof that the method was possible.

Maskelyne’s Experiment.—In 1774 Nevil Maskelyne (Phil. Trans., 1775, p. 495) made an experiment on the deflection of the plumb-line by Schiehallion, a mountain in Perthshire, which has a short ridge nearly east and west, and sides sloping steeply on the north and south. He selected two stations on the same meridian, one on the north, the other on the south slope, and by means of a zenith sector, a telescope provided with a plumb-bob, he determined at each station the meridian zenith distances of a number of stars. From a survey of the district made in the years 1774-1776 the geographical difference of latitude between the two stations was found to be 42.94 seconds, and this would have been the difference in the meridian zenith difference of the same star at the two stations had the mountain been away. But at the north station the plumb-bob was pulled south and the zenith was deflected northwards, while at the south station the effect was reversed. Hence the angle between the zeniths, or the angle between the zenith distances of the same star at the two stations was greater than the geographical 42.94 seconds. The mean of the observations gave a difference of 54.2 seconds, or the double deflection of the plumb-line was 54.2 − 42.94, say 11.26 seconds.

The computation of the attraction of the mountain on the supposition that its density was that of the earth was made by Charles Hutton from the results of the survey (Phil. Trans., 1778, p. 689), a computation carried out by ingenious and important methods. He found that the deflection should have been greater in the ratio 17804 : 9933 say 9 : 5, whence the density of the earth comes out at 9/5 that of the mountain. Hutton took the density of the mountain at 2.5, giving the mean density of the earth 4.5. A revision of the density of the mountain from a careful survey of the rocks composing it was made by John Playfair many years later (Phil. Trans., 1811, p. 347), and the density of the earth was given as lying between 4.5588 and 4.867.

Other experiments have been made on the attraction of mountains by Francesco Carlini (Milano Effem. Ast., 1824, p. 28) on Mt. Blanc in 1821, using the pendulum method after the manner of Bouguer, by Colonel Sir Henry James and Captain A. R. Clarke (Phil. Trans., 1856, p. 591), using the plumb-line deflection at Arthur’s Seat, by T. C. Mendenhall (Amer. Jour. of Sci. xxi. p. 99), using the pendulum method on Fujiyama in Japan, and by E. D. Preston (U.S. Coast and Geod. Survey Rep., 1893, p. 513) in Hawaii, using both methods.

Airy’s Experiment.—In 1854 Sir G. B. Airy (Phil. Trans. 1856, p. 297) carried out at Harton pit near South Shields an experiment which he had attempted many years before in conjunction with W. Whewell and R. Sheepshanks at Dolcoath. This consisted in comparing gravity at the top and at the bottom of a mine by the swings of the same pendulum, and thence finding the ratio of the pull of the intervening strata to the pull of the whole earth. The principle of the method may be understood by assuming that the earth consists of concentric spherical shells each homogeneous, the last of thickness h equal to the depth of the mine. Let the radius of the earth to the bottom of the mine be R, and the mean density up to that point be Δ. This will not differ appreciably from the mean density of the whole. Let the density of the strata of depth h be δ. Denoting the values of gravity above and below by ga and gb we have

and

(since the attraction of a shell h thick on a point just outside it is G · 4π(R + h)²hδ/(R + h)² = G · 4πhδ).

Therefore

whence

and

Stations were chosen in the same vertical, one near the pit bank, another 1250 ft. below in a disused working, and a “comparison” clock was fixed at each station. A third clock was placed at the upper station connected by an electric circuit to the lower station. It gave an electric signal every 15 seconds by which the rates of the two comparison clocks could be accurately compared. Two “invariable” seconds pendulums were swung, one in front of the upper and the other in front of the lower comparison clock after the manner of Kater, and these invariables were interchanged at intervals. From continuous observations extending over three weeks and after applying various corrections Airy obtained gb/ga= 1.00005185. Making corrections for the irregularity of the neighbouring strata he found Δ/δ = 2.6266. W. H. Miller made a careful determination of δ from specimens of the strata, finding it 2.5. The final result taking into account the ellipticity and rotation of the earth is Δ = 6.565.

Von Sterneck’s Experiments.—(Mitth. des K.U.K. Mil. Geog. Inst. zu Wien, ii, 1882, p. 77; 1883, p. 59; vi., 1886, p. 97). R. von Sterneck repeated the mine experiment in 1882-1883 at the Adalbert shaft at Pribram in Bohemia and in 1885 at the Abraham shaft near Freiberg. He used two invariable half-seconds pendulums, one swung at the surface, the other below at the same time. The two were at intervals interchanged. Von Sterneck introduced a most important improvement by comparing the swings of the two invariables with the same clock which by an electric circuit gave a signal at each station each second. This eliminated clock rates. His method, of which it is not necessary to give the details here, began a new era in the determinations of local variations of gravity. The values which von Sterneck obtained for Δ were not consistent, but increased with the depth of the second station. This was probably due to local irregularities in the strata which could not be directly detected.

All the experiments to determine Δ by the attraction of natural masses are open to the serious objection that we cannot determine the distribution of density in the neighbourhood with any approach to accuracy. The experiments with artificial masses next to be described give much more consistent results, and the experiments with natural masses are now only of use in showing the existence of irregularities in the earth’s superficial strata when they give results deviating largely from the accepted value.

II. Determination of the Attraction between two Artificial Masses.

Cavendish’s Experiment (Phil. Trans., 1798, p. 469).—This celebrated experiment was planned by the Rev. John Michell. He completed an apparatus for it but did not live to begin work with it. After Michell’s death the apparatus came into the possession of Henry Cavendish, who largely reconstructed it, but still adhered to Michell’s plan, and in 1797-1798 he carried out the experiment. The essential feature of it consisted in the determination of the attraction of a lead sphere 12 in. in diameter on another lead sphere 2 in. in diameter, the distance between the centres being about 9 in., by means of a torsion balance. Fig. 2 shows how the experiment was carried out. A torsion rod hh 6 ft. long, tied from its ends to a vertical piece mg, was hung by a wire lg. From its ends depended two lead balls xx each 2 in. in diameter. The position of the rod was determined by a scale fixed near the end of the arm, the arm itself carrying a vernier moving along the scale. This was lighted by a lamp and viewed by a telescope T from the outside of the room containing the apparatus. The torsion balance was enclosed in a case and outside this two lead spheres WW each 12 in. in diameter hung from an arm which could turn round an axis Pp in the line of gl. Suppose that first the spheres are placed so that one is just in front of the right-hand ball x and the other is just behind the left-hand ball x. The two will conspire to pull the balls so that the right end of the rod moves forward. Now let the big spheres be moved round so that one is in front of the left ball and the other behind the right ball. The pulls are reversed and the right end moves backward. The angle between its two positions is (if we neglect cross attractions of right sphere on left ball and left sphere on right ball) four times as great as the deflection of the rod due to approach of one sphere to one ball.

The principle of the experiment may be set forth thus. Let 2a be the length of the torsion rod, m the mass of a ball, M the mass of a large sphere, d the distance between the centres, supposed the same on each side. Let θ be the angle through which the rod moves round when the spheres WW are moved from the first to the second of the positions described above. Let μ be the couple required to twist the rod through 1 radian. Then μθ = 4GMma/d². But μ can be found from the time of vibration of the torsion system when we know its moment of inertia I, and this can be determined. If T is the period μ = 4π²I/T², whence G = π²d²Iθ/T²Mma, or putting the result in terms of the mean density of the earth Δ it is easy to show that, if L, the length of the seconds pendulum, is put for g/π², and C for 2πR, the earth’s circumference, then

The original account by Cavendish is still well worth studying on account of the excellence of his methods. His work was undoubtedly very accurate for a pioneer experiment and has only really been improved upon within the last generation. Making various corrections of which it is not necessary to give a description, the result obtained (after correcting a mistake first pointed out by F. Baily) is Δ = 5.448. In seeking the origin of the disturbed motion of the torsion rod Cavendish made a very important observation. He found that when the masses were left in one position for a time the attracted balls crept now in one direction, now in another, as if the attraction were varying. Ultimately he found that this was due to convection currents in the case containing the torsion rod, currents produced by temperature inequalities. When a large sphere was heated the ball near it tended to approach and when it was cooled the ball tended to recede. Convection currents constitute the chief disturbance and the chief source of error in all attempts to measure small forces in air at ordinary pressure.

Reich’s Experiments (Versuche über die mittlere Dichtigkeit der Erde mittelst der Drehwage, Freiberg, 1838; “Neue Versuche mit der Drehwage,” Leipzig Abh. Math. Phys. i., 1852, p. 383).—In 1838 F. Reich published an account of a repetition of the Cavendish experiment carried out on the same general lines, though with somewhat smaller apparatus. The chief differences consisted in the methods of measuring the times of vibration and the deflection, and the changes were hardly improvements. His result after revision was Δ = 5.49. In 1852 he published an account of further work giving as result Δ = 5.58. It is noteworthy that in his second paper he gives an account of experiments suggested by J. D. Forbes in which the deflection was not observed directly, but was deduced from observations of the time of vibration when the attracting masses were in different positions.

Let T1 be the time of vibration when the masses are in one of the usual attracting positions. Let d be the distance between the centres of attracting mass and attracted ball, and δ the distance through which the ball is pulled. If a is the half length of the torsion rod and θ the deflection, δ = aθ. Now let the attracting masses be put one at each end of the torsion rod with their centres in the line through the centres of the balls and d from them, and let T2 be the time of vibration. Then it is easy to show that

δ/d = aθ/d = (T1 − T2) / (T1 + T2).

This gives a value of θ which may be used in the formula. The experiments by this method were not consistent, and the mean result was Δ = 6.25.

Baily’s Experiment (Memoirs of the Royal Astron. Soc. xiv.).—In 1841-1842 Francis Baily made a long series of determinations by Cavendish’s method and with apparatus nearly of the same dimensions. The attracting masses were 12-in. lead spheres and as attracted balls he used various masses, lead, zinc, glass, ivory, platinum, hollow brass, and finally the torsion rod alone without balls. The suspension was also varied, sometimes consisting of a single wire, sometimes being bifilar. There were systematic errors running through Baily’s work, which it is impossible now wholly to explain. These made the resulting value of Δ show a variation with the nature of the attracted masses and a variation with the temperature. His final result Δ = 5.6747 is not of value compared with later results.

Cornu and Baille’s Experiment (Comptes rendus, lxxvi., 1873, p. 954; lxxxvi., 1878, pp. 571, 699, 1001; xcvi., 1883, p. 1493).—In 1870 MM. A. Cornu and J. Baille commenced an experiment by the Cavendish method which was never definitely completed, though valuable studies of the behaviour of the torsion apparatus were made. They purposely departed from the dimensions previously used. The torsion balls were of copper about 100 gm. each, the rod was 50 cm. long, and the suspending wire was 4 metres long. On each side of each ball was a hollow iron sphere. Two of these were filled with mercury weighing 12 kgm., the two spheres of mercury constituting the attracting masses. When the position of a mass was to be changed the mercury was pumped from the sphere on one side to that on the other side of a ball. To avoid counting time a method of electric registration on a chronograph was adopted. A provisional result was Δ = 5.56.

Boys’s Experiment (Phil. Trans., A., 1895, pt. i., p. 1).—Professor C. V. Boys having found that it is possible to draw quartz fibres of practically any degree of fineness, of great strength and true in their elasticity, determined to repeat the Cavendish experiment, using his newly invented fibres for the suspension of the torsion rod. He began by an inquiry as to the best dimensions for the apparatus. He saw that if the period of vibration is kept constant, that is, if the moment of inertia I is kept proportional to the torsion couple per radian μ, then the deflection remains the same however the linear dimensions are altered so long as they are all altered in the same proportion. Hence we are driven to conclude that the dimensions should be reduced until further reduction would make the linear quantities too small to be measured with exactness, for reduction in the apparatus enables variations in temperature and the consequent air disturbances to be reduced, and the experiment in other ways becomes more manageable. Professor Boys took as the exactness to be sought for 1 in 10,000. He further saw that reduction in length of the torsion rod with given balls is an advantage. For if the rod be halved the moment of inertia is one-fourth, and if the suspending fibre is made finer so that the torsion couple per radian is also one-fourth the time remains the same. But the moment of the attracting force is halved only, so that the deflection against one-fourth torsion is doubled. In Cavendish’s arrangement there would be an early limit to the advantage in reduction of rod in that the mass opposite one ball would begin seriously to attract the other ball. But Boys avoided this difficulty by suspending the balls from the ends of the torsion rod at different levels and by placing the attracting masses at these different levels. Fig. 3 represents diagrammatically a vertical section of the arrangement used on a scale of about 1/10. The torsion rod was a small rectangular mirror about 2.4 cm. wide hung by a quartz fibre about 43 cm. long. From the sides of this mirror the balls were hung by quartz fibres at levels differing by 15 cm. The balls were of gold either about 5 mm. in diameter and weighing about 1.3 gm. or about 6.5 mm. in diameter and weighing 2.65 gm. The attracting masses were lead spheres, about 10 cm. in diameter and weighing about 7.4 kgm. each. These were suspended from the top of the case which could be rotated round the central tube, and they were arranged so that the radius to the centre from the axis of the torsion system made 65° with the torsion rod, the position in which the moment of the attraction was a maximum. The torsion rod mirror reflected a distant scale by which the deflection could be read. The time of vibration was recorded on a chronograph. The result of the experiment, probably the best yet made, was Δ = 5.527; G = 6.658 × 10−8.

Braun’s Experiment (Denkschr. Akad. Wiss. Wien, math.- naturw. Cl. 64, p. 187, 1896).—In 1896 Dr K. Braun, S.J., gave an account of a very careful and excellent repetition of the Cavendish experiment with apparatus much smaller than was used in the older experiments, yet much larger than that used by Boys. A notable feature of the work consisted in the suspension of the torsion apparatus in a receiver exhausted to about 4 mm. of mercury, a pressure at which convection currents almost disappear while “radiometer” forces have hardly begun. For other ingenious arrangements the original paper or a short abstract in Nature, lvi., 1897, p. 127, may be consulted. The attracted balls weighed 54 gm. each and were 25 cm. apart. The attracting masses were spheres of mercury each weighing 9 kgm. and brought into position outside the receiver. Braun used both the deflection method and the time of vibration method suggested to Reich by Forbes. The methods gave almost identical results and his final values are to three decimal places the same as those obtained by Boys.

G. K. Burgess’s Experiment (Thèses présentées à la faculté des sciences de Paris pour obtenir le titre de docteur de l’université de Paris, 1901).—This was a Cavendish experiment in which the torsion system was buoyed up by a float in a mercury bath. The attracted masses could thus be made large, and yet the suspending wire could be kept fine. The torsion beam was 12 cm. long, and the attracted balls were lead spheres each 2 kgm. From the centre of the beam depended a vertical steel rod with a varnished copper hollow float at its end, entirely immersed in mercury. The surface of the mercury was covered with dilute sulphuric acid to remove irregularities due to varying surface tension acting on the steel rod. The size of the float was adjusted so that the torsion fibre of quartz 35 cm. long had only to carry a weight of 5 to 10 gm. The time of vibration was over one hour. The torsion couple per radian was determined by preliminary experiments. The attracting masses were each 10 kgm. turning in a circle 18 cm. in diameter. The results gave Δ = 5.55 and G = 6.64 × 10−8.

