derive any advantage from the extraordinary cheapness of this beautiful light.

In order to remove these limitations to the use of gas lights, and to render them available in nearly every case where lamps or candles can be used, Mr. Gordon conceived the idea of condensing a great quantity of gas into a small space, and set himself to construct a lamp in which this condensed gas could be burned with the same facility and security as an ordinary lamp. The body or reservoir of the lamp is commonly made of copper, about one-twentieth of an inch thick, in the form of a sphere or a cylinder with hemispherical ends. This reservoir may be put into a different apartment from that which is to be illuminated, or may be concealed under the table, or, when it is required to be ornamental, it may be put into a statue, or the pedestal of a statue, or may be suspended.

In order to regulate the escape of the condensed gas, Mr. Gordon has employed two different contrivances, which are extremely ingenious. The first of these is a stop-cock, constructed in the following manner :-After the cock has been drilled through, in the usual manner, the circular hole in the key is contracted at one side, by soldering into it two pieces of brass, which join at one side of the hole, and are about one-twentieth of an inch distant at the other side, forming an acute angular aperture. By this means the issue of gas can be regulated to the smallest possible stream, by bringing the acute angle of the opening in the key to communicate with the circular opening in the cock; and, as the expansibility diminishes as the gas is consumed, the aperture can be increased in the same proportion. But to secure the above object more completely, and to prevent the possibility of turning the cock suddenly, so as to admit too great a discharge of gas, a ratchet wheel is fixed in the end of the key of the cock, in which an endless screw works. By turning this screw' with the nut, the flame may be enlarged or diminished to any extent, however highly condensed the gas may be.

The second contrivance which Mr. Gordon employs to produce the same effect, is a conical leather-valve, similar to that in the reservoir of an air-gun, placed in the opening of the reservoir of the lamp, where it screws on to the condensing pump. When the reservoir has been charged with gas, and removed from the pump, a brass instrument is screwed in above the valve. Through this piece of brass there passes a fingerscrew, the point of which, when made to press on the valve, forces it back, and allows the gas to issue in any quantity that may be required. A bridge of brass, consisting of a hollow tube, in the form of a Gothic arch, passes over the head of this regulating screw, for the purpose of giving freedom to the fingers in turning the screw to regulate the flame, and to conduct the gas to the burner, which, in a standing lamp, is screwed on at the centre of the arch.

By either of these contrivances, the latter of which Mr. Gordon prefers from the simplicity of its construction, the command of the flame is so complete, that it may be reduced to an almost imperceptible quantity.

The forcing-pump by which Mr. Gordon con

denses the gas is nearly the same as that of the common condensing syringe, having a solid piston worked by a lever, with shears and a guide to produce a vertical motion. As a considerable degree of heat is created during the condensation of the gas, the pump must be kept cool by surrounding it with a case filled with water, and changing the water as soon as it becomes heated. When it is required to fill a great number of lamps with condensed gas, Mr. Gordon employs the steam engine to work the forcing pump, and the gas should be condensed into a large reservoir, from which the lamps of numerous individuals may be filled at once with the condensed gas. A mercurial gauge, similar to that used for ascertaining the force of condensed air, must be fixed to the large reservoir, for the purpose of enabling any person to see the degree of condensation to which the gas has been brought.

Although, at the first erection of gas works, the public feeling was strongly against them, on account of their supposed danger and offensive nature, this prejudice has gradually worn off. Though the danger of having large collections of gas has been rated at an enormous extent by Sir William Congreve, only one instance of the explosion of a gas-holder has happened; and this occurred in the first filling of one at Manchester, through ignorance, and the carelessness of the workmen. The atmospheric air, not having been extracted, was of course allowed to mix with the coal-gas; and one of the men, wishing to ascertain if the gas-holder was tight, applied a candle to a part, from which gas, mixed with atmospheric air, was issuing, which caused it to explode, and tear the gas-holder in pieces.

