[1] The words _gîge_, _gîgen_, _geic_ appear suddenly in the M. H.
German of the 12th century, and thence passed apparently into the
Romance languages, though some would reverse the process (e.g.
Weigand, _Deutsches Wörterbuch_). An elaborate argument in the
_Deutsches Wörterbuch_ of J. and W. Grimm (Leipzig, 1897) connects
the word with an ancient common Teut. root _gag_--meaning to sway to
and fro, as preserved in numerous forms: e.g. M.H.G _gagen_, _gugen_,
"to sway to and fro" (_gugen_, _gagen_, the rocking of a cradle), the
Swabian _gigen_, _gagen_, in the same sense, the Tirolese _gaiggern_,
to sway, doubt, or the old Norse _geiga_, to go astray or crooked.
The reference is to the swaying motion of the violin bow. The English
"jig" is derived from _gîge_ through the O. Fr. _gigue_ (in the sense
of a stringed instrument); the modern French gigue (a dance) is the
English "jig" re-imported (Hatzfeld and Darmesteter, _Dictionnaire_).
This opens up another possibility, of the origin of the name of the
instrument in the dance which it accompanied. (W. A. P.)
GEIGER, ABRAHAM (1810-1874), Jewish theologian and orientalist, was born
at Frankfort-on-Main on the 24th of May 1810, and educated at the
universities of Heidelberg and Bonn. As a student he distinguished
himself in philosophy and in philology, and at the close of his course
wrote on the relations of Judaism and Mahommedanism a prize essay which
was afterwards published in 1833 under the title _Was hat Mohammed aus
dem Judentum aufgenommen?_ (English trans. _Judaism and Islam_, Madras,
1898). In November 1832 he went to Wiesbaden as rabbi of the synagogue,
and became in 1835 one of the most active promoters of the _Zeitschrift
für jüdische Theologie_ (1835-1839 and 1842-1847). From 1838 to 1863 he
lived in Breslau, where he organized the reform movement in Judaism and
wrote some of his most important works, including _Lehr- und Lesebuch
zur Sprache der Mischna_ (1845), _Studien_ from Maimonides (1850),
translation into German of the poems of Juda ha-Levi (1851), and
_Urschrift und Übersetzungen der Bibel in ihrer Abhängigkeit von der
innern Entwickelung des Judentums_ (1857). The last-named work attracted
little attention at the time, but now enjoys a great reputation as a new
departure in the methods of studying the records of Judaism. The
_Urschrift_ has moreover been recognized as one of the most original
contributions to biblical science. In 1863 Geiger became head of the
synagogue of his native town, and in 1870 he removed to Berlin, where,
in addition to his duties as chief rabbi, he took the principal charge
of the newly established seminary for Jewish science. The _Urschrift_
was followed by a more exhaustive handling of one of its topics in _Die
Sadducäer und Pharisäer_ (1863), and by a more thorough application of
its leading principles in an elaborate history of Judaism (_Das Judentum
und seine Geschichte_) in 1865-1871. Geiger also contributed frequently
on Hebrew, Samaritan and Syriac subjects to the _Zeitschrift der
deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, and from 1862 until his death
(on the 23rd of October 1874) he was editor of a periodical entitled
_Jüdische Zeitschrift für Wissenschaft und Leben_. He also published a
Jewish prayerbook (_Israëlitisches Gebetbuch_) and a variety of minor
monographs on historical and literary subjects connected with the
fortunes of his people. (I. A.)