Eötvos’s Experiment (Ann. der Physik und Chemie, 1896, 59, P. 354).—In the course of investigations on local variations of gravity by means of the torsion balance, R. Eötvos devised a method for determining G somewhat like the vibration method used by Reich and Braun. Two pillars were built up of lead blocks 30 cm. square in cross section, 60 cm. high and 30 cm. apart. A torsion rod somewhat less than 30 cm. long with small weights at the ends was enclosed in a double-walled brass case of as little depth as possible, a device which secured great steadiness through freedom from convection currents. The suspension was a platinum wire about 150 cm. long. The torsion rod was first set in the line joining the centres of the pillars and its time of vibration was taken. Then it was set with its length perpendicular to the line joining the centres and the time again taken. From these times Eötvos was able to deduce G = 6.65 × 10−8 whence Δ = 5.53. This is only a provisional value. The experiment was only as it were a by-product in the course of exceedingly ingenious work on the local variation in gravity for which the original paper should be consulted.

Wilsing’s Experiment (Publ. des astrophysikalischen Observ. zu Potsdam, 1887, No. 22, vol. vi. pt. ii.; pt. iii. p. 133).—We may perhaps class with the Cavendish type an experiment made by J. Wilsing, in which a vertical “double pendulum” was used in place of a horizontal torsion system. Two weights each 540 gm. were fixed at the ends of a rod 1 metre long. A knife edge was fixed on the rod just above its centre of gravity, and this was supported so that the rod could vibrate about a vertical position. Two attracting masses, cast-iron cylinders each 325 kgm., were placed, say, one in front of the top weight on the pendulum and the other behind the bottom weight, and the position of the rod was observed in the usual mirror and scale way. Then the front attracting mass was dropped to the level of the lower weight and the back mass was raised to that of the upper weight, and the consequent deflection of the rod was observed. By taking the time of vibration of the pendulum first as used in the deflection experiment and then when a small weight was removed from the upper end a known distance from the knife edge, the restoring couple per radian deflection could be found. The final result gave Δ = 5.579.

J. Joly’s suggested Experiment (Nature xli., 1890, p. 256).—Joly has suggested that G might be determined by hanging a simple pendulum in a vacuum, and vibrating outside the case two massive pendulums each with the same time of swing as the simple pendulum. The simple pendulum would be set swinging by the varying attraction and from its amplitude after a known number of swings of the outside pendulums G could be found.

III. Comparison of the Earth Pull on a body with the Pull of an Artificial Mass by Means of the Common Balance.

The principle of the method is as follows:—Suppose a sphere of mass m and weight w to be hung by a wire from one arm of a balance. Let the mass of the earth be E and its radius be R. Then w = GEm/R². Now introduce beneath m a sphere of mass M and let d be the distance of its centre from that of m. Its pull increases the apparent weight of m say by δw. Then δw = GMm/d². Dividing we obtain δw/w = MR²/Ed², whence E = MR²w/d²δw; and since g = GE/R², G can be found when E is known.

Von Jolly’s Experiment (Abhand. der k. bayer. Akad. der Wiss. 2 Cl. xiii. Bd. 1 Abt. p. 157, and xiv. Bd. 2 Abt. p. 3).—In the first of these papers Ph. von Jolly described an experiment in which he sought to determine the decrease in weight with increase of height from the earth’s surface, an experiment suggested by Bacon (Nov. Org. Bk. 2, §36), in the form of comparison of rates of two clocks at different levels, one driven by a spring, the other by weights. The experiment in the form carried out by von Jolly was attempted by H. Power, R. Hooke, and others in the early days of the Royal Society (Mackenzie, The Laws of Gravitation). Von Jolly fixed a balance at the top of his laboratory and from each pan depended a wire supporting another pan 5 metres below. Two 1-kgm. weights were first balanced in the upper pans and then one was moved from an upper to the lower pan on the same side. A gain of 1.5 mgm. was observed after correction for greater weight of air displaced at the lower level. The inverse square law would give a slightly greater gain and the deficiency was ascribed to the configuration of the land near the laboratory. In the second paper a second experiment was described in which a balance was fixed at the top of a tower and provided as before with one pair of pans just below the arms and a second pair hung from these by wires 21 metres below. Four glass globes were prepared equal in weight and volume. Two of these were filled each with 5 kgm. of mercury and then all were sealed up. The two heavy globes were then placed in the upper pans and the two light ones in the lower. The two on one side were now interchanged and a gain in weight of about 31.7 mgm. was observed. Air corrections were eliminated by the use of the globes of equal volume. Then a lead sphere about 1 metre radius was built up of blocks under one of the lower pans and the experiment was repeated. Through the attraction of the lead sphere on the mass of mercury when below the gain was greater by 0.589 mgm. This result gave Δ = 5.692.

Experiment of Richarz and Krigar-Menzel (Anhang zu den Abhand. der k. preuss. Akad. der Wiss. zu Berlin, 1898).—In 1884 A. König and F. Richarz proposed a similar experiment which was ultimately carried out by Richarz and O. Krigar-Menzel. In this experiment a balance was supported somewhat more than 2 metres above the floor and with scale pans above and below as in von Jolly’s experiment. Weights each 1 kgm. were placed, say, in the top right pan and the bottom left pan. Then they were shifted to the bottom right and the top left, the result being, after corrections for change in density of air displaced through pressure and temperature changes, a gain in weight of 1.2453 mgm. on the right due to change in level of 2.2628 metres. Then a rectangular column of lead 210 cm. square cross section and 200 cm. high was built up under the balance between the pairs of pans. The column was perforated with two vertical tunnels for the passage of the wires supporting the lower pans. On repeating the weighings there was now a decrease on the right when a kgm. was moved on that side from top to bottom while another was moved on the left from bottom to top. This decrease was 0.1211 mgm. showing a total change due to the lead mass of 1.2453 + 0.1211 = 1.3664 mgm. and this is obviously four times the attraction of the lead mass on one kgm. The changes in the positions of the weights were made automatically. The results gave Δ = 5.05 and G = 6.685 × 10−8.

Poynting’s Experiment (Phil. Trans., vol. 182, A, 1891, P. 565).—In 1878 J. H. Poynting published an account of a preliminary experiment which he had made to show that the common balance was available for gravitational work. The experiment was on the same lines as that of von Jolly but on a much smaller scale. In 1891 he gave an account of the full experiment carried out with a larger balance and with much greater care. The balance had a 4-ft. beam. The scale pans were removed, and from the two arms were hung lead spheres each weighing about 20 kgm. at a level about 120 cm. below the beam. The balance was supported in a case above a horizontal turn-table with axis vertically below the central knife edge, and on this turn-table was a lead sphere weighing 150 kgm.—the attracting mass. The centre of this sphere was 30 cm. below the level of the centres of the hanging weights. The turn-table could be rotated between stops so that the attracting mass was first immediately below the hanging weight on one side, and then immediately under that on the other side. On the same turn-table but at double the distance from the centre was a second sphere of half the weight introduced merely to balance the larger sphere and keep the centre of gravity at the centre of the turn-table. Before the introduction of this sphere errors were introduced through the tilting of the floor of the balance room when the turn-table was rotated. Corrections of course had to be made for the attraction of this second sphere. The removal of the large mass from left to right made an increase in weight on that side of about 1 mgm. determined by riders in a special way described in the paper. To eliminate the attraction on the beam and the rods supporting the hanging weights another experiment was made in which these weights were moved up the rods through 30 cm. and on now moving the attracting sphere from left to right the gain on the right was only about ½ mgm. The difference, 4⁄5 mgm., was due entirely to change in distance of the attracted masses. After all corrections the results gave Δ = 5.493 and G = 6.698 × 10−8.

Final Remarks.—The earlier methods in which natural masses were used have disadvantages, as already pointed out, which render them now quite valueless. Of later methods the Cavendish appears to possess advantages over the common balance method in that it is more easy to ward off temperature variations, and so avoid convection currents, and probably more easy to determine the actual value of the attracting force. For the present the values determined by Boys and Braun may be accepted as having the greatest weight and we therefore take

Probably Δ = 5.53 and G = 6.66 × 10−8 are correct to 1 in 500.

Authorities.—J. H. Poynting, The Mean Density of the Earth (1894), gives an account of all work up to the date of publication with a bibliography; A. Stanley Mackenzie, The Laws of Gravitation (1899), gives annotated extracts from various papers, some historical notes and a bibliography. A Bibliography of Geodesy, Appendix 8, Report for 1902 of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey includes a very complete bibliography of gravitational work.

(J. H. P.)

GRAVY, a word usually confined to the natural juices which come from meat during cooking. In early uses (in the New English Dictionary the quotations date from the end of the 14th to the beginning of the 16th centuries) it meant a sauce of broth flavoured with spices and almonds. The more modern usage seems to date from the end of the 16th century. The word is obscure in origin. It has been connected with “graves” or “greaves,” the refuse of tallow in the manufacture of soap or candles. The more probable derivation is from the French. In Old French the word is almost certainly grané, and is derived from grain, “something used in cooking.” The word was early read and spelled with a u or v instead of n, and the corruption was adopted in English.

GRAY, ASA (1810-1888), American botanist, was born at Paris, Oneida county, N.Y., on the 18th of November 1810. He was the son of a farmer, and received no formal education except at the Fairfield (N.Y.) academy and the Fairfield medical school. From Dr James Hadley, the professor of chemistry and materia medica he obtained his first instruction in science (1825-1826). In the spring of 1827 he first began to collect and identify plants. His formal education, such as it was, ended in February 1831, when he took the degree of M.D. His first contribution to descriptive botany appeared in 1835, and thereafter an uninterrupted series of contributions to systematic botany flowed from his pen for fifty-three years. In 1836 his first botanical text-book appeared under the title Elements of Botany, followed in 1839 by his Botanical Text-Book for Colleges, Schools, and Private Students which developed into his Structural Botany. He published later First Lessons in Botany and Vegetable Physiology (1857); How Plants Grow (1858); Field, Forest, and Garden Botany (1869); How Plants Behave (1872). These books served the purpose of developing popular interest in botanical studies. His most important work, however, was his Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States, the first edition of which appeared in 1847. This manual has passed through a large number of editions, is clear, accurate and compact to an extraordinary degree, and within its geographical limits is an indispensable book for the student of American botany.

Throughout his life Gray was a diligent writer of reviews of books on natural history subjects. Often these reviews were elaborate essays, for which the books served merely as texts; often they were clear and just summaries of extensive works; sometimes they were sharply critical, though never ill-natured or unfair; always they were interesting, lively and of literary as well as scientific excellence. The greater part of Gray’s strictly scientific labour was devoted to a Flora of North America, the plan of which originated with his early teacher and associate, John Torrey of New York. The second volume of Torrey and Gray’s Flora was completed in 1843; but for forty years thereafter Gray gave up a large part of his time to the preparation of his Synoptical Flora (1878). He lived at the period when the flora of North America was being discovered, described and systematized; and his enthusiastic labours in this fresh field placed him at the head of American botanists and on a level with the most famous botanists of the world. In 1856 he published a paper on the distribution of plants under the title Statistics of the Flora of the Northern United States; and this paper was followed in 1859 by a memoir on the botany of Japan and its relations to that of North America, a paper of which Sir J. D. Hooker said that “in point of originality and far-reaching results [it] was its author’s opus magnum.” It was Gray’s study of plant distribution which led to his intimate correspondence with Charles Darwin during the years in which Darwin was elaborating the doctrines that later became known as Darwinism. From 1855 to 1875 Gray was both a keen critic and a sympathetic exponent of the Darwinian principles. His religious views were those of the Evangelical bodies in the Protestant Church; so that, when Darwinism was attacked as equivalent to atheism, he was in position to answer effectively the unfounded allegation that it was fatal to the doctrine of design. He taught that “the most puzzling things of all to the old-school teleologists are the principia of the Darwinian.” He openly avowed his conviction that the present species are not special creations, but rather derived from previously existing species; and he made his avowal with frank courage, when this truth was scarcely recognized by any naturalists, and when to the clerical mind evolution meant atheism.

In 1842 Gray accepted the Fisher professorship of natural history in Harvard University. On his accession to this chair the university had no herbarium, no botanical library, few plants of any value, and but a small garden, which for lack of money had never been well stocked or well arranged. He soon brought together, chiefly by widespread exchanges, a valuable herbarium and library, and arranged the garden; and thereafter the development of these botanical resources was part of his regular labours. The herbarium soon became the largest and most valuable in America, and on account of the numerous type specimens it contains it is likely to remain a collection of national importance. Nothing of what Gray did for the botanical department of the university has been lost; on the contrary, his labours were so well directed that everything he originated and developed has been enlarged, improved and placed on stable foundations. He himself made large contributions to the establishment by giving it all his own specimens, many books and no little money, and by his will he gave it the royalties on his books. During his long connexion with the university he brought up two generations of botanists and he always took a strong personal interest in the researches and the personal prospects of the young men who had studied under him. His scientific life was mainly spent in the herbarium and garden in Cambridge; but his labours there were relieved by numerous journeys to different parts of the United States and to Europe, all of which contributed to his work on the Synoptical Flora. He lived to a good age—long enough, indeed, to receive from learned societies at home and abroad abundant evidence of their profound respect for his attainments and services. He died at Cambridge, Mass., on the 30th of January 1888.

His Letters (1893) were edited by his wife; and his Scientific Papers (1888) by C. S. Sargent.

(C. W. E.)

GRAY, DAVID (1838-1861), Scottish poet, the son of a hand-loom weaver, was born at Merkland, near Glasgow, on the 29th of January 1838. His parents resolved to educate him for the church, and through their self-denial and his own exertions as a pupil teacher and private tutor he was able to complete a course of four sessions at the university of Glasgow. He began to write poetry for The Glasgow Citizen and began his idyll on the Luggie, the little stream that ran through Merkland. His most intimate companion at this time was Robert Buchanan, the poet; and in May 1860 the two agreed to proceed to London, with the idea of finding literary employment. Shortly after his arrival in London Gray introduced himself to Monckton Milnes, afterwards Lord Houghton, with whom he had previously corresponded. Lord Houghton tried to persuade him to return to Scotland, but Gray insisted on staying in London. He was unsuccessful in his efforts to place Gray’s poem, “The Luggie,” in The Cornhill Magazine, but gave him some light literary work. He also showed him great kindness when a cold which had seized him assumed the serious form of consumption, and sent him to Torquay; but as the disease made rapid progress, an irresistible longing seized Gray to return to Merkland, where he arrived in January 1861, and died on the 3rd of December following, having the day before had the gratification of seeing a printed specimen copy of his poem “The Luggie,” published eventually by the exertions of Sydney Dobell. He was buried in the Auld Aisle Churchyard, Kirkintilloch, where in 1865 a monument was erected by “friends far and near” to his memory.

