the art of measuring the contents of casks or vessels of any form. Gauging forms a part of mensuration, but is frequently practised by persons unacquainted with its theoretical principles, who work by certain rules, with the aid of a gauging-rod, and by the sliding rule. The ordinary gauging-rod consists of four rules made of boxwood, each a foot long, and united by brass joints, so that it may be folded together. See Mensuration.

The term gauge or gage is applied in various ways, but always with reference to measure or proportion; or, in the literal sense of the word, to that which bounds or confines something else. Thus in physics it is applied to several instruments or apparatus for measuring the state of a phenomenon; such as the wind-gage, the rain-gage, the barometer-gage for measuring the degree of pressure of the air within the receiver of an air-pump, &c.; in architecture, to the length of a slate below the lap; in railway engineering, to the space between the rails; and the like.

GAUL. See Gallia, and France.

GAUSS, KARL FRIEDRICH, an eminent German mathematician, was born of humble parents at Brunswick, April 23, 1777. He distinguished himself greatly while a student, and in his twenty-fifth year made his name widely known by his Disquisitiones Mathematicae, a work full of the most subtle mathematical speculation applied to the higher branches of arithmetical science. In 1809 he published at Hamburg his Theoria Motus Corporum Celestium, which gave a powerful impulse to the true methods of astronomical observation, towards which much care was at this period directed. Two years before this time he had been chosen director of the Göttingen Observatory, an office which he retained till his death, despite the many tempting offers he received of more honourable and lucrative positions elsewhere. So attached was he to his university, and so closely bent on his studies, that he never but on one occasion slept away from under the roof of his own observatory. In that solitary instance he had accepted an urgent invitation from Humboldt to attend a meeting of natural philosophers at Berlin. His only other acknowledged work, Theoria Combinationis Observationum Minimae Erroribus Obnoxiae, appeared at Göttingen in 1823, and conferred a lasting boon on the cause of science; and many of his papers read before the society of Göttingen are hardly less valuable. Gauss was well versed in general literature and the chief languages of modern Europe, and was a member of nearly all the leading scientific societies of Europe. It is related that Laplace, when asked who was the greatest mathematician of Germany, replied, "Pfaff" (the teacher of Gauss). His questioner said he had thought Gauss even more profound. "Ah," said Laplace, "I esteem Pfaff the greatest mathematician in Germany; but Gauss the greatest mathematician in Europe." Gauss died at Göttingen early in the spring of 1855.

GAUZE, a very light transparent textile fabric, made sometimes of silk and sometimes of linen thread. It is said to have been invented at Gaza in Palestine, and hence the name.

GAUZE Wire-cloth, a textile fabric of wire, more or less fine. It is used for safety-lamps, sieves, framed window-blinds, &c.

GAVIA-GRAÑDE, a secular town of Spain, in the province and archbishopric of Granada. It is situated in a plain on the left bank of the Genil, and surrounded with beautiful gardens and fields of the richest verdure, teeming with grain and fruits in their season. It contains a parish church, a primary school, and has manufactures of linen, several oil-mills, gypsum and stone quarries, as well as a good tide in flax, hemp, and corn. It is three miles distant from Granada, and has a population of nearly 5000.