An _Allgemeine Einleitung_ and five volumes of _Nachgelassene Schriften_
were edited in 1875 by his son LUDWIG GEIGER (b. 1848), who in 1880 became
extraordinary professor in the university of Berlin. Ludwig Geiger
published a large number of biographical and literary works and made a
special study of German humanism. He edited the _Goethe-Jahrbuch_ from
1880, _Vierteljahrsschrift für Kultur und Litteratur der Renaissance_
(1885-1886), _Zeitschr. für die Gesch. der Juden im Deutschland_
(1886-1891), _Zeitschr. für vergleichende Litteraturgeschichte und
Renaissance-Litteratur_ (1887-1891). Among his works are _Johann Reuchlin,
sein Leben und seine Werke_ (Leipzig, 1871); and _Johann Reuchlin's
Briefwechsel_ (Tübingen, 1875); _Renaissance und Humanismus in Italien und
Deutschland_ (1882, 2nd ed. 1901); _Gesch. des geistigen Lebens der
preussischen Hauptstadt_ (1892-1894); _Berlin's geistiges Leben_
(1894-1896).
See also J. Derenbourg in _Jüd. Zeitschrift_, xi. 299-308; E.
Schrieber, _Abraham Geiger als Reformator des Judentums_ (1880), art.
(with portrait) in _Jewish Encyclopedia_.
Abraham Geiger's nephew LAZARUS GEIGER (1829-1870), philosopher and
philologist, born at Frankfort-on-Main, was destined to commerce, but
soon gave himself up to scholarship and studied at Marburg, Bonn and
Heidelberg. From 1861 till his sudden death in 1870 he was professor in
the Jewish high school at Frankfort. His chief aim was to prove that the
evolution of human reason is closely bound up with that of language. He
further maintained that the origin of the Indo-Germanic language is to
be sought not in Asia but in central Germany. He was a convinced
opponent of rationalism in religion. His chief work was his _Ursprung
und Entwickelung der menschlichen Sprache und Vernunft_ (vol. i.,
Stuttgart, 1868), the principal results of which appeared in a more
popular form as _Der Ursprung der Sprache_ (Stuttgart, 1869 and 1878).
The second volume of the former was published in an incomplete form
(1872, 2nd ed. 1899) after his death by his brother Alfred Geiger, who
also published a number of his scattered papers as _Zur Entwickelung der
Menschheit_ (1871, 2nd ed. 1878; Eng. trans. D. Asher, _Hist. of the
Development of the Human Race_, Lond., 1880).
See L.A. Rosenthal, _Laz. Geiger: seine Lehre vom Ursprung d. Sprache
und Vernunft und sein Leben_ (Stuttgart, 1883); E. Peschier, _L.
Geiger, sein Leben und Denken_ (1871); J. Keller, _L. Geiger und d.
Kritik d. Vernunft_ (Wertheim, 1883) and _Der Ursprung d. Vernunft_
(Heidelberg, 1884).
GEIJER, ERIK GUSTAF (1783-1847), Swedish historian, was born at Ransäter
in Värmland, on the 12th of January 1783, of a family that had
immigrated from Austria in the 17th century. He was educated at the
university of Upsala, where in 1803 he carried off the Swedish Academy's
great prize for his _Äreminne öfver Sten Sture den äldre_. He graduated
in 1806, and in 1810 returned from a year's residence in England to
become _docent_ in his university. Soon afterwards he accepted a post in
the public record office at Stockholm, where, with some friends, he
founded the "Gothic Society," to whose organ _Iduna_ he contributed a
number of prose essays and the songs _Manhem_, _Vikingen_, _Den siste
kämpen_, _Den siste skalden_, _Odalbonden_, _Kolargossen_, which he set
to music. About the same time he issued a volume of hymns, of which
several are inserted in the Swedish Psalter.
Geijer's lyric muse was soon after silenced by his call to be assistant
to Erik Michael Fant, professor of history at Upsala, whom he succeeded
in 1817. In 1824 he was elected a member of the Swedish Academy. A
single volume of a great projected work, _Svea Rikes Häfder_, itself a
masterly critical examination of the sources of Sweden's legendary
history, appeared in 1825. Geijer's researches in its preparation had
severely strained his health, and he went the same year on a tour
through Denmark and part of Germany, his impressions from which are
recorded in his _Minnen_. In 1832-1836 he published three volumes of his
_Svenska folkets historia_ (Eng. trans. by J.H. Turner, 1845), a clear
view of the political and social development of Sweden down to 1654. The
acute critical insight, just thought, and finished historical art of
these incomplete works of Geijer entitle him to the first place among
Swedish historians. His chief other historical and political writings
are his _Teckning af Sveriges tillsånd_ 1718-1772 (Stockholm, 1838), and
_Feodalism och republikanism, ett bidrag till Samhällsförfattningens
historia_ (1844), which led to a controversy with the historian Anders
Fryxell regarding the part played in history by the Swedish aristocracy.