“The Luggie,” the principal poem of Gray, is a kind of reverie in which the scenes and events of his childhood and his early aspirations are mingled with the music of the stream which he celebrates. The series of sonnets, “In the Shadows,” was composed during the latter part of his illness. Most of his poems necessarily bear traces of immaturity, and lines may frequently be found in them which are mere echoes from Thomson, Wordsworth or Tennyson, but they possess, nevertheless, distinct individuality, and show a real appreciation of natural beauty.

The Luggie and other Poems, with an introduction by R. Monckton Milnes, and a brief memoir by James Hedderwick, was published in 1862; and a new and enlarged edition of Gray’s Poetical Works, edited by Henry Glassford Bell, appeared in 1874. See also David Gray and other Essays, by Robert Buchanan (1868), and the same writer’s poem on David Gray, in Idyls and Legends of Inverburn.

GRAY, ELISHA (1835-1901), American electrician, was born in Barnesville, Belmont county, Ohio, on the 2nd of August 1835. He worked as a carpenter and in a machine shop, reading in physical science at the same time, and for five years studied at Oberlin College, where he taught for a time. He then investigated the subject of telegraphy, and in 1867 patented a telegraphic switch and annunciator. Experimenting in the transmittal of electro-tones and of musical tones by wire, he utilized in 1874 animal tissues in his receivers, and filed, on the 14th of February 1876, a caveat for the invention of a telephone, only a few hours after the filing of an application for a patent by Alexander Graham Bell. (See [Telephone].) The caveat was disregarded; letters patent No. 174,465 were granted to Bell, whose priority of invention was upheld in 1888 by the United States Supreme Court (see Molecular Telephone Co. v. American Bell Telephone Co., 126 U.S. 1). Gray’s experiments won for him high praise and the decoration of the Legion of Honour at the Paris Exposition of 1878. He was for a time a manufacturer of electrical apparatus, particularly of his own inventions; and was chief electrical expert of the Western Electric Company of Chicago. At the Columbian Exposition of 1893 Gray was chairman of the International Congress of Electricians. He died at Newtonville, Massachusetts, on the 21st of January 1901. Among his later inventions were appliances for multiplex telegraphy and the telautograph, a machine for the electric transmission of handwriting. He experimented in the submarine use of electric bells for signalling.

Gray wrote, besides scientific addresses and many monographs, Telegraphy and Telephony (1878) and Electricity and Magnetism (1900).

GRAY, HENRY PETERS (1819-1877). American portrait and genre painter, was born in New York on the 23rd of June 1819. He was a pupil of Daniel Huntington there, and subsequently studied in Rome and Florence. Elected a member of the National Academy of Design in 1842, he succeeded Huntington as president in 1870, holding the position until 1871. The later years of his life were devoted to portrait work. He was strongly influenced by the old Italian masters, painting in mellow colour with a classical tendency. One of his notable canvases was an allegorical composition called “The Birth of our Flag” (1875). He died in New York City on the 12th of November 1877.

GRAY, HORACE (1828-1902), American jurist, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on the 24th of March 1828. He graduated at Harvard in 1845; was admitted to the bar in 1851, and in 1854-1861 was reporter to the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. He practised law, first in partnership with Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, and later with Wilder Dwight (1823-1862) and Charles F. Blake; was appointed associate justice of the state Supreme Court on the 23rd of August 1864, becoming chief-justice on the 5th of September 1873; and was associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from December 1881 to August 1902, resigning only a few weeks before his death at Nahant, Mass., on the 15th of September 1902. Gray had a fine sense of the dignity of the bench, and a taste for historical study. His judgments were unmistakably clear and contained the essence of earlier opinions. A great case lawyer, he was a much greater judge, the variety of his knowledge and his contributions to admiralty and prize law and to testamentary law being particularly striking; in constitutional law he was a “loose” rather than a “strict” constructionist.

See Francis C. Lowell, “Horace Gray,” in Proceedings of the American Academy, vol. 39, pp. 627-637 (Boston, 1904).

GRAY, JOHN DE (d. 1214), bishop of Norwich, entered Prince John’s service, and at his accession (1199) was rapidly promoted in the church till he became bishop of Norwich in September 1200. King John’s attempt to force him into the primacy in 1205 started the king’s long and fatal quarrel with Pope Innocent III. De Gray was a hard-working royal official, in finance, in justice, in action, using his position to enrich himself and his family. In 1209 he went to Ireland to govern it as justiciar. He adopted a forward policy, attempting to extend the English frontier northward and westward, and fought a number of campaigns on the Shannon and in Fermanagh. But in 1212 he suffered a great defeat. He assimilated the coinage of Ireland to that of England, and tried to effect a similar reform in Irish law. De Gray was a good financier, and could always raise money: this probably explains the favour he enjoyed from King John. In 1213 he is found with 500 knights at the great muster at Barham Downs, when Philip Augustus was threatening to invade England. After John’s reconciliation with Innocent he was one of those exempted from the general pardon, and was forced to go in person to Rome to obtain it. At Rome he so completely gained over Innocent that the pope sent him back with papal letters recommending his election to the bishopric of Durham (1213); but he died at St Jean d’Audely in Poitou on his homeward journey (October 1214).

GRAY, JOHN EDWARD (1800-1875), English naturalist, born at Walsall, Staffordshire, in 1800, was the eldest of the three sons of S. F. Gray, of that town, druggist and writer on botany, and author of the Supplement to the Pharmacopoeia, &c., his grandfather being S. F. Gray, who translated the Philosophia Botanica of Linnaeus for the Introduction to Botany of James Lee (1715-1795). Gray studied at St Bartholomew’s and other hospitals for the medical profession, but at an early age was attracted to the pursuit of botany. He assisted his father by collecting notes on botany and comparative anatomy and zoology in Sir Joseph Banks’s library at the British Museum, aided by Dr W. E. Leach, assistant keeper, and the systematic synopsis of the Natural Arrangement of British Plants, 2 vols., 1821, was prepared by him, his father writing the preface and introduction only. In consequence of his application for membership of the Linnaean Society being rejected in 1822, he turned to the study of zoology, writing on zoophytes, shells, Mollusca and Papilionidae, still aided by Dr Leach at the British Museum. In December 1824 he obtained the post of assistant in that institution; and from that date to December 1839, when J. G. Children retired from the keepership, he had so zealously applied himself to the study, classification and improvement of the national collection of zoology that he was selected as the fittest person to be entrusted with its charge. Immediately on his appointment as keeper, he took in hand the revision of the systematic arrangement of the collections; scientific catalogues followed in rapid succession; the department was raised in importance; its poverty as well as its wealth became known, and whilst increased grants, donations and exchanges made good many deficiencies, great numbers of students, foreign as well as English, availed themselves of its resources to enlarge the knowledge of zoology in all its branches. In spite of numerous obstacles, he worked up the department, within a few years of his appointment as keeper, to such a state of excellence as to make it the rival of the cabinets of Leiden, Paris and Berlin; and later on it was raised under his management to the dignity of the largest and most complete zoological collection in the world. Although seized with paralysis in 1870, he continued to discharge the functions of keeper of zoology, and to contribute papers to the Annals of Natural History, his favourite journal, and to the transactions of a few of the learned societies; but at Christmas 1874, having completed half a century of official work, he resigned office, and died in London on the 7th of March 1875.

Gray was an exceedingly voluminous writer, and his interests were not confined to natural history only, for he took an active part in questions of public importance of his day, such as slave emancipation, prison discipline, abolition of imprisonment for debt, sanitary and municipal organizations, the decimal system, public education, extension of the opening of museums, &c. He began to publish in 1820, and continued till the year of his death.

The titles of the books, memoirs and miscellaneous papers written by him, accompanied by a few notes, fill a privately printed list of 56 octavo pages with 1162 entries.

GRAY, PATRICK GRAY, 6th Baron (d. 1612), was descended from Sir Andrew Gray (c. 1390-1469) of Broxmouth and Foulis, who was created a Scottish peer as Lord Gray, probably in 1445. Andrew was a leading figure in Scottish politics during the reigns of James I. and his two successors, and visited England as a hostage, a diplomatist and a pilgrim. The 2nd Lord Gray was his grandson Andrew (d. 1514), and the 4th lord was the latter’s grandson Patrick (d. 1582), a participant in Scottish politics during the stormy time of Mary, queen of Scots. Patrick’s son, Patrick, the 5th lord (d. 1609), married Barbara, daughter of William, 2nd Lord Ruthven, and their son Patrick, known as the “Master of Gray,” is the subject of this article. Educated at Glasgow University and brought up as a Protestant, young Patrick was married early in life to Elizabeth Lyon, daughter of Lord Glamis, whom he repudiated almost directly; and afterwards went to France, where he joined the friends of Mary, queen of Scots, became a Roman Catholic, and assisted the French policy of the Guises in Scotland. He returned and took up his residence again in Scotland in 1583, and immediately began a career of treachery and intrigue, gaining James’s favour by disclosing to him his mother’s secrets, and acting in agreement with James Stewart, earl of Arran, in order to keep Mary a prisoner in England. In 1584 he was sent as ambassador to England, to effect a treaty between James and Elizabeth and to exclude Mary. His ambition incited him at the same time to promote a plot to secure the downfall of Arran. This was supported by Elizabeth, and was finally accomplished by letting loose the lords banished from Scotland for their participation in the rebellion called the Raid of Ruthven, who, joining Gray, took possession of the king’s person at Stirling in 1585, the league with England being ratified by the parliament in December. Gray now became the intermediary between the English government and James on the great question of Mary’s execution, and in 1587 he was despatched on an embassy to Elizabeth, ostensibly to save Mary’s life. Gray had, however, previously advised her secret assassination and had endeavoured to overcome all James’s scruples; and though he does not appear to have carried treachery so far as to advise her death on this occasion, no representations made by him could have had any force or weight. The execution of Mary caused his own downfall and loss of political power in Scotland; and after his return he was imprisoned on charges of plots against Protestantism, of endeavouring to prevent the king’s marriage, and of having been bribed to consent to Mary’s death. He pleaded guilty of sedition and of having obstructed the king’s marriage, and was declared a traitor; but his life was spared by James and he was banished from the country, but permitted to return in 1589, when he was restored to his office of master of the wardrobe to which he had been appointed in 1585. His further career was marked by lawlessness and misconduct. In 1592, together with the 5th Lord Bothwell, he made an unsuccessful attempt to seize the king at Falkland, and the same year earned considerable discredit by bringing groundless accusations against the Presbyterian minister, Robert Bruce; while after the king’s accession to the English throne he was frequently summoned before the authorities on account of his conduct. Notwithstanding, he never lost James’s favour. In 1609 he succeeded his father as 6th Baron Gray, and died in 1612.

Gray was an intimate friend of Sir Philip Sidney, but, if one of the ablest, handsomest and most fascinating, he was beyond doubt one of the most unscrupulous men of his day. He married as his second wife in 1585 Mary Stewart, daughter of Robert, earl of Orkney, and had by her, besides six daughters, a son, Andrew (d. 1663), who succeeded him as 7th Baron Gray. Andrew, who served for a long time in the French army, was a supporter, although not a very prominent one, of Charles I. and afterwards of Charles II. He was succeeded as 8th Lord Gray by Patrick (d. 1711), a son of his daughter Anne, and Patrick’s successor was his kinsman and son-in-law John (d. 1724). On the extinction of John’s direct line in 1878 the title of Lord Gray, passed to George Stuart, earl of Moray. In 1606 Gray had been ranked sixth among the Scottish baronies.

Bibliography.—Article in Dict. of Nat. Biog., and authorities there quoted; Gray’s relation concerning the surprise at Stirling (Bannatyne Club Publns. i. 131, 1827); Andrew Lang, History of Scotland, vol. ii. (1902); Peter Gray, The Descent and Kinship of Patrick, Master of Gray (1903); Gray Papers (Bannatyne Club, 1835); Hist. MSS. Comm., Marq. of Salisbury’s MSS.

GRAY, ROBERT (1809-1872), first bishop of Cape Town and metropolitan of South Africa, was born at Bishop Wearmouth, Durham, and was the son of Robert Gray, bishop of Bristol. He was educated at Eton and Oxford, and took orders in 1833. After holding the livings of Whitworth, Durham, 1834-1845, and Stockton-on-Tees, 1845-1847, he was consecrated bishop of Cape Town in 1847; the bishopric having been endowed through the liberality of Miss (afterwards Baroness) Burdett-Coutts. Until 1853 he was a suffragan of Canterbury, but in that year he formally resigned his see and was reappointed by letters patent metropolitan of South Africa in view of the contemplated establishment of the suffragan dioceses of Graham’s Town and Natal. In that capacity his coercive jurisdiction was twice called in question, and in each case the judicial committee of the privy council decided against him. The best-known case is that of Bishop Colenso, whom Gray deposed and excommunicated in 1863. The spiritual validity of the sentence was upheld by the convocation of Canterbury and the Pan-Anglican synod of 1867, but legally Colenso remained bishop of Natal. The privy council decisions declared, in effect, that the Anglican body in South Africa was on the footing of a voluntary religious society. Gray, accepting this position, obtained its recognition by the mother church as the Church of the Province of South Africa, in full communion with the Church of England. The first provincial synod was held in 1870. During his episcopate Bishop Gray effected a much-needed organization of the South African church, to which he added five new bishoprics, all carved out of the original diocese of Cape Town. It was also chiefly owing to his suggestions that the universities’ mission to Central Africa was founded.

GRAY, SIR THOMAS (d. c. 1369), English chronicler, was a son of Sir Thomas Gray, who was taken prisoner by the Scots at Bannockburn and who died about 1344. The younger Thomas was present at the battle of Neville’s Cross in 1346; in 1355, whilst acting as warden of Norham Castle, he was made a prisoner, and during his captivity in Edinburgh Castle he devoted his time to studying the English chroniclers, Gildas, Bede, Ranulf Higdon and others. Released in 1357 he was appointed warden of the east marches towards Scotland in 1367, and he died about 1369. Gray’s work, the Scalacronica (so called, perhaps, from the scaling-ladder in the crest of the Grays), is a chronicle of English history from the earliest times to about the year 1362. It is, however, only valuable for the reigns of Edward I. and Edward II. and part of that of Edward III., being especially so for the account of the wars between England and Scotland, in which the author’s father and the author himself took part. Writing in Norman-French, Gray tells of Wallace and Bruce, of the fights at Bannockburn, Byland and Dupplin, and makes some mention of the troubles in England during the reign of Edward II. He also narrates the course of the war in France between 1355 and 1361; possibly he was present during some of these campaigns.

The Scalacronica was summarized by John Leland in the 16th century; the part dealing with the period from 1066 to the end, together with the prologue, was edited for the Maitland Club by J. Stevenson (1836); and the part from 1274 to 1362 was translated into English by Sir Herbert Maxwell (Glasgow, 1907). In the extant manuscript, which is in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, there is a gap extending from about 1340 to 1355, and Gray’s account of this period is only known from Leland’s summary.

