[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Cavendish's Apparatus.
h h, torsion rod hung by wire l g,; x, x, attracted balls hung from its
ends; WW, attracting 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 [theta] 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 [mu] be the couple required to twist the rod
through 1 radian. Then [mu][theta] = 4GMma/d^2. But [mu] 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
[mu] = 4[pi]^2I/T^2, whence G = [pi]^2d^2I[theta]/T^2Mma, or putting
the result in terms of the mean density of the earth [Delta] it is
easy to show that, if L, the length of the seconds pendulum, is put
for g/[pi]^2, and C for 2[pi]R, the earth's circumference, then
L Mma T^2
[Delta] = (3/2) -- ---- -------.
C d^2I [theta]
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 [Delta] = 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 uber 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 [Delta] = 5.49. In 1852 he
published an account of further work giving as result [Delta]= 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 [delta] the distance
through which the ball is pulled. If a is the half length of the
torsion rod and [theta] the deflection, [delta] = a[theta]. 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
[delta]/d = a[theta]/d = (T1 - T2)/(T1 + T2).
This gives a value of [theta] which may be used in the formula. The
experiments by this method were not consistent, and the mean result
was [Delta] = 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
[Delta] show a variation with the nature of the attracted masses and a
variation with the temperature. His final result [Delta] = 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 [Delta] = 5.56.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Diagram of a Section of Professor Boys's
Apparatus.]
_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 [mu],
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 deg. 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 [Delta] = 5.527; G = 6.658 X
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_ (_Theses presentees a la faculte des
sciences de Paris pour obtenir le titre de docteur de l'universite 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 [Delta] = 5.55 and G = 6.64 X 10^-8.
_Eotvos'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. Eotvos 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 Eotvos was able
to deduce G = 6.65 X 10^-8 whence [Delta] = 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 [Delta] = 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/R^2. 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 [delta]w. Then [delta]w = GMm/d^2. Dividing we obtain [delta]w/w =
MR^2/Ed^2, whence E = MR^2w/d^2[delta]w; and since g = GE/R^2, 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,
S36), 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
[Delta] = 5.692.
_Experiment of Richarz and Krigar-Menzel_ (_Anhang zu den Abhand. der k.
preuss. Akad. der Wiss. zu Berlin_, 1898).--In 1884 A. Konig 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 [Delta] = 5.05 and G = 6.685 X 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 1/2 mgm.
The difference, 4/5 mgm., was due entirely to change in distance of the
attracted masses. After all corrections the results gave [Delta] = 5.493
and G = 6.698 X 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
_Mean density of the earth_ [Delta] = 5.527
_Constant of gravitation_ G = 6.658 X 10^-8.
Probably [Delta] = 5.53 and G = 6.66 X 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 _grane_, 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 protegee, 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 Peyriere, 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-Saone, situated on the declivity of a hill on the
left bank of the Saone, 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, Besancon and Culmont-Chalindrey. The principal
buildings are the Gothic church, restored in the style of the
Renaissance but with a modern portal, and the hotel de ville, built by
the Spaniards in 1568. The latter building has a handsome facade
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 Besancon.
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 _Asche_ 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 lb. 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 graces sur la riviere 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 Schockel (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 Kustenland 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
Koflach 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 Grun, 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,
_Ruckblicke 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 deg.);
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. Fremont 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 deg. and 67 deg. N., and 117 deg. and 123 deg. 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 7-1/2 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.