Geijer also edited, with the aid of J.H. Schröder, a continuation of
Fant's _Scriptores rerum svecicarum medii aevi_ (1818-1828), and, by
himself, Thomas Thorild's _Samlade skrifter_ (1819-1825), and _Konung
Gustaf III_.'s _efterlemnade Papper_ (4 vols., 1843-1846). Geijer's
academic lectures, of which the last three, published in 1845 under the
title _Om vår tids inre samhällsforhållanden, i synnerhet med afseende
på Fäderneslandet_, involved him in another controversy with Fryxell,
but exercised a great influence over his students, who especially
testified to their attachment after the failure of a prosecution against
him for heresy. A number of his extempore lectures, recovered from
notes, were published in 1856. He also wrote a life of Charles XIV.
(Stockholm, 1844). Failing health forced Geijer to resign his chair in
1846, after which he removed to Stockholm for the purpose of completing
his _Svenska folkets historia_, and died there on the 23rd of April
1847. His _Samlade skrifter_ (13 vols., 1840-1855; new ed., 1873-1877)
include a large number of philosophical and political essays contributed
to reviews, particularly to _Litteraturbladet_ (1838-1839), a periodical
edited by himself, which attracted great attention in its day by its
pronounced liberal views on public questions, a striking contrast to
those he had defended in 1828-1830, when, as again in 1840-1841, he
represented Upsala University in the Swedish diet. His poems were
collected and published as _Skaldestycken_ (Upsala, 1835 and 1878).
Geijer's style is strong and manly. His genius bursts out in sudden
flashes that light up the dark corners of history. A few strokes, and a
personality stands before us instinct with life. His language is at once
the scholar's and the poet's; with his profoundest thought there beats
in unison the warmest, the noblest, the most patriotic heart. Geijer
came to the writing of history fresh from researches in the whole field
of Scandinavian antiquity, researches whose first-fruits are garnered in
numerous articles in _Iduna_, and his masterly treatise _Om den gamla
nordiska folkvisan_, prefixed to the collection of Svenska folkvisor
which he edited with A.A. Afzelius (3 vols., 1814-1816). The development
of freedom is the idea that gives unity to all his historical writings.
For Geijer's biography, see his own _Minnen_ (1834), which contains
copious extracts from his letters and diaries; B.E. Malmström,
_Minnestal öfver E.G. Geijer_, addressed to the Upsala students (June
6, 1848), and printed among his _Tal och esthetiska afhandlingar_
(1868), and _Grunddragen af Svenska vitterhetens häfder_ (1866-1868);
and S.A. Hollander, _Minne af E.G. Geijer_ (Örebro, 1869). See also
lives of Geijer by J. Hellstenius (Stockholm, 1876) and J. Niekson
(Odense, 1902).