GRAY, THOMAS (1716-1771), English poet, the fifth and sole surviving child of Philip and Dorothy Gray, was born in London on the 26th of December 1716. His mother’s maiden name was Antrobus, and in partnership with her sister Mary she kept a millinery shop in Cornhill. This and the house connected with it were the property of Philip Gray, a money-scrivener, who married Dorothy in 1706 and lived with her in the house, the sisters renting the shop from him and supporting themselves by its profits. Philip Gray had impaired the fortune which he inherited from his father, a wealthy London merchant; yet he was sufficiently well-to-do, and at the close of his life was building a house upon some property of his own at Wanstead. But he was selfish and brutal, and in 1735 his wife took some abortive steps to obtain a separation from him. At this date she had given birth to twelve children, of whom Thomas was the only survivor. He owed his life as well as his education to this “careful, tender mother,” as he calls her. The child was suffocating when she opened one of his veins with her own hand. He went at her expense to Eton in 1727, and was confided to the care of her brother, William Antrobus, one of the assistant-masters, during some part at least of his school-life.

At Eton Gray’s closest friends were Horace Walpole, Richard West (son of the lord chancellor of Ireland and grandson of the famous Bishop Burnet), and Thomas Ashton, afterwards fellow of Eton. This little coterie was dubbed “the Quadruple Alliance”; its members were studious and literary, and took little part in the amusements of their fellows. In 1734 Gray matriculated at Peterhouse, Cambridge, of which his uncle, Robert Antrobus, had been a fellow. At Cambridge he had once more the companionship of Walpole and Ashton who were at King’s, but West went to Christchurch, Oxford. Gray made at this time the firmest and most constant friendship of his life with Thomas Wharton (not the poet Warton) of Pembroke College. He was maintained by his mother, and his straitened means were eked out by certain small exhibitions from his college. His conspicuous abilities and known devotion to study perhaps atoned in the eyes of the authorities for his indifference to the regular routine of study; for mathematics in particular he had an aversion which was the one exception to his almost limitless curiosity in other directions. During his first Cambridge period he learnt Italian “like any dragon,” and made translations from Guarini, Dante and Tasso, some of which have been preserved. In September 1738 he is in the agony of leaving college, nor can we trace his movements with any certainty for a while, though it may be conjectured that he spent much time with Horace Walpole, and made in his company some fashionable acquaintances in London. On the 29th of March 1739, he started with Walpole for a long continental tour, for the expenses of which it is probable that his father, for once, came in some measure to his assistance. In Paris, Gray visited the great with his friend, studied the picture-galleries, went to tragedies, comedies, operas and cultivated there that taste for the French classical dramatists, especially Racine, whom he afterwards tried to imitate in the fragmentary “Agrippina.” It is characteristic of him that he travels through France with Caesar constantly in his hands, ever noting and transcribing. In the same way, in crossing the Alps and in Piedmont, he has “Livy in the chaise with him and Silius Italicus too.” In Italy he made a long sojourn, principally at Florence, where Walpole’s lifelong correspondent, Horace Mann, was British envoy, and received and treated the travellers most hospitably. But Rome and Naples are also described in Gray’s letters, sometimes vividly, always amusingly, and in his notes are almost catalogued. Herculaneum, an object of intense interest to the young poet and antiquary, had been discovered the year before. At length in April 1741 Gray and Walpole set out northwards for Reggio. Here they quarrelled. Gray, “never a boy,” was a student, and at times retiring; Walpole, in his way a student too, was at this time a very social being, somewhat too frivolous, and, what was worse, too patronizing. He good-humouredly said at a later date, “Gray loves to find fault,” and this fault-finding was expressed, no doubt with exaggeration, in a letter to Ashton, who violated Gray’s confidence. The rupture followed, and with two friends, John Chute of the Vyne, Hampshire, and the young Francis Whithed, Gray went to Venice to see the doge wed the Adriatic on Ascension Day. Thence he returned home attended only by a laquais de voyage, visiting once more the Grande Chartreuse where he left in the album of the brotherhood those beautiful alcaics, O Tu severa Religio loci, which reveal his characteristic melancholy (enhanced by solitude and estrangement) and that sense of the glory as distinct from the horror of mountain scenery to which perhaps he was the first of Englishmen to give adequate expression. On the 18th of September 1741 we find him in London, astonishing the street boys with his deep ruffles, large bag-wig and long sword, and “mortified” under the hands of the English barber. On the 6th of November his father died; Philip Gray had, it is evident, been less savage and niggardly at last to those who were dependent upon him, and his death left his wife and son some measure of assured peace and comfort.

London was Gray’s headquarters for more than a year, with occasional visits to Stoke Poges, to which his mother and Mary Antrobus had retired from business to live with their sister, Mrs Rogers. At Stoke he heard of the death of West, to whom he had sent the “Ode on Spring,” which was returned to him unopened. It was an unexpected blow, shocking in all its circumstances, especially if we believe the story that his friend’s frail life was brought to a close by the discovery that the mother whom he tenderly loved had been an unfaithful wife, and, as some say, poisoned her husband. About this tragedy Gray preserved a mournful silence, broken only by the pathetic sonnet, and some Latin lines, in which he laments his loss. The year 1742, was, for him, fruitful in poetic effort, of which, however, much was incomplete. The “Agrippina,” the De principiis Cogitandi, the splenetic “Hymn to Ignorance” in which he contemplates his return to the university, remain fragments; but besides the two poems already mentioned, the “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College” and the “Hymn to Adversity,” perhaps the most faultless of his poems, were written before the close of the summer. After hesitating between Trinity Hall and Peterhouse, he returned to the latter, probably as a fellow-commoner. He had hitherto neglected to read for a degree; he proceeded to that of LL.B. in 1744. In 1745 a reconciliation with Walpole, long desired probably on both sides, was effected through the kind offices of Chute’s sister. In 1746 he spent his time between Cambridge, Stoke and London; was much with Walpole; graphically describes the trial of the Scottish rebel lords, and studied Greek with avidity; but “the muse,” which by this time perhaps had stimulated him to begin the “Elegy,” “has gone, and left him in much worse company.” In town he finds his friends Chute and Whithed returned to England, and “flaunts about” in public places with them. The year 1747 produced only the ode on Walpole’s cat, and we gather that he is mainly engaged in reading with a very critical eye, and interesting himself more in the troubles of Pembroke College, in which he almost seems to live, than in the affairs of Peterhouse. In this year also be made the acquaintance of Mason, his future biographer. In 1748 he first came before the public, but anonymously, in Dodsley’s Miscellany, in which appeared the Eton ode, the ode on spring, and that on the cat. In the same year he sent to Wharton the beginning of the didactic poem, “The Alliance of Education and Government,” which remains a fragment. His aunt, Mary Antrobus, died in 1749.

There is little to break the monotony of his days till 1750, when from Stoke he sent Walpole “a thing to which he had at last put an end.” The “thing” was the “Elegy.” It was shown about in manuscript by his admiring friend; it was impudently pirated, and Gray had it printed by Dodsley in self-defence. Even thus it had “a pinch or two in its cradle,” of which it long bore the marks. The publication led to the one incident in Gray’s life which has a touch of romance. At Stokehouse had come to live the widowed Lady Cobham, who learnt that the author of the “Elegy” was her neighbour. At her instance, Lady Schaub, her visitor, and Miss Speed, her protégée, paid him a call; the poet was out, and his quiet mother and aunts were somewhat flustered at the apparition of these women of fashion, whose acquaintance Gray had already made in town. Hence the humorous “Long Story.” A platonic affection sprang up between Gray and Miss Speed; rumour, upon the death of Lady Cobham, said that they were to be married, but the lady escaped this mild destiny to become the Baroness de la Peyrière, afterwards Countess Viry, and a dangerous political intriguante.

In 1753 all Gray’s completed poems, except the sonnet on the death of West, were published by Dodsley in a handsome volume illustrated by Richard Bentley, the son of the celebrated master of Trinity. To these designs we owe the verses to the artist which were posthumously published from a MS. torn at the end. In the same year Gray’s mother died and was buried in the churchyard at Stoke Poges, the scene of the “Elegy,” in the same grave with Mary Antrobus. A visit to his friend Dr Wharton at Durham later in the year revives his earlier impressions of that bolder scenery which is henceforth to be in the main the framework of his muse. Already in 1752 he had almost completed “The Progress of Poesy,” in which, and in “The Bard,” the imagery is largely furnished forth by mountain and torrent. The latter poem long held fire; Gray was stimulated to finish it by hearing the blind Welsh harper Parry at Cambridge. Both odes were the first-fruits of the press which Walpole had set up at Strawberry Hill, and were printed together there in 1757. They are genuinely Pindaric, that is, with corresponding strophes, antistrophes and epodes. As the Greek motto prefixed to them implies, they were vocal to the intelligent only; and these at first were few. But the odes, if they did not attain the popularity of the “Elegy,” marked an epoch in the history of English poetry, and the influence of “The Bard” may be traced even in that great but very fruitful imposture, the pseudo-Ossian of Macpherson. Gray yields to the impulse of the Romantic movement; he has long been an admirer of ballad poetry; before he wrote “The Bard” he had begun to study Scandinavian literature, and the two “Norse Odes,” written in 1761, were in style and metrical form strangely anticipative of Coleridge and Scott. Meanwhile his Cambridge life had been vexed by the freaks of the fellow-commoners of Peterhouse, a peculiarly riotous set. He had suffered great inconvenience for a time by the burning of his property in Cornhill, and so nervous was he on the subject of fire that he had provided himself with a rope-ladder by which he might descend from his college window. Under this window a hunting-party of these rude lads raised in the early morning the cry of fire; the poet’s night-capped head appeared and was at once withdrawn. This, or little more than this, was the simple fact out of which arose the legend still current at Cambridge. The servile authorities of Peterhouse treated Gray’s complaints with scant respect, and he migrated to Pembroke College. “I left my lodgings,” he said, “because the rooms were noisy, and the people of the house dirty.”

In 1758 died Mrs Rogers, and Gray describes himself as employed at Stoke in “dividing nothing” between himself and the surviving aunt, Mrs Oliffe, whom he calls “the spawn of Cerberus and the Dragon of Wantley.” In 1759 he availed himself of the MS. treasures of the British Museum, then for the first time open to the public, made a very long sojourn in town, and in 1761 witnessed the coronation of George III., of which to his friend Brown of Pembroke he wrote a very vivacious account. In his last years he revealed a craving for a life less sedentary than heretofore. He visited various picturesque districts of Great Britain, exploring great houses and ruined abbeys; he was the pioneer of the modern tourist, noting and describing in the spirit now of the poet, now of the art-critic, now of the antiquary. In 1762 he travelled in Yorkshire and Derbyshire; in 1764 in the Lowlands of Scotland, and thence went to Southampton and its neighbourhood. In 1765 he revisits Scotland; he is the guest of Lord Strathmore at Glamis; and revels in “those monstrous creatures of God,” the Highland mountains. His most notable achievement in this direction was his journey among the English lakes, of which he wrote an interesting account to Wharton; and even in 1770, the year before his death, he visited with his young friend Norton Nicholls “five of the most beautiful counties of the kingdom,” and descended the Wye for 40 m. In all these quests he displays a physical energy which surprises and even perplexes us. His true academic status was worthily secured in 1768, when the duke of Grafton offered him the professorship of modern history which in 1762 he had vainly endeavoured to obtain from Bute. He wrote in 1769 the “Installation Ode” upon the appointment of Grafton as chancellor of the university. It was almost the only instance in which he successfully executed a task, not, in the strictest sense, self-imposed; the great founders of the university are tactfully memorized and pass before us in a kind of heraldic splendour. He bore with indifference the taunts to which, from Junius and others, he was exposed for this tribute to his patron. He was contemplating a journey to Switzerland to visit his youthful friend de Bonstetten when, in the summer of 1771, he was conscious of a great decline in his physical powers. He was seized with a sudden illness when dining in his college hall, and died of gout in the stomach on the 30th of July 1771. His last moments were attended by his cousin Mary Antrobus, postmistress through his influence at Cambridge and daughter of his Eton tutor; and he was laid beside his beloved mother in the churchyard of Stoke Poges.

Owing to his shyness and reserve he had few intimate friends, but to these his loss was irreparable; for to them he revealed himself either in boyish levity and banter, or wise and sympathetic counsel and tender and yet manly consolation; to them he imparted his quiet but keen observation of passing events or the stores of his extensive reading in literature ancient, medieval or modern; and with Proteus-like variety he writes at one time as a speculative philosopher, at another as a critic in art or music, at another as a meteorologist and nature-lover. His friendship with the young, after his migration to Pembroke College, is a noteworthy trait in his character. With Lord Strathmore and the Lyons and with William Palgrave he conversed as an elder brother, and Norton Nicholls of Trinity Hall lost in him a second father, who had taught him to think and feel. The brilliant young foreigner, de Bonstetten, looked back after a long and chequered career with remembrance still vivid to the days in which the poet so soon to die taught him to read Shakespeare and Milton in the monastic gloom of Cambridge. With the elderly “Levites” of the place he was less in sympathy; they dreaded his sarcastic vein; they were conscious that he laughed at them, and in the polemics of the university he was somewhat of a free lance, fighting for his own hand. Lampoons of his were privately circulated with effect, and that he could be the fiercest of satirists the “Cambridge Courtship” on the candidature of Lord Sandwich for the office of high steward, and the verses on Lord Holland’s mimic ruins at Westgate, sufficiently prove. The faculty which he displayed in humour and satire was denied to his more serious muse; there all was the fruit of long delay; of that higher inspiration he had a thin but very precious vein, and the sublimity which he undoubtedly attained was reached by an effort of which captious and even sympathetic criticism can discover the traces. In his own time he was regarded as an innovator, for like Collins he revived the poetic diction of the past, and the adverse judgments of Johnson and others upon his work are in fact a defence of the current literary traditions. Few men have published so little to so much effect; few have attained to fame with so little ambition. His favourite maxim was “to be employed is to be happy,” but he was always employed in the first instance for the satisfaction of his own soul, and to this end and no other he made himself one of the best Greek scholars at Cambridge in the interval between Bentley and Porson. His genius was receptive rather than creative, and it is to be regretted that he lacked energy to achieve that history of English poetry which he once projected, and for which he possessed far more knowledge and insight than the poet Thomas Warton, to whom he resigned the task. He had a fine taste in music, painting and architecture; and his correspondence includes a wide survey of such European literature as was accessible to him, with criticisms, sometimes indeed a little limited and insular, yet of a singularly fresh and modern cast. In person he was below the middle height, but well-made, and his face, in which the primness of his features was redeemed by his flashing eyes, was the index of his character. There was a touch of affectation in his demeanour, and he was sometimes reticent and secretive even to his best friends. He was a refined Epicurean in his habits, and a deist rather than a Christian in his religious beliefs; but his friend, Mrs Bonfoy, had “taught him to pray” and he was keenly alive to the dangers of a flippant scepticism. In a beautiful alcaic stanza he pronounces the man supremely happy who in the depths of the heart is conscious of the “fount of tears,” and his characteristic melancholy, except in the few hours when it was indeed black, was not a pitiable state; rather, it was one secret of the charm both of the man and of the poet.