A few accidents have occurred, from the escape of gas from the pipes, but these have, in general, been produced by the carelessness of the workmen, and were of a trifling nature; for when the gas does escape, it is only when it gets into some confined place, as a vault, or a common sewer, that it can, on the approach of flame, do any mischief. Shops and apartments of a dwelling house are not close enough to keep the gas confined; but allowing them to be so, the quantity emitted is too trifling, compared to that of the air. Coal gas is most explosive when mixed with about five of air. In a room, then, of twelve feet each way, one burner, consuming five cubic feet per hour, would be sufficient to light it, but, in this apartment, there are 1728 feet, so that, to get an explosive mixture, and allowing there is no loss of gas, the burner must be left open upwards of fifty hours, or at least two days and nights, which is not likely to happen. When more lights are used, the apartments are of course larger, so that the same time would still be required. In those cases, also, in which the burners are left open, the odor of the gas gives warning of its escape; so that one of its properties, considered offensive, actually proves a valuable safe-guard.

GASCOIGNE (George), an English poet of some fame in the reign of queen Elizabeth. He was born in Essex, of an ancient family, and educated at Oxford and Cambridge. Thence he removed to Gray's Inn, but, having a genius too volatile for the law, he travelled, and for some

GASPAR STRAIT and ISLAND, a passage and island in the Eastern seas, between the east coast of the island of Banca, and the west coast of the island of Billiton. The island is high and conspicuous, about five miles long; and the strait, about fourteen leagues broad, is divided into two arms, and connects the China and Java seas. GASPE, a district and county of Lower Canada, North America, on the south side of the St. Lawrence, which lies between 64° and 66° 30′ W. long., and between 47° 20′ and 49° 10′ N. lat. It is bounded on the west by the district of Quebec, on the east and north-east by the river and gulf of St. Lawrence, and on the south by the province of New Brunswick and the bay of Chaleurs. It sends one member to the provincial parliament; and is divided into two parts by a ridge of mountains, which run northcast. The tract on the northern declivity of these mountains to the St. Lawrence is rough and barren; being almost covered with impenetrable forests. The south-east side of the ridge is also uneven and rugged in many parts. In 1808 the population amounted to 3200, and between 300 and 400 fishermen. New Carlisle is the principal town.

GASPE, a bay of the above district, in the gulf of St. Lawrence, between Cape Gaspe and Whale Head. It runs about sixteen miles into the land, and is about five miles broad. Two other inlets, called the north-west and south-west arms, penetrate from the end of it a considerable way into the interior, and receive the waters of numerous streams from the mountains. This bay is deep and well sheltered; capable of affording protection to a large number of ships. The shores are lofty.

GASPE is also the name of a cape on the coast of Canada, in the gulf of St. Lawrence. Long. 64° 10′ W., lat 48° 35′ N.

GASSENDI (Peter), a celebrated philosopher of France, was born at Chantersier in Provence, in 1592. His parents sent him to school at Digne, where he soon made such extraordinary progress in learning, that some persons, who had seen specimens of his genius, removed him to Aix, to study philosophy under Fesay, a learned minor friar. He was afterwards invited to be professor of rhetoric at Digne, before he was quite sixteen years of age; and he had been engaged in that office but three years when, Fesay dying, he was made professor in his room at Aix. There he composed his Paradoxical Exercitations; which coming to the hands of Nicholas Peiresc, Gassendi was first made canon of the church of Digne and D. D., and then obtained the rectorship of the church. Gassendi's fondness for astronomy increased with his years; and, his reputation daily increasing, he was, in 1645, appointed royal professor of mathematics at Paris. This institution being chiefly designed for astronomy, he read lectures on that science to crowded audiences. He, however, did not hold this place long; for a dangerous cough, and inflammation of the lungs, obliged him, in 1647, to return to Digne for the benefit of his native air. Gassendi combated the metaphysics of Descartes; and divided with that great man the philosophers of his time, almost all of whom were CarVOL. X.

tesians or Gassendians. He left nine volumes of his philosophical works. 1. Three on Epicurus's Philosophy, and six which contained his own. 2. Astronomical Works. 3. The Lives of Nicholas de Peiresc, Epicurus, Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Puerbachius, and Regiomontanus. 4. Epistles, and other treatises. All his works were collected together, and printed at Lyons, in 1653, in 6 vols. folio. He died at Paris, in 1655, aged sixty-three.