GEIKIE, SIR ARCHIBALD (1835- ), Scottish geologist, was born at
Edinburgh on the 28th of December 1835. He was educated at the high
school and university of Edinburgh, and in 1855 was appointed an
assistant on the Geological Survey. Wielding the pen with no less
facility than the hammer, he inaugurated his long list of works with
_The Story of a Boulder; or, Gleanings from the Note-Book of a
Geologist_ (1858). His ability at once attracted the notice of his
chief, Sir Roderick Murchison, with whom he formed a lifelong
friendship, and whose biographer he subsequently became. With Murchison
some of his earliest work was done on the complicated regions of the
Highland schists; and the small geological map of Scotland published in
1862 was their joint work: a larger map was issued by Geikie in 1892. In
1863 he published an important essay "On the Phenomena of the Glacial
Drift of Scotland," _Trans. Geol. Soc. Glasgow_, in which the effects of
ice action in that country were for the first time clearly and
connectedly delineated. In 1865 appeared Geikie's _Scenery of Scotland_
(3rd edition, 1901), which was, he claimed, "the first attempt to
elucidate in some detail the history of the topography of a country." In
the same year he was elected F.R.S. At this time the Edinburgh school of
geologists--prominent among them Sir Andrew Ramsay, with his _Physical
Geology and Geography of Great Britain_--were maintaining the supreme
importance of denudation in the configuration of land-surfaces, and
particularly the erosion of valleys by the action of running water.
Geikie's book, based on extensive personal knowledge of the country, was
an able contribution to the doctrines of the Edinburgh school, of which
he himself soon began to rank as one of the leaders.
In 1867, when a separate branch of the Geological Survey was established
for Scotland, he was appointed director. On the foundation of the
Murchison professorship of geology and mineralogy at the university of
Edinburgh in 1871, he became the first occupant of the chair. These two
appointments he continued to hold till 1881, when he succeeded Sir
Andrew Ramsay in the joint offices of director-general of the Geological
Survey of the United Kingdom and director of the museum of practical
geology, London, from which he retired in February 1901. A feature of
his tenure of office was the impetus given to microscopic petrography, a
branch of geology to which he had devoted special study, by a splendid
collection of sections of British rocks. Later he wrote two important
and interesting Survey Memoirs, _The Geology of Central and Western Fife
and Kinross_ (1900), and _The Geology of Eastern Fife_ (1902).
From the outset of his career, when he started to investigate the
geology of Skye and other of the Western Isles, he took a keen interest
in volcanic geology, and in 1871 he brought before the Geological
Society of London an outline of the Tertiary volcanic history of
Britain. Many difficult problems, however, remained to be solved. Here
he was greatly aided by his extensive travels, not only throughout
Europe, but in western America. While the canyons of the Colorado
confirmed his long-standing views on erosion, the eruptive regions of
Wyoming, Montana and Utah supplied him with valuable data in explanation
of volcanic phenomena. The results of his further researches were given
in an elaborate and charmingly written essay on "The History of Volcanic
Action during the Tertiary Period in the British Isles," _Trans. Roy.
Soc. Edin._, (1888). His mature views on volcanic geology were given to
the world in his presidential addresses to the Geological Society in
1891 and 1892, and afterwards embodied in his great work on _The Ancient
Volcanoes of Great Britain_ (1897). Other results of his travels are
collected in his _Geological Sketches at Home and Abroad_ (1882).
His experience as a field geologist resulted in an admirable text-book,
_Outlines of Field Geology_ (5th edition, 1900). After editing and
practically re-writing Jukes's _Student's Manual of Geology_ in 1872, he
published in 1882 a _Text-Book_ and in 1886 a _Class-Book_ of geology,
which have taken rank as standard works of their kind. A fourth edition
of his _Text-Book_, in two vols., was issued in 1903. His writings are
marked in a high degree by charm of style and power of vivid
description. His literary ability has given him peculiar qualifications
as a writer of scientific biography, and the _Memoir of Edward Forbes_
(with G. Wilson), and those of his old chiefs, Sir R.I. Murchison (2
vols., 1875) and Sir Andrew Crombie Ramsay (1895), are models of what
such works should be. His _Founders of Geology_ consists of the
inaugural course of Lectures (founded by Mrs G.H. Williams) at Johns
Hopkins University, Baltimore, delivered in 1897. In 1897 he issued an
admirable _Geological Map of England and Wales, with Descriptive Notes_.
In 1898 he delivered the Romanes Lectures, and his address was published
under the title of _Types of Scenery and their Influence on Literature_.