A very complete bibliography of Gray will be found in Dr. Bradshaw’s edition of the poems in the Aldine series. Dodsley published ten of the poems, exclusive of the “Long Story,” in 1768. Mason’s Life of Gray (1778) included the poems and some hitherto unpublished fragments, with a selection from his letters, much garbled. Mathias in 1814 reprinted Mason’s edition and added much from Gray’s MS. commentaries together with some more of his translations. The most exhaustive edition of Gray’s writings was achieved by the Rev. John Mitford, who first did justice to the correspondence with Wharton and Norton Nicholls (5 vols., Pickering, 1836-1843; correspondence of Gray and Mason, Bentley, 1853); see also the edition of the works by Edmund Gosse (4 vols., 1884); the Life by the same in Eng. Men of Letters (2nd ed., 1889); some further relics are given in Gray and His Friends by D. C. Tovey (Cambridge, 1890); and a new edition of the letters copiously annotated by D. C. Tovey is in the Standard Library (1900-1907). Nicholl’s Illustrations, vol. vi. p. 805, quoted by Professor Kittredge in the Nation, Sept. 12th, 1900, gives the true story of Gray’s migration to Pembroke College. Matthew Arnold’s essay on Gray in Ward’s English Poets is one of the minor classics of literary criticism.

(D. C. To.)

GRAY (or Grey), WALTER DE (d. 1255), English prelate and statesman, was a nephew of John de Gray, bishop of Norwich, and was educated at Oxford. He owed his early and rapid preferment in church and state to the favour of King John, becoming the king’s chancellor in 1205, and being chosen bishop of Lichfield in 1210. He was, however, not allowed to keep this bishopric, but he became bishop of Worcester in 1214, resigning his office as chancellor in the same year. Gray was with John when the king signed Magna Carta in June 1215; soon after this event he left England on the king’s business, and it was during his absence that he was forced into the archbishopric of York, owing his election to the good offices of John and of Pope Innocent III. He took a leading part in public affairs during the minority of Henry III., and was regarded with much favour by this king, who employed him on important errands to foreign potentates, and left him as guardian of England when he went to France in 1242. Afterwards the archbishop seems to have been less favourably disposed towards Henry, and for a time he absented himself from public business; however, in 1255, he visited London to attend a meeting of parliament, and died at Fulham on the 1st of May 1255. Gray was always anxious to assert his archiepiscopal authority over Scotland, and to maintain it against the archbishop of Canterbury, but in neither case was he very successful. He built the south transept of the minster at York and bought for his see the village, afterwards called Bishopthorpe, which is still the residence of the archbishop of York. He was also generous to the church at Ripon. Gray was regarded by his contemporaries as an avaricious, but patriotic man.

GRAY, a town of eastern France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Haute-Saône, situated on the declivity of a hill on the left bank of the Saône, 36 m. S.W. of Vesoul by the Eastern railway. Pop. (1906) 5742. The streets of the town are narrow and steep, but it possesses broad and beautiful quays and has a busy port. Three bridges, one dating from the 18th century, unite it to suburbs on the right bank of the river, on which is the railway-station from which lines branch off to Auxonne, Dijon, Besançon and Culmont-Chalindrey. The principal buildings are the Gothic church, restored in the style of the Renaissance but with a modern portal, and the hôtel de ville, built by the Spaniards in 1568. The latter building has a handsome façade decorated with columns of red granite. Gray is the seat of a subprefect and has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a chamber of commerce, a communal college and a small museum. It has large flour-mills; among the other industries is the manufacture of machinery and iron goods. There is also a considerable transit traffic in goods from the south of France and the colonies, and trade in iron, corn, provisions, vegetables, wine, wood, &c., much of which is carried by river. Gray was founded in the 7th century. Its fortifications were destroyed by Louis XIV. During the Franco-German War General von Werder concentrated his army corps in the town and held it for a month, making it the point d’appui of movements towards Dijon and Langres, as well as towards Besançon.

Gray gave its name to the distinguished English family of de Gray, Gray or Grey, Anschitel de Gray being mentioned as an Oxfordshire tenant in Domesday.

GRAYLING (Thymallus), fishes belonging to the family Salmonidae. The best known are the “poisson bleu” of the Canadian voyageurs, and the European species, Thymallus vulgaris (the Asch or Äsche of Germany, ombre of France, and temola of Upper Italy). This latter species is esteemed on account of its agreeable colours (especially of the dorsal fin), its well-flavoured flesh, and the sport it affords to anglers. The grayling differ from the genus Salmo in the smaller mouth with comparatively feeble dentition, in the larger scales, and especially in the much greater development of the dorsal fin, which contains 20 to 24 rays. These beautiful fishes, of which five or six species are known, inhabit the fresh waters of Europe, Siberia and the northern parts of North America. The European species, T. vulgaris or vexillifer, attains, though rarely, a length of 2 ft. The colours during life are remarkably changeable and iridescent; small dark spots are sometimes present on the body; the very high dorsal fin is beautifully marked with purplish bands and ocelli. In England and Scotland the grayling appears to have had originally a rather irregular distribution, but it has now been introduced into a great number of rivers; it is not found in Ireland. It is more generally distributed in Scandinavia and Russia, and the mountain streams of central Europe southwards to the Alpine water of Upper Italy. Specimens attaining to a weight of 4 ℔ are very scarce.

GRAYS THURROCK, or Grays, an urban district in the south-eastern parliamentary division of Essex, England, on the Thames, 20 m. E. by S. from London by the London, Tilbury & Southend railway. Pop. (1901) 13,834. The church of St Peter and St Paul, wholly rebuilt, retains some Norman work. The town takes its name from a family of Gray who held the manor for three centuries from 1149. There are an endowed and two training ship schools. Roman remains have been found in the vicinity; and the geological formations exhibiting the process of silting up of a former river channel are exposed in the quarries, and contain large mammalian remains. The town has trade in bricks, lime and cement.

GRAZ [Gratz], the capital of the Austrian duchy and crownland of Styria, 140 m. S.W. of Vienna by rail. Pop. (1900) 138,370. It is picturesquely situated on both banks of the Mur, just where this river enters a broad and fertile valley, and the beauty of its position has given rise to the punning French description, La Ville des grâces sur la rivière de l’amour. The main town lies on the left bank of the river at the foot of the Schlossberg (1545 ft.) which dominates the town. The beautiful valley traversed by the Mur, known as the Grazer Feld and bounded by the Wildonerberge, extends to the south; to the S.W. rise the Bacher Gebirge and the Koralpen; to the N. the Schöckel (4745 ft.), and to the N.W. the Alps of Upper Styria. On the Schlossberg, which can be ascended by a cable tramway, beautiful parks have been laid out, and on its top is the bell-tower, 60 ft. high, and the quaint clock-tower, 52 ft. high, which bears a gigantic clock-dial. At the foot of the Schlossberg is the Stadt-Park.

Among the numerous churches of the city the most important is the cathedral of St Aegidius, a Gothic building erected by the emperor Frederick III. in 1450-1462 on the site of a previous church mentioned as early as 1157. It has been several times modified and redecorated, more particularly in 1718. The present copper spire dates from 1663. The interior is richly adorned with stained-glass windows of modern date, costly shrines, paintings and tombs. In the immediate neighbourhood of the cathedral is the mausoleum church erected by the emperor Ferdinand II. Worthy of mention also are the parish church, a Late Gothic building, finished in 1520, and restored in 1875, which possesses an altar piece by Tintoretto; the Augustinian church, appropriated to the service of the university since 1827; the small Leech Kirche, an interesting building in Early Gothic style, dating from the 13th century, and the Herz Jesu-Kirche, a building in Early Gothic style, finished in 1891, with a tower 360 ft. high. Of the secular buildings the most important is the Landhaus, where the local diet holds its sittings, erected in the 16th century in the Renaissance style. It possesses an interesting portal and a beautiful arcaded court, and amongst the curiosities preserved here is the Styrian hat. In its neighbourhood is the Zeughaus or arsenal, built in 1644, which contains a very rich collection of weapons of the 15th-17th centuries, and which is maintained exactly in the same condition as it was 250 years ago. The town hall, built in 1807, and rebuilt in 1892 in the German Renaissance style, and the imperial castle, dating from the 11th century, now used as government offices, are also worth notice.

At the head of the educational institutions is the university founded in 1586 by the Austrian archduke Charles Francis, and restored in 1817 after an interruption of 45 years. It is now housed in a magnificent building, finished in 1895, and is endowed with numerous scientific laboratories and a rich library. It had in 1901 a teaching staff of 161 professors and lecturers, and 1652 students, including many Italians from the Küstenland and Dalmatia. The Joanneum Museum, founded in 1811 by the archduke John Baptist, has become very rich in many departments, and an additional huge building in the rococo style was erected in 1895 for its accommodation. The technical college, founded in 1814 by the archduke John Baptist, had in 1901 about 400 pupils.

An active trade, fostered by abundant railway communications, is combined with manufactures of iron and steel wares, paper, chemicals, vinegar, physical and optical instruments, besides artistic printing and lithography. The extensive workshops of the Southern railway are at Graz, and since the opening of the railway to the rich coal-fields of Köflach the number of industrial establishments has greatly increased.

Amongst the numerous interesting places in the neighbourhood are: the Hilmteich, with the Hilmwarte, about 100 ft. high; and the Rosenberg (1570 ft.), whence the ascent of the Platte (2136 ft.) with extensive view is made. At the foot of the Rosenberg is Maria Grün, with a large sanatorium. All these places are situated to the N. of Graz. On the left bank of the Mur is the pilgrimage church of Maria Trost, built in 1714; on the right bank is the castle of Eggenberg, built in the 17th century. To the S.W. is the Buchkogel (2150 ft.), with a magnificent view, and a little farther south is the watering-place of Tobelbad.

History.—Graz may possibly have been a Roman site, but the first mention of it under its present name is in a document of A.D. 881, after which it became the residence of the rulers of the surrounding district, known later as Styria. Its privileges were confirmed by King Rudolph I. in 1281. Surrounded with walls and fosses in 1435, it was able in 1481 to defend itself against the Hungarians under Matthias Corvinus, and in 1529 and 1532 the Turks attacked it with as little success. As early as 1530 the Lutheran doctrine was preached in Graz by Seifried and Jacob von Eggenberg, and in 1540 Eggenberg founded the Paradies or Lutheran school, in which Kepler afterwards taught. But the archduke Charles burned 20,000 Protestant books in the square of the present lunatic asylum, and succeeded by his oppressive measures in bringing the city again under the authority of Rome. From the earlier part of the 15th century Graz was the residence of one branch of the family of Habsburg, a branch which succeeded to the imperial throne in 1619 in the person of Ferdinand II. New fortifications were constructed in the end of the 16th century by Franz von Poppendorf, and in 1644 the town afforded an asylum to the family of Ferdinand III. The French were in possession of the place in 1797 and again in 1805; and in 1809 Marshal Macdonald having, in accordance with the terms of the peace of Vienna, entered the citadel which he had vainly besieged, blew it all up with the exception of the bell-tower and the citizens’ or clock tower. It benefited greatly during the 19th century from the care of the archduke John and received extended civic privileges in 1860.

See Ilwof and Peters, Graz, Geschichte und Topographie der Stadt (Graz, 1875); G. Fels, Graz und seine Umgebung (Graz, 1898); L. Mayer, Die Stadt der Grazien (Graz, 1897), and Hofrichter, Rückblicke in die Vergangenheit von Graz (Graz, 1885).

GRAZZINI, ANTONIO FRANCESCO (1503-1583), Italian author, was born at Florence on the 22nd of March 1503, of good family both by his father’s and mother’s side. Of his youth and education all record appears to be lost, but he probably began early to practise as an apothecary. In 1540 he was one of the founders of the Academy of the Humid (degli Umidi) afterwards called “della Fiorentina,” and later took a prominent part in the establishment of the more famous Accademia della Crusca. In both societies he was known as Il Lasca or Leuciscus, and this pseudonym is still frequently substituted for his proper name. His temper was what the French happily call a difficult one, and his life was consequently enlivened or disturbed by various literary quarrels. His Humid brethren went so far as to expel him for a time from the society—the chief ground of offence being apparently his ruthless criticism of the “Arameans,” a party of the academicians who maintained that the Florentine or Tuscan tongue was derived from the Hebrew, the Chaldee, or some other branch of the Semitic. He was readmitted in 1566, when his friend Salviati was “consul” of the academy. His death took place on the 18th of February 1583. Il Lasca ranks as one of the great masters of Tuscan prose. His style is copious and flexible; abundantly idiomatic, but without any affectation of being so, it carries with it the force and freshness of popular speech, while it lacks not at the same time a flavour of academic culture. His principal works are Le Cene (1756), a collection of stories in the manner of Boccaccio, and a number of prose comedies, La Gelosia (1568), La Spiritata (1561), I Parentadi, La Arenga, La Sibilla, La Pinzochera, L’ Arzigogolo. The stories, though of no special merit as far as the plots are concerned, are told with verve and interest. A number of miscellaneous poems, a few letters and Four Orations to the Cross complete the list of Grazzini’s extant works.

He also edited the works of Berni, and collected Tutti i trionfi, larri, mascherate, e canti carnascialaschi, andati per Firenze dal tempo del magnifico Lorenzo de’ Medici fino all’ anno 1559. In 1868 Adamo Rossi published in his Ricerche per le biblioteche di Perugia three “novelle” by Grazzini, from a MS. of the 16th century in the “Comunale” of Perugia: and in 1870 a small collection of those poems which have been left unpublished by previous editors appeared at Poggibonsi, Alcune Poesie inedite. See Pietro Fanfani’s “Vita del Lasca,” prefixed to his edition of the Opere di A. Grazzini (Florence, 1857).