GASSICOURT (Charles Louis Cadet de) a modern French philosopher, and advocate, who had the singular good fortune to survive the whole of the revolution, was the son of an apothecary of Paris. M. Gassicourt first attracted notice by a pamphlet, published in 1797, on the Theory of Elections. Then followed other essays on political and miscellaneous subjects, among which was one On the Private Life of Mirabeau; St. Geran, a Critique on the New Modes of Thinking, Writing, and Speaking, introduced into France by the Changes of the Times; and others on the Influence of the Masonic Societies in the Process of the Revolution; and the Four Ages of the National Guard. About the same period appeared a volume of Travels in Normandy, and a Dramatic Sketch, pourtraying the principal characters who flourished under Louis XIV. and his successor, entitled The Supper of Moliere. On the death of his father, himself a man of scientific pursuits and the personal friend of Buffon, Lalande, and Condorcet, he seems to have diverted his attention from politics to the study of chemistry and physics. He edited his father's treatise on Domestic Pharmacy, and a Formulary on the same subject; and gave the world a New Dictionary of Chemistry, afterwards introduced into the Polytechnic school. book appeared first in 1803. He followed the French army into Austria in 1809, and subsequently wrote an account of the Campaign, during which he invented a military instrument called les baquettes. The modern plan for the organisation of the French board of health owes its origin to him, and he had not only the satisfaction of seeing it eagerly adopted, but that of obtaining the appointment of Reporting Secretary. In this capacity he continued till his death, which took place at Paris in the summer of 1823. Besides the productions enumerated, Gassicourt was the author of a series of epistles on London and the English Nation; and a treatise on the application of the Physical Science to Military Purposes. He was also a material contributor to a variety of useful and scientific publications; and assisted in founding the Lyceum, afterwards the Athenæum, at Paris.

This

GAST, Sax. gast. Vide aghast. To terrify. When he saw my best alarmed spirits Bold in the quarrel's right, roused to the encounter, Or whether gasted by the noise I made, Full suddenly he fled.

Shakspeare. King Lear. GASTEROSTEUS, the stickleback, in ichthyology, a genus of fishes belonging to the order of thoracici. There are three rays in the membrane of the gills: the body is carinated; and there are some distinct prickles before the back fin. There are thirteen species, distinguished by thenumber of prickles on the back. One of these,

C

G. aculeatus, stickleback, bansticle, or sharpling, is common in many of the British rivers. In the fens of Lincolnshire, and some rivers that proceed from them, they are found in prodigious quantities. At Spalding, once in seven or eight years, amazing shoals appear in the Welland, and come up the river in form of a vast column. They are supposed to be the multitudes that have been washed out of the fens by the floods of several years, and collected in some deep place, till, overcharged with numbers, they are periodically obliged to attempt a change of place. The quantity is so great that they are used to manure the land, and trials have been made to get oil from them. An idea may be conceived of this vast shoal, by being told that a man, having been employed by a farmer to take them, once obtained for a considerable time 4s. a day, by selling them for a halfpenny per bushel. This species is seldom two inches long: it has three sharp spines upon the back, that can be raised or depressed at pleasure. The color of the back and sides is an olive green; the belly white; but in some the lower jaws and belly are of a bright

crimson.

GASTRELL (Francis), bishop of Chester, was born in 1662, appointed preacher to the society of Lincoln's Inn in 1694, and made bishop of Chester in 1714. He preached a course of sermons for Boyle's lectures; engaged in the Trinitarian controversy with Mr. Collins and Dr. Clarke; and published two popular pieces entitled Christian Institutes, and A Moral Proof of a Future State. He also vindicated the rights of the university of Oxford against the archbishop of Canterbury, in the appointment of the warden of Manchester College; and opposed the violent proceedings against bishop Atterbury in the house of lords, though he disliked the bishop's principles. He died in 1725. GASTRIC, adj. The root of all these GASTRO'RAPHIA, N. S. words is the Gr. yasno, GASTROTOMY, n. s. the belly. It is used GASTRONOMY, N. s. in composition with pаnтw, to sow up; reuve, to cut, and νόμος, a law or rule, and in these cases refers to sewing wounds, making incisions, or laying down laws in reference to the stomach or belly.