The study of geography owes its improved position in Great Britain
largely to his efforts. Among his works on this subject is _The Teaching
of Geography_ (1887). His _Scottish Reminiscences_ (1904) and _Landscape
in History and other Essays_ (1905) are charmingly written and full of
instruction. He was foreign secretary of the Royal Society from 1890 to
1894, joint secretary from 1903 to 1908, president in 1909, president of
the Geological Society in 1891 and 1892, and president of the British
Association, 1892. He received the honour of knighthood in 1891.
GEIKIE, JAMES (1839- ), Scottish geologist, younger brother of Sir
Archibald Geikie, was born at Edinburgh on the 23rd of August 1839. He
was educated at the high school and university of Edinburgh. He served
on the Geological Survey from 1861 until 1882, when he succeeded his
brother as Murchison professor of geology and mineralogy at the
university of Edinburgh. He took as his special subject of investigation
the origin of surface-features, and the part played in their formation
by glacial action. His views are embodied in his chief work, _The Great
Ice Age and its Relation to the Antiquity of Man_ (1874; 3rd ed., 1894).
He was elected F.R.S. in 1875. James Geikie became the leader of the
school that upholds the all-important action of land-ice, as against
those geologists who assign chief importance to the work of pack-ice and
icebergs. Continuing this line of investigation in his _Prehistoric
Europe_ (1881), he maintained the hypothesis of five inter-Glacial
periods in Great Britain, and argued that the palaeolithic deposits of
the Pleistocene period were not post- but inter- or pre-Glacial. His
_Fragments of Earth Lore: Sketches and Addresses, Geological and
Geographical_ (1893) and _Earth Sculpture_ (1898) are mainly concerned
with the same subject. His _Outlines of Geology_ (1886), a standard
text-book of its subject, reached its third edition in 1896; and in 1905
he published an important manual on _Structural and Field Geology_. In
1887 he displayed another side of his activity in a volume of _Songs and
Lyrics by H. Heine and other German Poets, done into English Verse_.
From 1888 he was honorary editor of the _Scottish Geographical
Magazine_.
GEIKIE, WALTER (1795-1837), Scottish painter, was born at Edinburgh on
the 9th of November 1795. In his second year he was attacked by a
nervous fever by which he permanently lost the faculty of hearing, but
through the careful attention of his father he was enabled to obtain a
good education. Before he had the advantage of the instruction of a
master he had attained considerable proficiency in sketching both
figures and landscapes from nature, and in 1812 he was admitted into the
drawing academy of the board of Scottish manufactures. He first
exhibited in 1815, and was elected an associate of the Royal Scottish
Academy in 1831, and a fellow in 1834. He died on the 1st of August
1837, and was interred in the Greyfriars churchyard, Edinburgh. Owing to
his want of feeling for colour, Geikie was not a successful painter in
oils, but he sketched in India ink with great truth and humour the
scenes and characters of Scottish lower-class life in his native city. A
series of etchings which exhibit very high excellence were published by
him in 1829-1831, and a collection of eighty-one of these was
republished posthumously in 1841, with a biographical introduction by
Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Bart.
GEILER (or GEYLER) VON KAISERSBERG, JOHANN (1445-1510), "the German
Savonarola," one of the greatest of the popular preachers of the 15th
century, was born at Schaffhausen on the 16th of March 1445, but from
1448 passed his childhood and youth at Kaisersberg in Upper Alsace, from
which place his current designation is derived. In 1460 he entered the
university of Freiburg in Baden, where, after graduation, he lectured
for some time on the _Sententiae_ of Peter Lombard, the commentaries of
Alexander of Hales, and several of the works of Aristotle. A living
interest in theological subjects, awakened by the study of John Gerson,
led him in 1471 to the university of Basel, a centre of attraction to
some of the most earnest spirits of the time. Made a doctor of theology
in 1475, he received a professorship at Freiburg in the following year;
but his tastes, no less than the spirit of the age, began to incline him
more strongly to the vocation of a preacher, while his fervour and
eloquence soon led to his receiving numerous invitations to the larger
towns. Ultimately he accepted in 1478 a call to the cathedral of
Strassburg, where he continued to work with few interruptions until
within a short time of his death on the 10th of March 1510. The
beautiful pulpit erected for him in 1481 in the nave of the cathedral,
when the chapel of St Lawrence had proved too small, still bears witness
to the popularity he enjoyed as a preacher in the immediate sphere of
his labours, and the testimonies of Sebastian Brant, Beatus Rhenanus,
Johann Reuchlin, Melanchthon and others show how great had been the
influence of his personal character. His sermons--bold, incisive,
denunciatory, abounding in quaint illustrations and based on texts by no
means confined to the Bible,--taken down as he spoke them, and
circulated (sometimes without his knowledge or consent) by his friends,
told perceptibly on the German thought as well as on the German speech
of his time.