GREAT AWAKENING, the name given to a remarkable religious revival centring in New England in 1740-1743, but covering all the American colonies in 1740-1750. The word “awakening” in this sense was frequently (and possibly first) used by Jonathan Edwards at the time of the Northampton revival of 1734-1735, which spread through the Connecticut Valley and prepared the way for the work in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut (1740-1741) of George Whitefield, who had previously been preaching in the South, especially at Savannah, Georgia. He, his immediate follower, Gilbert Tennent (1703-1764), other clergymen, such as James Davenport, and many untrained laymen who took up the work, agreed in the emotional and dramatic character of their preaching, in rousing their hearers to a high pitch of excitement, often amounting to frenzy, in the undue stress they put upon “bodily effects” (the physical manifestations of an abnormal psychic state) as proofs of conversion, and in their unrestrained attacks upon the many clergymen who did not join them and whom they called “dead men,” unconverted, unregenerate and careless of the spiritual condition of their parishes. Jonathan Edwards, Benjamin Colman (1675-1747), and Joseph Bellamy, recognized the viciousness of so extreme a position. Edwards personally reprimanded Whitefield for presuming to say of any one that he was unconverted, and in his Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival of Religion devoted much space to “showing what things are to be corrected, or avoided, in promoting this work.” Edwards’ famous sermon at Enfield in 1741 so affected his audience that they cried and groaned aloud, and he found it necessary to bid them be still that he might go on; but Davenport and many itinerants provoked and invited shouting and even writhing, and other physical manifestations. At its May session in 1742 the General Court of Massachusetts forbade itinerant preaching save with full consent from the resident pastor; in May 1743 the annual ministerial convention, by a small plurality, declared against “several errors in doctrine and disorders in practice which have of late obtained in various parts of the land,” against lay preachers and disorderly revival meetings; in the same year Charles Chauncy, who disapproved of the revival, published Seasonable Thoughts on the State of Religion in New England; and in 1744-1745 Whitefield, upon his second tour in New England, found that the faculties of Harvard and Yale had officially “testified” and “declared” against him and that most pulpits were closed to him. Some separatist churches were formed as a result of the Awakening; these either died out or became Baptist congregations. To the reaction against the gross methods of the revival has been ascribed the religious apathy of New England during the last years of the 18th century; but the martial and political excitement, beginning with King George’s War (i.e. the American part of the War of the Austrian Succession) and running through the American War of Independence and the founding of the American government, must be reckoned at the least as contributing causes.

See Joseph Tracy, The Great Awakening (Boston, 1842); Samuel P. Hayes, “An Historical Study of the Edwardean Revivals,” in The American Journal of Psychology, vol. 13 (Worcester, Mass., 1902); and Frederick M. Davenport, Primitive Traits in Religious Revivals (New York, 1905), especially chapter viii. pp. 94-131.

(R. We.)

GREAT BARRIER REEF, a vast coral reef extending for 1200 m. along the north-east coast of Australia (q.v.). The channel within it is protected from heavy seas by the reef, and is a valuable route of communication for coasting steamers. The reef itself is also traversed by a number of navigable passages.

GREAT BARRINGTON, a township of Berkshire county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., on the Housatonic river, in the Berkshire hills, about 25 m. S.W. of Pittsfield. Pop. (1890) 4612; (1900) 5854, of whom 1187 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 5926. Its area is about 45 sq. m. The township is traversed by a branch of the New York, New Haven & Hartford railroad, and the Berkshire Street railway (controlled by the N.Y., N.H. & H.) has its southern terminus here. Within the township are three villages—Great Barrington (the most important), Housatonic and Van Deusenville; the first two are about 5 m. apart. The village of Great Barrington, among the hills, is well known as a summer resort. The Congregational church with its magnificent organ (3954 pipes) is worthy of mention. There is a public library in the village of Great Barrington and another in the village of Housatonic. Monument Mt. (1710 ft.), partly in Stockbridge, commands a fine view of the Berkshires and the Housatonic Valley. The Sedgwick School (for boys) was removed from Hartford, Connecticut, to Great Barrington in 1869. There are various manufactures, including cotton-goods (in the village of Housatonic), and electric meters, paper, knit goods and counterpanes (in the village of Great Barrington); and marble and blue stone are quarried here; but the township is primarily given over to farming. The fair of the Housatonic Agricultural Society is held here annually during September; and the district court of South Berkshire sits here. The township was incorporated in 1761, having been, since 1743, the “North Parish of Sheffield”; the township of Sheffield, earlier known as the “Lower Housatonic Plantation” was incorporated in 1733. Great Barrington was named in honour of John Shute (1678-1734), Viscount Barrington of Ardglass (the adjective “Great” being added to distinguish it from another township of the same name). In 1761-1787 it was the shire-town. Great Barrington was a centre of the disaffection during Shays’s rebellion, and on the 12th of September 1786 a riot here prevented the sitting of court. Samuel Hopkins, one of the most eminent of American theologians, was pastor here in 1743-1769; General Joseph Dwight (1703-1765), a merchant, lawyer and brigadier-general of Massachusetts militia, who took part in the Louisburg expedition in 1745 and later in the French and Indian War, lived here from 1758 until his death; and William Cullen Bryant lived here as a lawyer and town clerk in 1816-1825.

See C. J. Taylor, History of Great Barrington (Great Barrington, 1882).

GREAT BASIN, an area in the western Cordilleran region of the United States of America, about 200,000 sq. m. in extent, characterized by wholly interior drainage, a peculiar mountain system and extreme aridity. Its form is approximately that of an isosceles triangle, with the sharp angle extending into Lower California, W. of the Colorado river; the northern edge being formed by the divide of the drainage basin of the Columbia river, the eastern by that of the Colorado, the western by the central part of the Sierra Nevada crest, and by other high mountains. The N. boundary and much of the E. is not conspicuously uplifted, being plateau, rather than mountain. The W. half of Utah, the S.W. corner of Wyoming, the S.E. corner of Idaho, a large area in S.E. Oregon, much of S. California, a strip along the E. border of the last-named state, and almost the whole of Nevada are embraced within the limits of the Great Basin.

The Great Basin is not, as its name implies, a topographic cup. Its surface is of varied character, with many independent closed basins draining into lakes or “playas,” none of which, however, has outlet to the sea. The mountain chains, which from their peculiar geologic character are known as of the “Basin Range type” (not exactly conterminous in distribution with the Basin), are echeloned in short ranges running from N. to S. Many of them are fault block mountains, the crust having been broken and the blocks tilted so that there is a steep face on one side and a gentle slope on the other. This is the Basin Range type of mountain. These mountains are among the most recent in the continent, and some of them, at least, are still growing. In numerous instances clear evidence of recent movements along the fault planes has been discovered; and frequent earthquakes testify with equal force to the present uplift of the mountain blocks. The valleys between the tilted mountain blocks are smooth and often trough-like, and are often the sites of shallow salt lakes or playas. By the rain wash and wind action detritus from the mountains is carried to these valley floors, raising their level, and often burying low mountain spurs, so as to cause neighbouring valleys to coalesce. The plateau “lowlands” in the centre of the Basin are approximately 5000 ft. in altitude. Southward the altitude falls, Death valley and Coahuila valley being in part below the level of the sea. The whole Basin is marked by three features of elevation—the Utah basin, the Nevada basin and, between them, the Nevada plateau.

Over the lowlands of the Basin, taken generally, there is an average precipitation of perhaps 6-7 in., while in the Oregon region it is twice as great, and in the southern parts even less. The mountains receive somewhat more. The annual evaporation from water surfaces is from 60 to 150 in. (60 to 80 on the Great Salt Lake). The reason for the arid climate differs in different sections. In the north it is due to the fact that the winds from the Pacific lose most of their moisture, especially in winter, on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada; in the south it is due to the fact that the region lies in a zone of calms, and light, variable winds. Precipitation is largely confined to local showers, often of such violence as to warrant the name “cloud bursts,” commonly applied to the heavy down-pours of this desert region. It is these heavy rains, of brief duration, when great volumes of water rapidly run off from the barren slopes, that cause the deep channels, or arroyas, which cross the desert. Permanent streams are rare. Many mountains are quite without perennial streams, and some lack even springs. Few of the mountain creeks succeed in reaching the arid plains, and those that do quickly disappear by evaporation or by seepage into the gravels. In the N.W. there are many permanent lakes without outlet fed by the mountain streams; others, snow fed, occur among the Sierra Nevada; and some in the larger mountain masses of the middle region. Almost all are saline. The largest of all, Great Salt Lake, is maintained by the waters of the Wasatch and associated plateaus. No lakes occur south of Owens in the W. and Sevier in the E. (39°); evaporation below these limits is supreme. Most of the small closed basins, however, contain “playas,” or alkali mud flats, that are overflowed when the tributary streams are supplied with storm water.

Save where irrigation has reclaimed small areas, the whole region is a vast desert, though locally only some of the interior plains are known as “deserts.” Such are the Great Salt Lake and Carson deserts in the north, the Mohave and Colorado and Amargosa (Death Valley) deserts of the south-west. Straggling forests, mainly of conifers, characterize the high plateaus of central Utah. The lowlands and the lower mountains, especially southward, are generally treeless. Cottonwoods line the streams, salt-loving vegetation margins the bare playas, low bushes and scattered bunch-grass grow over the lowlands, especially in the north. Gray desert plants, notably cactuses and other thorny plants, partly replace in the south the bushes of the north. Except on the scattered oases, where irrigation from springs and mountain streams has reclaimed small patches, the desert is barren and forbidding in the extreme. There are broad plains covered with salt and alkali, and others supporting only scattered bunch grass, sage bush, cactus and other arid land plants. There are stony wastes, or alluvial fans, where mountain streams emerge upon the plains, in time of flood, bringing detritus in their torrential courses from the mountain canyons and depositing it along the mountain base. The barrenness extends into the mountains themselves, where there are bare rock cliffs, stony slopes and a general absence of vegetation. With increasing altitude vegetation becomes more varied and abundant, until the tree limit is reached; then follows a forest belt, which in the highest mountains is limited above by cold as it is below by aridity.

The successive explorations of B. L. E. Bonneville, J. C. Frémont and Howard Stansbury (1806-1863) furnished a general knowledge of the hydrographic features and geological lacustrine history of the Great Basin, and this knowledge was rounded out by the field work of the U.S. Geological Survey from 1879 to 1883, under the direction of Grove Karl Gilbert. The mountains are composed in great part of Paleozoic strata, often modified by vulcanism and greatly denuded and sculptured by wind and water erosion. The climate in late geologic time was very different from that which prevails to-day. In the Pleistocene period many large lakes were formed within the Great Basin; especially, by the fusion of small catchment basins, two great confluent bodies of water—Lake Lahontan (in the Nevada basin) and Lake Bonneville (in the Utah basin). The latter, the remnants of which are represented to-day by Great Salt, Sevier and Utah Lakes, had a drainage basin of some 54,000 sq. m.

See G. K. Gilbert in Wheeler Survey, U.S. Geographical Survey West of the Hundredth Meridian, vol. iii.; Clarence King and others in the Report of the Fortieth Parallel Survey (U.S. Geol. Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel); G. K. Gilbert’s Lake Bonneville (U.S. Geological Survey, Monographs, No. 1, 1890), also I. C. Russell’s Lake Lahontan (Same, No. 11, 1885), with references to other publications of the Survey. For reference to later geological literature, and discussion of the Basin Ranges, see J. E. Spurr, Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer. vol. 12, 1901, p. 217; and G. D. Louderback, same, vol. 15, 1904, p. 280; also general bibliographies issued by the U.S. Geol. Survey (e.g. Bull. 301, 372 and 409).

GREAT BEAR LAKE, an extensive sheet of fresh water in the north-west of Canada, between 65° and 67° N., and 117° and 123° W. It is of very irregular shape, has an estimated area of 11,200 sq. m., a depth of 270 ft., and is upwards of 200 ft. above the sea. It is 175 m. in length, and from 25 to 45 in breadth, though the greatest distance between its northern and southern arms is about 180 m. The Great Bear river discharges its waters into the Mackenzie river. It is full of fish, and the neighbouring country, though barren and uncultivated, contains quantities of game.

GREAT CIRCLE. The circle in which a sphere is cut by a plane is called a “great circle,” when the cutting plane passes through the centre of sphere. Treating the earth as a sphere, the meridians of longitude are all great circles. Of the parallels of latitude, the equator only is a great circle. The shortest line joining any two points is an arc of a great circle. For “great circle sailing” see [Navigation].

GREAT FALLS, a city and the county-seat of Cascade county, Montana, U.S.A., 99 m. (by rail) N.E. of Helena, on the S. bank of the Missouri river, opposite the mouth of the Sun river, at an altitude of about 3300 ft. It is 10 m. above the Great Falls of the Missouri, from which it derives its name. Pop. (1890) 3979; (1900) 14,930, of whom 4692 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 13,948. It has an area of about 8 sq. m. It is served by the Great Northern and the Billings & Northern (Chicago, Burlington & Quincy system) railways. The city has a splendid park system of seven parks (about 530 acres) with 15 m. of boulevards.[1] Among the principal buildings are a city hall, court house, high school, commercial college, Carnegie library, the Columbus Hospital and Training School for Nurses (under the supervision of the Sisters of Charity), and the Montana Deaconess hospital. There is a Federal land office in the city. Great Falls lies in the midst of a region exceptionally rich in minerals—copper, gold, silver, lead, iron, gypsum, limestone, sapphires and bituminous coal being mined in the neighbourhood. Much grain is grown in the vicinity, and the city is an important shipping point for wool, live-stock and cereals. Near Great Falls the Missouri river, within 7½ m., contracts from a width of about 900 to 300 yds. and falls more than 500 ft., the principal falls being the Black Eagle Falls (50 ft.), from which power is derived for the city’s street railway and lighting plant, the beautiful Rainbow Falls (48 ft.) and Great Falls (92 ft.). Giant Spring Fall, about 20 ft. high, is a cascade formed by a spring on the bank of the river near Rainbow Falls. The river furnishes very valuable water-power, partly utilized by large manufacturing establishments, including flour mills, plaster mills, breweries, iron works, mining machinery shops, and smelting and reduction works. The Boston & Montana copper smelter is one of the largest in the world; it has a chimney stack 506 ft. high, and in 1908 employed 1200 men in the smelter and 2500 in its mining department. Great Falls ranked second (to Anaconda) among the cities of the state in the value of the factory product of 1905, which was $13,291,979, showing an increase of 42.4% since 1900. The city owns and operates its water-supply system. Great Falls was settled in 1884, and was chartered as a city in 1888.

[1] Great Falls was a pioneer among the cities of the state in the development of a park system. When the city was first settled its site was a “barren tract of sand, thinly covered with buffalo-grass and patches of sage brush.” The first settler, Paris Gibson, of Minneapolis, began the planting of trees, which, though not indigenous, grew well. The city’s sidewalks are bordered by strips of lawn, in which there is a row of trees, and the city maintains a large nursery where trees are grown for this purpose. A general state law (1901) placing the parking of cities on a sound financial basis is due very largely to the impulse furnished by Great Falls. See an article, “Great Falls, the Pioneer Park City of Montana,” by C. H. Forbes-Lindsay, in the Craftsman for November 1908.

GREAT HARWOOD, an urban district in the Darwen parliamentary division of Lancashire, England, 4½ m. N.E. of Blackburn, on the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway. Pop. (1901) 12,015. It is of modern growth, a township of cotton operatives, with large collieries in the vicinity. An agricultural society is also maintained.

