the former seems to have a permanently black tail, and the latter a tail the four middle feathers of which are blackish-brown with white shafts.
Apparently inseparable from the gannets generically are the smaller birds well known to sailors as boobies, from the extraordinary stupidity they commonly display. They differ, however, in having no median stripe of bare skin down the front of the throat; they almost invariably breed upon trees and are inhabitants of warmer climates. One of them, S. cyanops, when adult has much of the aspect of a gannet, but S. piscator is readily distinguishable by its red legs, and S. leucogaster by its upper plumage and neck of deep brown. These three are widely distributed within the tropics, and are in some places exceedingly abundant. The fourth, S. variegata, which seems to preserve throughout its life the spotted suit characteristic of the immature S. bassana, has a much more limited range, being as yet only known from the coast of Peru, where it is one of the birds which contribute to the formation of guano. (A. N.)
GANODONTA (so named from the presence of bands of enamel
on the teeth), a group of specialized North American Lower and
Middle Eocene mammals of uncertain affinity. The group
includes Hemiganus, Psittacotherium and Conoryctes from the
Puerco, Calamodon and Hemiganus from the Wasatch, and
Stylinodon from the Bridger Eocene. With the exception of
Conoryctes, in which it is longer, the skull is short and suggests
affinity to the sloths, as does what little is known of the limb-bones.
The dentition, too, is of a type which might well be
considered ancestral to that of the Edentata. For instance, the
molars when first developed have tritubercular summits, but
these soon become worn away, leaving tall columnar crowns,
with a subcircular surface of dentine exposed at the summit of
each. Moreover, while the earlier types have a comparatively
full series of teeth, all of which are rooted and invested with
enamel, in the later forms the incisors are lost, the cheek-teeth
never develop roots but grow continuously throughout life.
These and other features induced Dr J. L. Wortman to regard
the Ganodonta as an ancestral suborder of Edentata; but this
view is not accepted by Prof. W. B. Scott. Teeth provisionally
assigned to Calamodon have been obtained from the Lower
Tertiary deposits of Switzerland.
See J. L. Wortman, “The Ganodonta and their Relationship to the Edentata,” Bull. Amer. Mus. vol. ix. p. 59 (1897); W. B. Scott, “Mammalia of the Santa Cruz Beds, Edentata,” Rep. Princeton Exped. to Patagonia, vol. v. (1903–1904). (R. L.*)
GANS, EDUARD (1797–1839), German jurist, was born at
Berlin on the 22nd of March 1797, of prosperous Jewish parents.
He studied law first at Berlin, then at Göttingen, and finally at
Heidelberg, where he attended Hegel’s lectures, and became
thoroughly imbued with the principles of the Hegelian philosophy.
In 1820, after taking his doctor’s degree, he returned to Berlin
as lecturer on law. In 1825 he turned Christian, and the following
year was appointed extraordinary, and in 1828 ordinary, professor
in the Berlin faculty of law. At this period the historical school
of jurisprudence was coming to the front, and Gans, predisposed
owing to his Hegelian tendencies to treat law historically, applied
the method to one special branch—the right of succession. His
great work, Erbrecht in weltgeschichtlicher Entwicklung (1824,
1825, 1829 and 1835), is of permanent value, not only for its
extensive survey of facts, but for the admirable manner in which
the general theory of the slow evolution of legal principles is
presented. In 1830, and again in 1835, Gans visited Paris, and
formed an intimate acquaintance with the leaders of literary
culture and criticism there. The liberality of his views, especially
on political matters, drew upon Gans the displeasure of the
Prussian government, and his course of lectures on the history of
the last fifty years (published as Vorlesungen über d. Geschichte
d. letzten fünfzig Jahre, Leipzig, 1833–1834) was prohibited. He
died at Berlin on the 5th of May 1839. In addition to the works
above mentioned, there may be noted the treatise on the fundamental
laws of property (Über die Grundlage des Besitzes, Berlin,
1829), a portion of a systematic work on the Roman civil law
(System des römischen Civil-Rechts, 1827), and a collection of his
miscellaneous writings (Vermischte Schriften, 1832). Gans edited
the Philosophie der Geschichte in Hegel’s Werke, and contributed
an admirable preface.