Among the many volumes published under his name only two appear to
have had the benefit of his revision, namely, _Der Seelen Paradies von
waren und volkomnen Tugenden_, and that entitled _Das irrig Schaf_. Of
the rest, probably the best-known is a series of lectures on his
friend Seb. Brant's work, _Das Narrenschiff_ or the _Navicula_ or
_Speculum fatuorum_, of which an edition was published at Strassburg
in 1511 under the following title:--_Navicula sive speculum fatuorum
praestantissimi sacrarum literarum doctoris Joannis Geiler
Keysersbergii_.
See F.W. von Ammon, _Geyler's Leben, Lehren und Predigten_ (1826); L.
Dacheux, _Un Réformateur catholique à la fin du XV^e siècle_, J.G. de
K. (Paris, 1876); R. Cruel, _Gesch. der deutschen Predigt_, pp.
538-576 (1879); P. de Lorenzi, _Geiler's ausgewählte Schriften_ (4.
vols., 1881); T.M. Lindsay, _History of the Reformation_, i. 118
(1906); and G. Kawerau in Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyklopädie_, vi. 427.
GEINITZ, HANS BRUNO (1814-1900), German geologist, was born at
Altenburg, the capital of the duchy of Saxe-Altenburg, on the 16th of
October 1814. He was educated at the universities of Berlin and Jena,
and gained the foundations of his geological knowledge under F.A.
Quenstedt. In 1837 he took the degree of Ph.D. with a thesis on the
Muschelkalk of Thuringia. In 1850 he became professor of geology and
mineralogy in the Royal Polytechnic School at Dresden, and in 1857 he
was made director of the Royal Mineralogical and Geological Museum; he
held these posts until 1894. He was distinguished for his researches on
the Carboniferous and Cretaceous rocks and fossils of Saxony, and in
particular for those relating to the fauna and flora of the Permian or
Dyas formation. He described also the graptolites of the local Silurian
strata; and the flora of the Coal-formation of Altai and Nebraska. From
1863 to 1878 he was one of the editors of the _Neues Jahrbuch_. He was
awarded the Murchison medal by the Geological Society of London in 1878.
He died at Dresden on the 28th of January 1900. His son FRANZ EUGENE
GEINITZ (b. 1854), professor of geology in the university of Rostock,
became distinguished for researches on the geology of Saxony,
Mecklenburg, &c.
H.B. Geinitz's publications were _Das Quadersandsteingebirge oder
Kreidegebirge in Deutschland_ (1849-1850); _Die Versteinerungen der
Steinkohlenformation in Sachsen_ (1855); _Dyas, oder die
Zechsteinformation und das Rothliegende_ (1861-1862); _Das
Elbthalgebirge in Sachsen_ (1871-1875).
GEISHA (a Chino-Japanese word meaning "person of pleasing
accomplishments"), strictly the name of the professional dancing and
singing girls of Japan. The word is, however, often loosely used for the
girls and women inhabiting Shin Yoshiwara, the prostitutes' quarter of
Tokyo. The training of the true Geisha or singing girl, which includes
lessons in dancing, begins often as early as her seventh year. Her
apprenticeship over, she contracts with her employer for a number of
years, and is seldom able to reach independence except by marriage.
