time, to temper his Flemish style by studying the masterpieces of Santi and Melozzo, and so to acquire the mixed manner of the Flemings and Italians which these portraits of worthies display. Such an assimilation, if it really took place, might justify the Flemings in the indulgence of a certain pride, considering that Raphael not only admired these worthies, but copied them in the sketch-book which is now the ornament of the Venetian Academy. There is no ground for presuming that Giusto ad Guanto is identical with Justus d’Allamagna who painted the “Annunciation” (1451) in the cloisters of Santa Maria di Castello at Genoa. The drawing and colouring of this wall painting shows that Justus d’Allamagna was as surely a native of south Germany as his homonym at Urbino was a born Netherlander.
GIVET, a town of northern France, in the department of
Ardennes, 40 m. N. by E. of Mézières on the Eastern railway
between the town and Namur. Pop. (1906) town, 5110;
commune, 7468. Givet lies on the Meuse about 1 m. from the
Belgian frontier, and was formerly a fortress of considerable
importance. It is divided into three portions—the citadel
called Charlemont and Grand Givet on the left bank of the river,
and on the opposite bank Petit Givet, connected with Grand
Givet by a stone bridge of five arches. The fortress of Charlemont,
situated at the top of a precipitous rock 705 ft. high, was
founded by the emperor Charles V. in the 16th century, and
further fortified by Vauban at the end of the 17th century; it
is the only survival of the fortifications of the town, the rest
of which were destroyed in 1892. In Grand Givet there are a
church and a town-hall built by Vauban, and a statue of the
composer Étienne Méhul stands in the fine square named after
him. Petit Givet, the industrial quarter, is traversed by a
small tributary of the Meuse, the Houille, which is bordered by
tanneries and glue factories. Pencils and tobacco-pipes are
also manufactured. The town has considerable river traffic,
consisting chiefly of coal, copper and stone. There is a chamber
of arts and manufactures.
GIVORS, a manufacturing town of south-eastern France, in the department of Rhône, on the railway between Lyons and St Étienne, 14 m. S. of Lyon. Pop. (1906) 11,444. It is situated on the right bank of the Rhone, here crossed by a suspension bridge, at its confluence with the Gier and the canal of Givors, which starts at Grand Croix on the Gier, some 13 m. distant. The chief industries are metal-working, engineering-construction and glass-working. There are coal mines in the vicinity. On the hill overlooking the town are the ruins of the château of St Gerald and of the convent of St Ferréol, remains of the old town destroyed in 1594.
GJALLAR, in Scandinavian mythology, the horn of Heimdall,
the guardian of the rainbow bridge by which the gods pass and
repass between earth and heaven. This horn had to be blown
whenever a stranger approached the bridge.
GLABRIO. 1. Manius Acilius Glabrio, Roman statesman and general,
member of a plebeian family. When consul in
191 B.C. he defeated Antiochus the Great of Syria at Thermopylae,
and compelled him to leave Greece. He then turned his attention
to the Aetolians, who had persuaded Antiochus to declare war
against Rome, and was only prevented from crushing them by
the intercession of T. Quinctius Flamininus. In 189 Glabrio
was a candidate for the censorship, but was bitterly opposed
by the nobles. He was accused by the tribunes of having
concealed a portion of the Syrian spoils in his own house; his
legate gave evidence against him, and he withdrew his candidature.
It is probable that he was the author of the law which
left it to the discretion of the pontiffs to insert or omit the
intercalary month of the year.
Censorinus, De die natali, xx.; Macrobius, Saturnalia, i. 13; index to Livy; Appian, Syr. 17-21.
2. Manius Acilius Glabrio, Roman statesman and general, grandson of the famous jurist P. Mucius Scaevola. When praetor urbanus (70 B.C.) he presided at the trial of Verres. According to Dio Cassius (xxxvi. 38), in conjunction with L. Calpurnius Piso, his colleague in the consulship (67), he brought forward a severe law (Lex Acilia Calpurnia) against illegal canvassing at elections. In the same year he was appointed to supersede L. Lucullus in the government of Cilicia and the command of the war against Mithradates, but as he did absolutely nothing and was unable to control the soldiery, he was in turn superseded by Pompey according to the provisions of the Manilian law. Little else is known of him except that he declared in favour of the death punishment for the Catilinarian conspirators.
Dio Cassius xxxvi. 14, 16. 24; Cicero, Pro lege Manilia, 2. 9; Appian, Mithrid. 90.
GLACE BAY, a city and port of entry of Cape Breton county, Nova Scotia, Canada, on the Atlantic Ocean, 14 m. E. of Sydney, with which it is connected both by steam and electric railway. It is the centre of the properties of the Dominion Coal Company (founded 1893), which produce most of the coal of Nova Scotia. Though it has a fair harbour, most of the shipping is done from Sydney in summer and from Louisburg in winter. Pop. (1892) 2000; (1901) 6945; (1906) 13,000.
GLACIAL PERIOD, in geology, the name usually given, by
English and American writers, to that comparatively recent
time when all parts of the world suffered a marked lowering
of temperature, accompanied in northern Europe and North
America by glacial conditions, not unlike those which now
characterize the Polar regions. This period, which is also
known as the “Great Ice Age” (German Die Eiszeit), is
synchronous with the Pleistocene period, the earlier of the Post-Tertiary
or Quaternary divisions of geological time. Although
“Glacial period” and “Pleistocene” (q.v.) are often used
synonymously it is convenient to consider them separately,
inasmuch as not a few Pleistocene formations have no causal
relationship with conditions of glaciation. Not until the beginning
of the 19th century did the deposits now generally recognized
as the result of ice action receive serious attention; the
tendency was to regard such superficial and irregular material
as mere rubbish. Early ideas upon the subject usually assigned
floods as the formative agency, and this view is still not without
its supporters (see Sir H. H. Howorth, The Glacial Nightmare and the Flood).
Doubtless this attitude was in part due to the
comparative rarity of glaciers and ice-fields where the work of
ice could be directly observed. It was natural therefore that the
first scientific references to glacial action should have been
stimulated by the Alpine regions of Switzerland, which called
forth the writings of J. J. Scheuchzer, B. F. Kuhn, H. B. de
Saussure, F. G. Hugi, and particularly those of J. Venetz, J. G.
von Charpentier and L. Aggasiz. Canon Rendu, J. Forbes
and others had studied the cause of motion of glaciers, while keen observers, notably Sir James Hall, A. Brongniart and J. Playfair, had noted the occurrence of travelled and scratched stones.
The result of these efforts was the conception of great ice-sheets flowing over the land, grinding the rock surfaces and transporting rock débris in the manner to be observed in the existing glaciers. However, before this view had become established Sir C. Lyell evolved the “drift theory” to explain the widely spread phenomenon of transported blocks, boulder clay and the allied deposits; in this he was supported by Sir H. de la Beche, Charles Darwin, Sir R. I. Murchison and many others. According to the drift theory, the transport and distribution of “erratic blocks,” &c., had been effected by floating icebergs; this view naturally involved a considerable and widespread submergence of the land, an assumption which appeared to receive support from the occasional presence of marine shells at high levels in the “drift” deposits. So great was the influence of those who favoured the drift theory that even to-day it cannot be said to have lost complete hold; we still speak of “drift” deposits in England and America, and the belief in one or more great submergences during the Glacial period is still held more firmly by certain geologists than the evidence would seem to warrant. The case against the drift theory was most clearly expressed by Sir A. C. Ramsay for England and Scotland, and by the Swedish scientist Otto Torell. Since then the labours of Professor James Geikie, Sir Archibald Geikie, Professor P. Kendall and