GREATHEAD, JAMES HENRY (1844-1896), British engineer, was born at Grahamstown, Cape Colony, on the 6th of August 1844. He migrated to England in 1859, and in 1864 was a pupil of P. W. Barlow, from whom he became acquainted with the shield system of tunnelling with which his name is especially associated. Barlow, indeed, had a strong belief in the shield, and was the author of a scheme for facilitating the traffic of London by the construction of underground railways running in cast-iron tubes constructed by its aid. To show what the method could do, it was resolved to make a subway under the Thames near the Tower, but the troubles encountered by Sir M. I. Brunel in the Thames Tunnel, where also a shield was employed, made engineers hesitate to undertake the subway, even though it was of very much smaller dimensions (6 ft. 7 in. internal diameter) than the tunnel. At this juncture Greathead came forward and offered to take up the contract; and he successfully carried it through in 1869 without finding any necessity to resort to the use of compressed air, which Barlow in 1867 had suggested might be employed in water-bearing strata. After this he began to practise on his own account, and mainly divided his time between railway construction and taking out patents for improvements in his shield, and for other inventions such as the “Ejector” fire-hydrant. Early in the ’eighties he began to work in conjunction with a company whose aim was to introduce into London from America the Hallidie system of cable traction, and in 1884 an act of Parliament was obtained authorizing what is now the City & South London Railway—a tube-railway to be worked by cables. This was begun in 1886, and the tunnels were driven by means of the Greathead shield, compressed air being used at those points where water-bearing gravel was encountered. During the progress of the works electrical traction became so far developed as to be superior to cables; the idea of using the latter was therefore abandoned, and when the railway was opened in 1890 it was as an electrical one. Greathead was engaged in two other important underground lines in London—the Waterloo & City and the Central London. He lived to see the tunnels of the former completed under the Thames, but the latter was scarcely begun at the time of his death, which happened at Streatham, in the south of London, on the 21st of October 1896.

GREAT LAKES OF NORTH AMERICA, THE. The connected string of five fresh-water inland seas, Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario, lying in the interior of North America, between the Dominion of Canada on the north and the United States of America on the south, and forming the head-waters of the St Lawrence river system, are collectively and generally known as “The Great Lakes.” From the head of lake Superior these lakes are navigable to Buffalo, at the foot of lake Erie, a distance of 1023 m., for vessels having a draught of 20 ft.; from Buffalo to Kingston, 191 m. farther, the draught is limited, by the depth in the Welland canal, to 14 ft.; lake Superior, the largest and most westerly of the lakes, empties, through the river St Mary, 55 m. long, into lake Huron. From Point Iroquois, which may be considered the foot of the lake, to Sault Ste Marie, St Mary’s Falls, St Mary’s Rapids or the Soo, as it is variously called, a distance of 14 m., there is a single channel, which has been dredged by the United States government, at points which required deepening, to give a minimum width of 800 ft. and a depth of 23 ft. at mean stage water. Below the Sault, the river, on its course to lake Huron, expands into several lakes, and is divided by islands into numerous contracted passages. There are two navigated channels; the older one, following the international boundary-line by way of lake George, has a width of 150 to 300 ft., and a depth of 17 ft.; it is buoyed but not lighted, and is not capable of navigation by modern large freighters; the other, some 12 m. shorter, an artificial channel dredged by the United States government in their own territory, has a minimum width of 300 ft. and depth of 20 ft. It is elaborately lighted throughout its length. A third channel, west of all the islands, was designed for steamers bound down, the older channel being reserved for upbound boats.

Between lake Superior and lake Huron there is a fall of 20 ft. of which the Sault, in a distance of ½ m., absorbs from 18 to 19½ ft., the height varying as the lakes change in level. The enormous growth of inter-lake freight traffic has justified the construction of three separate locks, each overcoming the rapids by a single lift—two side by side on the United States and one on the Canadian side of the river. These locks, the largest in the world, are all open to Canadian and United States vessels alike, and are operated free from all taxes or tolls on shipping. The Canadian ship canal, opened to traffic on the 9th of September 1895, was constructed through St Mary Island, on the north side of the rapids, by the Canadian government, at a cost of $3,684,227, to facilitate traffic and to secure to Canadian vessels an entrance to lake Superior without entering United States territory. The canal is 5967 ft. long between the extremities of the entrance piers, has one lock 900 ft. long and 60 ft. wide, with a depth on the sills at the lowest known water-level of 20½ ft. The approaches to the canal are dredged to 18 ft. deep, and are well buoyed and lighted. On the United States side of the river the length of the canal is 12⁄3 m., the channel outside the locks having a width varying from 108 to 600 ft. and depth of 25 ft. The locks of 1855 were closed in 1886, to give place to the Poe lock. The Weitzel lock, opened to navigation on the 1st of September 1881, was built south of the old locks, the approach being through the old canal. Its chamber is 515 ft. long between lock gates, and 80 ft. wide, narrowing to 60 ft. at the gates. The length of the masonry walls is 717 ft., height 39½ ft., with 17 ft. over mitre sills at mean stage of water. The Poe lock, built because the Weitzel lock, large and fully equipped as it is, was insufficient for the rapidly growing traffic, was opened on the 3rd of August 1896. Its length between gates is 800 ft.; width 100 ft.; length of masonry walls 1100 ft.; height 43½ to 45 ft., with 22 ft. on the mitre sill at mean stage.

The expenditure by the United States government on the canal, with its several locks, and on improving the channel through the river, aggregated fourteen million dollars up to the end of 1906.[1] Plans were prepared in 1907 for a third United States lock with a separate canal approach.

The canals are closed every winter, the average date of opening up to 1893 being the 1st of May, and of closing the 1st of December. The pressure of business since that time, aided possibly by some slight climatic modification, has extended the season, so that the average date of opening is now ten days earlier and of closing twelve days later. The earliest opening was in 1902 on the 1st of April, and the latest closing in 1904 on the 20th of December.

The table below gives the average yearly commerce for periods of five years, and serves to show the rapid increase in freight growth.

Statement of the commerce through the several Sault Ste Marie canals, averaged for every five years.[2]

Around the canals have grown up two thriving towns, one on the Michigan, the other on the Ontario side of the river, with manufactories driven by water-power derived from the Sault. The outlet of lake Michigan, the only lake of the series lying wholly in United States territory, is at the Strait of Mackinac, near the point where the river St Mary reaches lake Huron. With lake Michigan are connected the Chicago Sanitary and Ship canal, the Illinois and Michigan, and the Illinois and Mississippi canals, for which see Illinois. With lake Huron is always included Georgian Bay as well as the channel north of Manitoulin Island. As it is principally navigated as a connecting waterway between lakes Superior and Michigan and lake Erie it has no notable harbours on it. It empties into lake Erie through the river St Clair, lake St Clair and the river Detroit. On these connecting waters are several important manufacturing and shipping towns, and through this chain passes nearly all the traffic of the lakes, both that to and from lake Michigan ports, and also that of lake Superior. The tonnage of a single short season of navigation exceeds in the aggregate 60,000,000 tons. Extensive dredging and embankment works have been carried on by the United States government in lake St Clair and the river Detroit, and a 20-ft. channel now exists, which is being constantly improved. Lake St Clair is nearly circular, 25 m. in diameter, with the north-east quadrant filled by the delta of the river St Clair. It has a very flat bottom with a general depth of only 21 ft., shoaling very gradually, usually to reed beds that line the low swampy shores. To enter the lake from river St Clair two channels have been provided, with retaining walls of cribwork, one for upward, the other for downward bound vessels. Much dredging has also been necessary at the outlet of the lake into river Detroit. A critical point in that river is at Limekiln crossing, a cut dredged through limestone rock above the Canadian town of Amherstburg. The normal depth here before improvement was 12½-15 ft.; by a project of 1902 a channel 600 ft. wide and 21 ft. deep was planned; there are separate channels for up- and down-bound vessels. To prevent vessels from crowding together in the cut, the Canadian government maintains a patrol service here, while the United States government maintains a similar patrol in the St Mary channel.

The Grand Trunk railway opened in 1891 a single track tunnel under the river St Clair, from Sarnia to Port Huron. It is 6026 ft. long, a cylinder 20 ft. in diameter, lined with cast iron in flanged sections. A second tunnel was undertaken between Detroit and Windsor, under the river Detroit.

From Buffalo, at the foot of lake Erie, the river Niagara runs northwards 36 m. into lake Ontario. To overcome the difference of 327 ft. in level between lakes Erie and Ontario, the Welland canal, accommodating vessels of 255 ft. in length, with a draught of 14 ft., was built, and is maintained by Canada. The Murray canal extends from Presqu’ile Bay, on the north shore of lake Ontario, a distance of 6½ m., to the headquarters of the Bay of Quinte. Trent canal is a term applied to a series of water stretches in the interior of Ontario which are ultimately designed to connect lake Huron and lake Ontario. At Peterboro a hydraulic balance-lock with a lift of 65 ft., 140 ft. in length and 33 ft. clear in width, allowing a draught of 8 ft., has been constructed. The ordinary locks are 134 by 33 ft. with a draught of 6 ft. When the whole route of 200 m. is completed, there will not be more than 15 m. of actual canal, the remaining portion of the waterway being through lakes and rivers. For the Erie canal, between that lake and the Hudson river, see [Erie] and [New York].

The population of the states and provinces bordering on the Great Lakes is estimated to be over 35,000,000. In Pennsylvania and Ohio, south of lake Erie, there are large coal-fields. Surrounding lake Michigan and west of lake Superior are vast grain-growing plains, and the prairies of the Canadian north-west are rapidly increasing the area and quantity of wheat grown; while both north and south of lake Superior are the most extensive iron mines in the world, from which 35 million tons of ore were shipped in 1906. The natural highway for the shipment of all these products is the Great Lakes, and over them coal is distributed westwards and grain and iron ore are concentrated eastwards. The great quantity of coarse freights, that could only be profitably carried long distances by water, has revolutionized the type of vessel used for its transportation, making large steamers imperative, consolidating interests and cheapening methods. It is usual for the vessels in the grain trade and in the iron-ore trade to make their up trips empty; but in consequence of the admirable facilities provided at terminal points, they make very fast time, and carry freight very cheaply. The cost of freight per ton-mile fell from 23/100 cent in 1887 to 8/100 cent in 1898; since then the rate has slightly risen, but keeps well below 1/10 cent per ton-mile.

The traffic on the lakes may be divided into three classes, passenger, package freight and bulk freight. Of passenger boats the largest are 380 ft. long by 44 ft. beam, having a speed of over 20 m. an hour, making the round trip between Buffalo and Chicago 1800 m., or Buffalo and Duluth 2000 m., every week. They carry no freight. The Canadian Pacific railway runs a line of fine Tyne-built passenger and freight steamers between Owen Sound and Fort William, and these two lines equal in accommodation transatlantic passenger steamers. On lake Michigan many fine passenger boats run out of Chicago, and on lake Ontario there are several large and fast Canadian steamers on routes radiating from Toronto. The package freight business, that is, the transportation of goods in enclosed parcels, is principally local; all the through business of this description is controlled by lines run by the great trunk railways, and is done in boats limited in beam to 50 ft. to admit them through bridges over the rivers at Chicago and Buffalo. By far the greatest number of vessels on the lakes are bulk freighters, and the conditions of the service have developed a special type of vessel. Originally sailing vessels were largely used, but these have practically disappeared, giving place to steamers, which have grown steadily in size with every increase in available draught. In 1894 there was no vessel on the lakes with a capacity of over 5000 tons; in 1906 there were 254 vessels of a greater capacity, 12 of them carrying over 12,000 tons each. For a few years following 1890 many large barges were built, carrying up to 8000 tons each, intended to be towed by a steamer. It was found, however, that the time lost by one boat of the pair having to wait for the other made the plan unprofitable and no more were built. Following 1888 some 40 whale-back steamers and barges, having oval cross-sections without frames or decks, were built, but experience failed to demonstrate any advantage in the type, and their construction has ceased. The modern bulk freighter is a vessel 600 ft. long, 58 ft. beam, capable of carrying 14,000 tons on 20 ft. draught, built with a midship section practically rectangular, the coefficient frequently as high as .98, with about two-thirds of the entire length absolutely straight, giving a block coefficient up to .87. The triple-expansion machinery and boilers, designed to drive the boat at a speed of 12 m. an hour, are in the extreme stern, and the pilot house and quarters in the extreme bow, leaving all the cargo space together. Hatches are spaced at multiples of 12 ft. throughout the length and are made as wide as possible athwartships to facilitate loading and unloading. The vessels are built on girder frames and fitted with double bottoms for strength and water ballast. This type of vessel can be loaded in a few minutes, and unloaded by self-filling grab buckets up to ten tons capacity, worked hydraulically, in six or eight hours. The bulk freight generally follows certain well-defined routes; iron ore is shipped east from ports on both sides of lake Superior and on the west side of lake Michigan to rail shipping points on the south shore of lake Erie. Wheat and other grains from Duluth find their way to Buffalo, as do wheat, corn (maize) and other grains from Chicago. Wheat from the Canadian north-west is distributed from Fort William and Port Arthur to railway terminals on Georgian Bay, to Buffalo, and to Port Colborne for trans-shipment to canal barges for Montreal, and coal is distributed from lake Erie to all western points. The large shipping trade is assisted by both governments by a system of aids to navigation that mark every channel and danger. There are also life-saving stations at all dangerous points.

The Great Lakes never freeze over completely, but the harbours and often the connecting rivers are closed by ice. The navigable season at the Sault is about 7½ months; in lake Erie it is somewhat longer. The season of navigation has been slightly lengthened since 1905, by using powerful tugs as ice-breakers in the spring and autumn, the Canadian government undertaking the service at Canadian terminal ports, chiefly at Fort William and Port Arthur, the most northerly ports, where the season is naturally shortest, and the Lake Carriers’ Association, a federation of the freighting steamship owners, acting in the river St Mary. Car ferries run through the winter across lake Michigan and the Strait of Mackinac, across the rivers St Clair and Detroit, and across the middle of lakes Erie and Ontario. The largest of these steamers is 350 ft. long by 56 ft. wide, draught 14 ft., horse power 3500, speed 13 knots. She carries on four tracks 30 freight cars, with 1350 tons of freight. Certain passenger steamers run on lake Michigan, from Chicago north, all the winter.

The level of the lakes varies gradually, and is affected by the general character of the season, and not by individual rainfalls. The variations of level of the several lakes do not necessarily synchronize. There is an annual fluctuation of about 1 ft. in the upper lakes, and in some seasons over 2 ft. in the lower lakes; the lowest point being at the end of winter and the highest in midsummer. In lake Michigan the level has ranged from a maximum in the years 1859, 1876 and 1886, to a minimum nearly 5 ft. lower in 1896. In lake Ontario there is a range of 5½ ft. between the maximum of May 1870 and the minimum of November 1895. In consequence of the shallowness of lake Erie, its level is seriously disturbed by a persistent storm; a westerly gale lowers the water at its upper end exceptionally as much as 7 ft., seriously interfering with the navigation of the river Detroit, while an easterly gale produces a similar effect at Buffalo. (For physiographical details see articles on the several lakes, and [United States].)