There is a capitation fee of two _yen_ per month on the actual singing
girls, and of one _yen_ on the apprentices.
See Jukichi Inouye, _Sketches of Tokyo Life_.
GEISLINGEN, a town of Germany in the kingdom of Württemberg, on the
Thierbach, 38 m. by rail E.S.E. of Stuttgart. Pop. (1905) 7050. It has
shops for the carving and turning of bone, ivory, wood and horn, besides
iron-works, machinery factories, glass-works, brewing and bleaching
works, &c. The church of St Mary contains wood-carving by Jörg Syrlin
the Younger. Above the town lie the ruins of the castle of Helfenstein,
which was destroyed in 1552. Having been for a few years in the
possession of Bavaria, the town passed to Württemberg in 1810.
See Weitbrecht, _Wanderungen durch Geislingen und seine Umgebung_
(Stuttgart, 1896).
GEISSLER, HEINRICH (1814-1879), German physicist, was born at the
village of Igelshieb in Saxe-Meiningen on the 26th of May 1814 and was
educated as a glass-blower. In 1854 he settled at Bonn, where he
speedily gained a high reputation for his skill and ingenuity of
conception in the fabrication of chemical and physical apparatus. With
Julius Plücker, in 1852, he ascertained the maximum density of water to
be at 3.8° C. He also determined the coefficient of expansion for ice
between -24° and -7°, and for water freezing at 0°. In 1869, in
conjunction with H.P.J. Vogelsang, he proved the existence of liquid
carbon dioxide in cavities in quartz and topaz, and later he obtained
amorphous from ordinary phosphorus by means of the electric current. He
is best known as the inventor of the sealed glass tubes which bear his
name, by means of which are exhibited the phenomena accompanying the
discharge of electricity through highly rarefied vapours and gases.
Among other apparatus contrived by him were a vaporimeter, mercury
air-pump, balances, normal thermometer, and areometer. From the
university of Bonn, on the occasion of its jubilee in 1868, he received
the honorary degree of doctor of philosophy. He died at Bonn on the 24th
of January 1879.
See A.W. Hofmann, _Ber. d. deut. chem. Ges._ p. 148 (1879).
GELA, a city of Sicily, generally and almost certainly identified with
the modern Terranova (q.v.). It was founded by Cretan and Rhodian
colonists in 688 B.C., and itself founded Acragas (see AGRIGENTUM) in
582 B.C. It also had a treasure-house at Olympia. The town took its name
from the river to the east (Thucydides vi. 2), which in turn was so
called from its winter frost ([gamma][epsilon][lambda][alpha] in the
Sicel dialect; cf. Lat. _gelidus_). The Rhodian settlers called it
Lindioi (see LINDUS). Gela enjoyed its greatest prosperity under
Hippocrates (498-491 B.C.), whose dominion extended over a considerable
part of the island. Gelon, who seized the tyranny on his death, became
master of Syracuse in 485 B.C., and transferred his capital thither with
half the inhabitants of Gela, leaving his brother Hiero to rule over the
rest. Its prosperity returned, however, after the expulsion of
Thrasybulus in 466 B.C.,[1] but in 405 it was besieged by the
Carthaginians and abandoned by Dionysius' order, after his failure
(perhaps due to treachery) to drive the besiegers away (E.A. Freeman,
_Hist. of Sic._ iii. 562 seq.). The inhabitants later returned and
rebuilt the town, but it never regained its position. In 311 B.C.
Agathocles put to death 5000 of its inhabitants; and finally, after its
destruction by the Mamertines about 281 B.C., Phintias of Agrigentum
transferred the remainder to the new town of Phintias (now Licata,
q.v.). It seems that in Roman times they still kept the name of Gelenses
or Geloi in their new abode (Th. Mommsen in _C.I.L._ x., Berlin, 1883,
p. 737). (T. As.)