aseine, animals fed solely on gelatine rapidly lose flesh. It is much employed in confectionary, for jellies, jujubes, &c.; and in the form of thin sheets richly coloured with beet-juice, spinach-juice, or other substances, it is applied, as an elegant substitute for paper, to a variety of ornamental purposes.

**GELDERLAND.** See **GELDERLAND.**

**GELL,** Sir William, a distinguished classical scholar and antiquarian, was born in 1777. After the usual preliminary education, he was entered of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, of which he afterwards became a fellow. About the beginning of the present century he was sent on a diplomatic mission to Greece; on his return from which, in 1803, he was knighted. In the following year he published his *Topography of Troy and its Vicinity, illustrated and explained by drawings and descriptions.* He had only spent three days in the actual survey of this classic spot; but the critics were at first loud in praise of the ability, research, and correctness of his work. A more careful scrutiny, however, caused them to modify their verdicts considerably. Lord Byron who had at first praised the book, afterwards felt more inclined to condemn it. In his English Bards that poet had said—

Of Dardan tours let dilettanti tell; I leave topography to rapid Gell.

The term *rapid* was a substitute for *classic,* which had been the original epithet. Some of his other works were perhaps chargeable with the same fault, such as his *Geography and Antiquities of Ithaca.* An exception, however, must be made in favour of his interesting *Pompeiania, or Observations on the Topography, Edifices, and Ornaments of Pompeii,* in which he was assisted by Mr J. P. Gandy.

Gell's noble and disinterested behaviour during the trial of Queen Caroline, and his manly courage in facing and braving the frowns of the great who took part with the regent at that time, exhibit his moral character in a very favourable light. The queen showed her sense of his cooperation in her defence by appointing him one of her chamberlains in 1820. He suffered severely from gout during the latter years of his life; and died at Naples in 1836.

**GELLERT,** Christian Furchtegott, a distinguished German author, was born in 1715, at Haynichen, near Freiberg in Saxony. He was educated at the university of Leipzig, where, in his thirtieth year, he was appointed to the chair of belles-lettres,—a position which he occupied till his death in 1769. His principal works are his *Fabels* and *Erzählung,* and *Sacred Odes and Songs,* both of which were immensely popular in Germany during their author's lifetime; while the former, till a recent period, held its place as a text-book in nearly all the primary schools of Germany. Not a little of Gellert's fame is due to the time when he lived and wrote. Such a German literature as there was at the time of his appearance, was groaning under the yoke of the pedant Gottsched and his school. A band of high-spirited youths, of whom Gellert was one, resolved to free themselves from these hereditary and conventional trammels, and began that revolution which was finally consummated by Schiller and Goethe. Gellert's share in the attempt was enhanced by the excellence of his personal character, his gentle piety, and his singular knack of gaining the reverence and love of young people. Part of his influence was also doubtless attributable to his position as a professor, and to his eloquent lectures on the poetry of Germany. His collective works form part of the *Karlruher Deutscher Classiker,* 1823–26. There are some interesting notices of Gellert in Goethe's *Dichtung und Wahrheit.*

His life has been twice written; first by J. A. Cramer, Leipzig 1774; and more recently by Döring, Leipzig, 1833.

**GELLIUS,** Aulus (sometimes, though incorrectly, called Agellius), author of the *Noctes Atticae,* was born in the course of the second century of the Christian era, and died about A.D. 180. Little or nothing is known of his personal history beyond incidental notices in his own book. From these he seems to have been born of a good family at Rome; to have travelled much, especially in Greece; to have enjoyed the tuition and personal friendship of the most eminent philosophers of that day; and, being possessed of independent means, to have spent his life in a sort of literary dilettanteism. His only work, the *Noctes Atticae,* takes its name from the fact of its having been composed during the long nights of a winter which the author spent in Attica. In the preface he states that he had no other object in view in writing it than to while away the time in amusing his children. He had been in the habit of keeping an "Adversaria," or commonplace-book, in which he jotted down everything of unusual interest that he heard in conversation or read in books. The contents of this scrap-book he redacted with some slight changes of form into the work through which his name has been preserved. This fact sufficiently accounts for the very miscellaneous nature of the topics embraced in the book, which comprise essays on grammar, geometry, and philosophy, besides scraps of history and poetry, anecdotes, and a good deal of discusional matter. The work, which is utterly devoid of sequence or arrangement, is divided into twenty books. All these have come down to us except the eighth, of which nothing remains but the index. The work is on the whole a very useful one, as it throws light on many subjects which must otherwise have remained for ever a mystery. The style, though for the most part sufficiently clear, is disfigured by that affectation of archaism which was carried to such ridiculous extremes by Apuleius. The *editio principis* of Aulus Gellius appeared at Rome in 1469, and was speedily followed by many others in various cities of Italy, especially Venice. The best edition that has yet appeared is that of James Gronovius, Leyden, 1706; which is unquestionably superior to the recent edition of Lion, Gottingen, 1824–25. Aulus Gellius has been translated into English by Beloe, Lond., 1795; into French by the Abbé de Verteuil, Paris, 1776–89; and by Victor Verger, Paris, 1820–30; and partly into German by Walterstern, Lemg., 1785.