There is geological evidence to show that the whole basin of the lakes has in recent geological times gradually changed in level, rising to the north and subsiding southwards; and it is claimed that the movement is still in gradual progress, the rate assigned being .42 ft. per 100 m. per century. The maintenance of the level of the Great Lakes is a matter of great importance to the large freight boats, which always load to the limit of depth at critical points in the dredged channels or in the harbours. Fears have been entertained that the water power canals at Sault Ste Marie, the drainage canal at Chicago and the dredged channel in the river Detroit will permanently lower the levels respectively of lake Superior and of the Michigan-Huron-Erie group. An international deep-waterway commission exists for the consideration of this question, and army engineers appointed by the United States government have worked on the problem.[3] Wing dams in the rivers St Mary and Niagara, to retard the discharges, have been proposed as remedial measures. The Great Lakes are practically tideless, though some observers claim to find true tidal pulsations, said to amount to 3½ in. at spring tide at Chicago. Secondary undulations of a few minutes in period, ranging from 1 to 4 in., are well marked.

The Great Lakes are well stocked with fish of commercial value. These are largely gathered from the fishermen by steam tenders, and taken fresh or in frozen condition to railway distributing points. In lakes Superior and Huron salmon-trout (Salvelinus namaycush, Walb) are commercially most important. They ordinarily range from 10 to 50 ℔ in weight, and are often larger. In Georgian Bay the catches of whitefish (Coregonus clupeiformis, Mitchill) are enormous. In lake Erie whitefish, lesser whitefish, erroneously called lake-herring (C. artedi, Le Sueur), and sturgeon (Acipenser rubicundus, Le Sueur) are the most common. There is good angling at numerous points on the lakes and their feeders. The river Nipigon, on the north shore of lake Superior, is famous as a stream abounding in speckled trout (Salvelinus fontinalis, Mitchill) of unusual size. Black bass (Micropterus) are found from Georgian Bay to Montreal, and the maskinonge (Esox nobilior, Le Sueur), plentiful in the same waters, is a very game fish that often attains a weight of 70 ℔.

Bibliography.—E. Channing and M. F. Lansing, Story of the Great Lakes (New York, 1909), for an account of the lakes in history; and for shipping, &c., J. O. Curwood, The Great Lakes (New York, 1909); U.S. Hydrographic office publication, No 108, “Sailing directions for the Great Lakes,” Navy Department (Washington, 1901, seqq.); Bulletin No. 17, “Survey of Northern and North-western Lakes,” Corps of Engineers, U.S. War Department, U.S. Lake Survey Office (Detroit, Mich., 1907); Annual reports of Canadian Department of Marine and Fisheries (Ottawa, 1868 seqq.).

(W. P. A.)

[1] Statistical report of lake commerce passing through canals. Col. Chas. E. L. B. Davis, U.S.A., engineer in charge, 1907.

[2] Statistical report of lake commerce passing through canals, published annually by the U.S. engineer officer in charge.

[3] Report of the Chief of Engineers, U.S. Army, in Report of War Department, U.S. 1898, p. 3776.

GREAT MOTHER OF THE GODS, the ancient Oriental-Greek-Roman deity commonly known as Cybele (q.v.) in Greek and Latin literature from the time of Pindar. She was also known under many other names, some of which were derived from famous places of worship: as Dindymene from Mt. Dindymon, Mater Idaea from Mt. Ida, Sipylene from Mt. Sipylus, Agdistis from Mt. Agdistis or Agdus, Mater Phrygia from the greatest stronghold of her cult; while others were reflections of her character as a great nature goddess: e.g. Mountain Mother, Great Mother of the Gods, Mother of all Gods and all Men. As the great Mother deity whose worship extended throughout Asia Minor she was known as Mā or Ammas. Cybele is her favourite name in ancient and modern literature, while Great Mother of the Gods, or Great Idaean Mother of the Gods (Mater Deum Magna, Mater Deum Magna Idaea), the most frequently recurring epigraphical title, was her ordinary official designation.

The legends agree in locating the rise of the worship of the Great Mother in Asia Minor, in the region of loosely defined geographical limits which comprised the Phrygian empire of prehistoric times, and was more extensive than the Roman province of Phrygia (Diod. Sic. iii. 58; Paus. vii. 17; Arnob. v. 5; Firm. Mat. De error., 3; Ovid, Fasti, iv. 223 ff.; Sallust. Phil. De diis et mundo, 4; Jul. Or. v. 165 ff.). Her best-known early seats of worship were Mt. Ida, Mt. Sipylus, Cyzicus, Sardis and Pessinus, the last-named city, in Galatia near the borders of Roman Phrygia, finally becoming the strongest centre of the cult. She was known to the Romans and Greeks as essentially Phrygian, and all Phrygia was spoken of as sacred to her (Schol. Apollon. Rhod. Argonautica, i. 1126). It is probable, however, that the Phrygian race, which invaded Asia Minor from the north in the 9th century B.C., found a great nature goddess already universally worshipped there, and blended her with a deity of their own. The Asiatic-Phrygian worship thus evolved was further modified by contact with the Syrians and Phoenicians, so that it acquired strong Semitic characteristics. The Great Mother known to the Greeks and Romans was thus merely the Phrygian form of the nature deity of all Asia Minor.

From Asia Minor the cult of the Great Mother spread first to Greek territory. It found its way into Thrace at an early date, was known in Boeotia by Pindar in the 6th century, and entered Attica near the beginning of the 4th century (Grant Showerman, The Great Mother of the Gods, Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, No. 43, Madison, 1901). At Peiraeus, where it probably arrived by way of the Aegean islands, it existed privately in a fully developed state, that is, accompanied by the worship of Attis, at the beginning of the 4th century, and publicly two centuries later (D. Comparetti, Annales, 1862, pp. 23 ff.). The Greeks from the first saw in the Great Mother a resemblance to their own Rhea, and finally identified the two completely, though the Asiatic peculiarities of the cult were never universally popular with them (Showerman, p. 294). In her less Asiatic aspect, i.e. without Attis, she was sometimes identified with Gaia and Demeter. It was in this phase that she was worshipped in the Metroön at Athens. In reality, the Mother Goddess appears under three aspects: Rhea, the Homeric and Hesiodic goddess of Cretan origin; the Phrygian Mother, with Attis; and the Greek Great Mother, a modified form of the Phrygian Mother, to be explained as the original goddess of the Phrygians of Europe, communicated to the Greek stock before the Phrygian invasion of Asia Minor and consequent mingling with Asiatic stocks (cf. Showerman, p. 252).

In 204 B.C., in obedience to the Sibylline prophecy which said that whenever an enemy from abroad should make war on Italy he could be expelled and conquered if the Idaean Mother were brought to Rome from Pessinus, the cult of the Great Mother, together with her sacred symbol, a small meteoric stone reputed to have fallen from the heavens, was transferred to Rome and established in a temple on the Palatine (Livy xxix. 10-14). Her identification by the Romans with Maia, Ops, Rhea, Tellus and Ceres contributed to the establishment of her worship on a firm footing. By the end of the Republic it had attained prominence, and under the Empire it became one of the three most important cults in the Roman world, the other two being those of Mithras and Isis. Epigraphic and numismatic evidence prove it to have penetrated from Rome as a centre to the remotest provinces (Showerman, pp. 291-293). During the brief revival of paganism under Eugenius in A.D. 394, occurred the last appearance of the cult in history. Besides the temple on the Palatine, there existed minor shrines of the Great Mother near the present church of St Peter, on the Sacra Via on the north slope of the Palatine, near the junction of the Almo and the Tiber, south of the city (ibid. 311-314).

In all her aspects, Roman, Greek and Oriental, the Great Mother was characterized by essentially the same qualities. Most prominent among them was her universal motherhood. She was the great parent of gods and men, as well as of the lower orders of creation. “The winds, the sea, the earth and the snowy seat of Olympus are hers, and when from her mountains she ascends into the great heavens, the son of Cronus himself gives way before her” (Apollon. Rhod. Argonautica, i. 1098). She was known as the All-begetter, the All-nourisher, the Mother of all the Blest. She was the great, fruitful, kindly earth itself. Especial emphasis was placed upon her maternity over wild nature. She was called the Mountain Mother; her sanctuaries were almost invariably upon mountains, and frequently in caves, the name Cybele itself being by some derived from the latter; lions were her faithful companions. Her universal power over the natural world finds beautiful expression in Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica, i. 1140 ff. She was also a chaste and beautiful deity. Her especial affinity with wild nature was manifested by the orgiastic character of her worship. Her attendants, the Corybantes, were wild, half demonic beings. Her priests, the Galli, were eunuchs attired in female garb, with long hair fragrant with ointment. Together with priestesses, they celebrated her rites with flutes, horns, castanets, cymbals and tambourines, madly yelling and dancing until their frenzied excitement found its culmination in self-scourging, self-laceration or exhaustion. Self-emasculation sometimes accompanied this delirium of worship on the part of candidates for the priesthood (Showerman, pp. 234-239). The Attis of Catullus (lxiii.) is a brilliant treatment of such an episode.

Though her cult sometimes existed by itself, in its fully developed state the worship of the Great Mother was accompanied by that of Attis (q.v.). The cult of Attis never existed independently. Like Adonis and Aphrodite, Baal and Astarte, &c., the two formed a duality representing the relations of Mother Nature to the fruits of the earth. There is no positive evidence to prove the existence of the cult publicly in this phase in Greece before the 2nd century B.C., nor in Rome before the Empire, though it may have existed in private (Showerman, “Was Attis at Rome under the Republic?” in Transactions of the American Philological Association, vol. 31, 1900, pp. 46-59; Cumont, s.v. “Attis,” De Ruggiero’s Dizionario epigrafico and Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopädie, Supplement; Hepding, Attis, seine Mythen und seine Kult, Giessen, 1903, p. 142).

The philosophers of the late Roman Empire interpreted the Attis legend as symbolizing the relations of Mother Earth to her children the fruits. Porphyrius says that Attis signified the flowers of spring time, and was cut off in youth because the flower falls before the fruit (Augustine, De civ. Dei, vii. 25). Maternus (De error. 3) interprets the love of the Great Mother for Attis as the love of the earth for her fruits; his emasculation as the cutting of the fruits; his death as their preservation; and his resurrection as the sowing of the seed again.

At Rome the immediate direction of the cult of the Great Mother devolved upon the high priest, Archigallus, called Attis, a high priestess, Sacerdos Maxima, and its support was derived, at least in part, from a popular contribution, the stips. Besides other priests, priestesses and minor officials, such as musicians, curator, &c., there were certain colleges connected with the administration of the cult, called cannophori (reed-bearers) and dendrophori (branch-bearers). The Quindecimvirs exercised a general supervision over this cult, as over all other authorized cults, and it was, at least originally, under the special patronage of a club or sodality (Showerman, pp. 269-276). Roman citizens were at first forbidden to take part in its ceremonies, and the ban was not removed until the time of the Empire.

The main public event in the worship of the Great Mother was the annual festival, which took place originally on the 4th of April, and was followed on the 5th by the Megalesia, games instituted in her honour on the introduction of the cult. Under the Empire, from Claudius on, the Megalesia lasted six days, April 4-10, and the original one day of the religious festival became an annual cycle of festivals extending from the 15th to the 27th of March, in the following order. (1) The 15th of March, Canna intrat—the sacrifice of a six-year-old bull in behalf of the mountain fields, the high priest, a priestess and the cannophori officiating, the last named carrying reeds in procession in commemoration of the exposure of the infant Attis on the reedy banks of the stream Gallus in Phrygia. (This may have been originally a phallic procession. Cf. Showerman, American Journal of Philol. xxvii. 1; Classical Journal i. 4.) (2) The 22nd of March, Arbor intrat—the bearing in procession of the sacred pine, emblem of Attis’ self-mutilation, death and immortality, to the temple on the Palatine, the symbol of the Mother’s cave, by the dendrophori, a gild of workmen who made the Mother, among other deities, a patron. (3) The 24th of March, Dies sanguinis—a day of mourning, fasting and abstinence, especially sexual, commemorating the sorrow of the Mother for Attis, her abstinence from food and her chastity. The frenzied dance and self-laceration of the priests in commemoration of Attis’ deed, and the submission to the act of consecration by candidates for the priesthood, was a special feature of the day. The taurobolium (q.v.) was often performed on this day, on which probably took place the initiation of mystics. (4) The 25th of March, Hilaria—one of the great festal days of Rome, celebrated by all the people. All mourning was put off, and good cheer reigned in token of the return of the sun and spring, which was symbolized by the renewal of Attis’ life. (5) The 26th of March, Requietio—a day of rest and quiet. (6) The 27th of March, Lavatio—the crowning ceremony of the cycle. The silver statue of the goddess, with the sacred meteoric stone, the Acus, set in its head, was borne in gorgeous procession and bathed in the Almo, the remainder of the day being given up to rejoicing and entertainment, especially dramatic representation of the legend of the deities of the day. Other ceremonies, not necessarily connected with the annual festival, were the taurobolium (q.v.), the sacrifice of a bull, and the criobolium (q.v.), the sacrifice of a ram, the latter being the analogue of the former, instituted for the purpose of giving Attis special recognition. The baptism of blood, which was the feature of these ceremonies, was regarded as purifying and regenerating (Showerman, Great Mother, pp. 277-284).

The Great Mother figures in the art of all periods both in Asia and Europe, but is especially prominent in the art of the Empire. No work of the first class, however, was inspired by her. She appears on coins, in painting and in all forms of sculpture, usually with mural crown and veil, well draped, seated on a throne, and accompanied by two lions. Other attributes which often appear are the patera, tympanum, cymbals, sceptre, garlands and fruits. Attis and his attributes, the pine, Phrygian cap, pedum, syrinx and torch, also appear. The Cybele of Formia, now at Copenhagen, is one of the most famous representations of the goddess. The Niobe of Mt. Sipylus is really the Mother. In literature she is the subject of frequent mention, but no work of importance, with the exception of Catullus lxiii., is due to her inspiration. Her importance in the history of religion is very great. Together with Isis and Mithras, she was a great enemy, and yet a great aid to Christianity. The gorgeous rites of her worship, its mystic doctrine of communion with the divine through enthusiasm, its promise of regeneration through baptism of blood in the taurobolium, were features which attracted the masses of the people and made it a strong rival of Christianity; and its resemblance to the new religion, however superficial, made it, in spite of the scandalous practices which grew up around it, a stepping-stone to Christianity when the tide set in against paganism.

Authorities.—Grant Showerman, “The Great Mother of the Gods,” Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, No. 43; Philology and Literature Series, vol. i. No. 3 (Madison, 1901); Hugo Hepding, Attis, seine Mythen und seine Kult (Giessen, 1903); Rapp, Roscher’s Ausführliches Lexicon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie s.v. “Kybele”; Drexler, ibid. s.v. “Meter.” See [Roman Religion], [Greek Religion], [Attis], [Corybantes]; for the great “Hittite” portrayal of the Nature Goddess at Pteria, see [Pteria].

(G. Sn.)