See Revue des deux mondes (Dec. 1839).
GÄNSBACHER, JOHANN BAPTIST (1778–1844), Austrian
musical composer, was born in 1778 at Sterzing in Tirol. His
father, a schoolmaster and teacher of music, undertook his son’s
early education, which the boy continued under various masters
till 1802, when he became the pupil of the celebrated Abbé G. J.
Vogler. To his connexion with this artist and with his fellow-pupils,
more perhaps than to his own merits, Gänsbacher’s
permanent place in the history of music is due; for it was during
his second stay with Vogler, then (1810) living at Darmstadt,
that he became acquainted with Weber and Meyerbeer, and the
close friendship which sprang up among the three young
musicians, and was dissolved by death only, has become celebrated
in the history of their art. But Gänsbacher was himself
by no means without merit. He creditably filled the responsible
and difficult post of director of the music at St Stephen’s
cathedral, Vienna, from 1823 till his death (July 13, 1844); and
his compositions show high gifts and accomplishment. They
consist chiefly of church music, 17 masses, besides litanies,
motets, offertories, &c., being amongst the number. He also
wrote several sonatas, a symphony, and one or two minor compositions
of a dramatic kind.
GANTÉ, a cloth made from cotton or tow warp and jute weft.
It is largely used for bags for sugar and similar material, and has
the appearance of a fine hessian cloth.
GANYMEDE, in Greek mythology, son of Tros, king of
Dardania, and Callirrhoë. He was the most beautiful of mortals,
and was carried off by the gods (in the later story by Zeus himself,
or by Zeus in the form of an eagle) to Olympus to serve as cup-bearer
(Apollodorus iii. 12; Virgil, Aeneid, v. 254; Ovid,
Metam. x. 255). By way of compensation, Zeus presented his
father with a team of immortal horses (or a golden vine).
Ganymede was afterwards regarded as the genius of the fountains
of the Nile, the life-giving and fertilizing river, and identified by
astronomers with the Aquarius of the zodiac. Thus the divinity
that distributed drink to the gods in heaven became the genius
who presided over the due supply of water on earth. When
pederasty became common in Greece, an attempt was made to
justify it and invest it with dignity by referring to the rape of the
beautiful boy by Zeus; in Crete, where the love of boys was
reduced to a system, Minos, the primitive ruler and law-giver,
was said to have been the ravisher of Ganymede. Thus the name
which once denoted the good genius who bestowed the precious
gift of water upon man was adopted to this use in vulgar Latin
under the form Catamitus. Ganymede being carried off by the
eagle was the subject of a bronze group by the Athenian sculptor
Leochares, imitated in a marble statuette in the Vatican. E.
Veckenstedt (Ganymedes, Libau, 1881) endeavours to prove that
Ganymede is the genius of intoxicating drink (μέθυ, mead, for
which he postulates a form μῆδος), whose original home was
Phrygia.
See article by P. Weizsäcker in Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie. In the article Greek Art, fig. 53 (Pl. I.) gives an illustration of Ganymede borne aloft by an eagle.
GAO, Gao-Gao, or Garo, a town of French West Africa, in the
Upper Senegal and Niger colony, on the left bank of the Niger,
400 m. by river below Timbuktu. Pop. about 5000. The
present town dates from the French occupation in 1900; of the
ancient city there are scanty ruins, the chief being a truncated
pyramid, the remains of the tomb (16th century) of Mahommed
Askia, the Songhoi conqueror, and those of the great mosque.
According to tradition a city stood on this spot in very ancient
times and its inhabitants are said to have had intercourse with
the Egyptians. It is known, however, that the city of which the
French settlement is the successor was founded by the Songhoi,
probably in the 7th or 8th century, and became the capital of
their empire. Garo (Ga-rho) appears to have been the correct
name of the Songhoi city, though it was also known as Gogo and
Kuku (Kaougha).[1] In the 12th century Idrisi describes Kuku as
- ↑ There was another city called Kaoka or Gaoga east of Lake Chad in the country now known as Bagirmi. It was the seat of the