**GELNHAUSEN,** a town of Hesse-Cassel, province of Hanau, on the right bank of the Kinzig, 12 miles E.N.E. of the town of Hanau. It was formerly an imperial city, and was for some time the residence of the emperor Frederick Barbarossa. The ruins of his palace still exist on an island in the river. Being on the highroad from Frankfurt to Fulda and Eisenach, it is a place of considerable trade. Pop. 4000.

**GELON,** tyrant of Gela and afterwards of Syracuse, raised himself to the supreme power in his native city of Gela by his military talents. The quarrels between the aristocracy and the plebs of Syracuse gave him an opportunity of interfering in the affairs of that city, and he so managed among the disputants that he ended by becoming its "tyrannus." He used his power so discreetly that Syracuse attained a degree of wealth, influence, and prosperity which reconciled the people to their bondage. The great event in Gelon's subsequent history was his defeat of the Carthaginians under Hamilcar at Panormus, on the same day that the Greeks defeated Xerxes at Salamis, B.C. 480. After Gelon had thus established his power, he made a show of resigning it; but his proposal was rejected by the multitude, and he reigned without opposition till his death, 478 B.C. His memory was held in such respect that, 150 years after his death, when Timoleon was erasing from Sicily every vestige of the tyrants that had once reigned there, he spared the statues of Gelon. (See SYRACUSE, and CARTHAGE.)

**GEM,** a common appellation for all precious stones, and particularly for those which are employed in jewellery. Brilliance of lustre, richness of hue, and the most perfect transparency, are the desiderata of this class of minerals; Gemara

Gemini.

and the value of those specimens in which such characters are combined is enhanced according to their size, in an extremely rapid ratio. At the head of the gems stands the diamond, which, for brilliancy of lustre, or water, as it is termed, has not a rival. It is chiefly found in certain parts of Hindustan and Brazil, where it occurs in alluvial soil, or in conglomerate of the most recent formation. (See Diamond.) The oriental ruby, when perfect in transparency and colour, and of considerable size, vies with the diamond in value. Its most noted locality is the Capellan Mountains, near Syrian, in the kingdom of Ava. Next in order is the sapphire, which varies from a rich dark blue to a very slight tinge of the same colour, sometimes presents distinct colours in the same specimen, and is frequently transparent and colourless. It is met with in considerably larger masses than the preceding, and is found in Ava and Ceylon. The peculiar rich green colour of the emerald is well known. No gem is more frequently made mention of in sacred history, and none even at the present day stands in higher estimation among the crowned heads of the East. The aquamarine of lapidaries is, mineralogically speaking, a pale-blue variety of the same species, though one of very inferior value. Topazes occur under an infinity of forms, and are found in most quarters of the globe. From the changes which they undergo when exposed to heat, besides the fine colours they present naturally, topazes are peculiarly adapted to the purposes of the lapidary. The richest-coloured garnets are the production of Ceylon and Greenland. Chrysolites of a brilliant pale-green colour are brought to Great Britain from Constantinople; hyacinths of a deep red from Ceylon; and tourmalines of a great variety of hues from all parts of the world. The opal, and many varieties of quartz, as the amethyst, onyx, sard, cats-eye, and agate, are also occasionally included under the general denomination of gem.

Generally speaking, the different species of precious stones occur in small masses. All of them are found in a crystalline state, and present the peculiar forms which nature has assigned them. Many of these forms are singularly beautiful; and their variety, particularly in the diamond and topaz species, is as great as any other class of the mineral kingdom affords. It is not, however, under these symmetrical forms that gems are most commonly found. Most of them are the productions of India, Ceylon, Pegu, and Brazil, where, having been washed from their matrix in some of the primitive ranges, they are collected, in a rolled and rubbed state, in the channels of the rivers. Every trace of their original form is thus frequently lost; and, indeed, fine stones rarely come through the hands of Indian lapidaries without receiving further abrasion or cutting. This circumstance of their so rarely presenting distinct forms renders the peculiar hardness of this class of stones a most important characteristic, and one, whatever be their external shape or appearance, which can never be mistaken. By this means, too, the real stone is easily distinguished from the fictitious, which is occasionally made to bear so close a similitude that an unpractised eye finds it almost impossible to detect the difference. See Mineralogy.