The gastric juice of an owl, falcon, or kite, will not touch grain. Paley's Theology. GASTRIC JUICE, a thin pellucid liquor, which distils from certain glands in the stomach, for the dilution, &c., of the food.

It is soluble in water, has a slight saline taste, and is quite limpid. Its peculiar property is that of dissolving the food in the stomach into a milky liquid called chyle. After death this solvent power even acts upon the stomach itself. By evaporation it is reduced to a dry mass, which gives out in destructive distillation ammonia and empyreumatic oil, leaving carbonaceous matter, which contains muriate of soda and other neutral salts.

GASTROMANCY, GASTROMANTIA, from yasno, the belly, and pavreta, divination, a kind of divination practised among the ancients, by means of words coming, or seeming to come, out of the belly. There is another kind of gastronancy, which is performed by means of glasses,

er other round transparent vessels, within which certain figures appear by magic art. It is thus called, because the figure appears as in the belly of the vessels.

GASTUNI, a town of Greece, in the Morea, over against the island of Zante. It has a castle on the Igliaco, and contains 3000 inhabitants, who cultivate the vine, cotton, and silk, with great industry. The environs are very fertile. About six miles to the east are found the ruins of the ancient Elis. Twelve miles east of Chiarenza.

GAT, the preterite of get.

Moses gat him up into the mount.

Ex. xxiv. 13. GAT, EAST, a channel W. N. W. of the island of Walcheren, Netherlands, between the Caloot Sand and the Querns Flat. It has from four to five fathoms water.

GATA, CAPE, a promontory on the coast of Granada, Spain, forming the eastern limit of the bay of Almeria, and consisting of a mass of rocks, twenty-four miles in circuit, and thirteen in breadth. In the centre of this promontory there are four hills, called the Sacristan, the Two Friars, the Captain, and the White Mountain; and, about fifty paces from the beach, a rocky mass 200 feet high, crystallised in pieces that have four or five plates chased one within another. They are of the color of ashes, from eight to fourteen inches long, with a large grain that takes a good polish. The other side of the promontory, is called El Puerto de la Plata. Long 2° 22′ W., lat. 36° 43′ N.

GATAKER (Thomas), a learned critic and divine, born in London, in 1574. He studied at St. John's College, Cambridge, and was afterwards chosen preacher at Lincoln's Inn; which he quitted, in 1611, for the rectory of Rotherhithe. In 1620 he made a tour through the Low Countries; and, in 1624, published in London a work, entitled Transubstantiation declared by the confession of the Popish Writers to have no necessary foundation in God's Word. He wrote also a defence of this discourse. In 1642 he was appointed one of the assembly of divines, and was engaged with them in writing annotations upon the Bible. He died in July, 1654, in the eightieth year of his age. He published also, 1. A Dissertation upon the Style of the New Testament. 2. De Nomine Tetragrammata. 3. De Dipthongis, sive Bivocalibus. 4. An Edition and Transla

tion of Marcus Antoninus's Meditations. 5. A

Collection of Sermons, in folio; and many other works.

GATE, n. s.

Gate and way; Sax. geat. GATEWAY, n. s. SA frame of timber or other material upon hinges giving access to a city, castle, dwelling or field: also an avenue or opening itself.

That other gate was kept by Shame,
Whiche opened, as it was couthe
Towardes the parté of the southe.

Chaucer. Romaunt of the Rosa.
She then the cities sought from gate to gate,
And everie one did aske, did he him see.

Spenser. Faerie Queene. Auria had done nothing but wisely and politically, in setting the Venetians together by the ears with the Turks, and opening a gate for a long war.

Knolle.