300 GUESCLIN nally a slave. In the struggle for the inde- pendence of Mexico he exhibited great cour- age, and after the death of Mina became one of the leaders of the insurgents. In 1820 he entered the service of Iturbide, upon whose overthrow in 1823 he gave in his adherence to the provisional government and to the repub- lic. In 1827 he was a candidate for the presi- dency, but was defeated by Pedraza by a ma- jority of two votes in the electoral college. The partisans of Guerrero alleged that the election was carried by fraud, and rose in in- surrection. Pedraza resigned in 1829, and Guer- rero took possession of the presidency. On Sept. 15 of that year he issued a proclamation abolishing slavery. The next year, a Spanish force having invaded Mexico, dictatorial power was conferred upon Guerrero, and his troops under Santa Anna defeated the Spaniards ; but thereupon Bustamente and Santa Anna, on pretence that he ought not to have prolonged his dictatorship after the defeat of the Span- iards, revolted against Guerrero, who was deserted by his troops and compelled to take refuge in his hacienda at Tixtla. He was popular, and the people rallied to his support. He renewed the contest, but it was brought to a sudden close through the agency of a Ge- noese ship captain, who invited him to a din- ner on board his vessel at Acapulco, and be- trayed huii to his enemies. He was tried by a military commission and shot. GUESCLDT. See Du GUESCLIN. GUESS, George, or Sequoyah, a half-breed Cher- okee Indian, inventor of the Cherokee alpha- bet, born about 1770, died in San Fernando, northern Mexico, in August, 1843. He culti- vated a small farm in the Cherokee country of Georgia, and was occupied as a silversmith when in 1826 he invented a syllabic alphabet of the Cherokee language, which consisted of 85 char- acters, each representing a single sound in the language. This is probably the most perfect alphabet ever devised for any language. For the characters he used, as far as they went, those which he found in an English spelling book, although he knew no language except his own. A newspaper called the " Phoenix " was estab- lished, a part of it printed in Cherokee, using the alphabet of Guess. A part of the New Testament was also printed in this character. He was not a Christian, and is said to have re- gretted his invention when he found it used for this purpose. He accompanied his tribe in 1 1 11- ir migration beyond the Mississippi, and resided for some tune in Brainerd. In 1842 he went with other Indians into Mexico, where he was attacked by a fatal sickness. GtETTEE, Wladimlr, a French historian, born in Blois about 1815. He took orders, and was for several years a parish priest. After the revolution of 1848 he edited at Blois a journal entitled La Democratie. Subsequently he went to Paris, where he became chaplain in several hospitals, but was removed on account of his Jansenist opinions. He contributed largely to GUIANA the Observateur Catholique, the leading organ of the Gallican church. His principal works are : Histoire de VEglise de France (12 vols., 1847-'57) ; Jansenisme et jesuitisme (1857) ; Histoire des jesuites (4 vols. 8vo, 1858-'72) ; Papaute temporelle condamnee par le pape St. Gregoire le Grand (1861); Refutation de la pretendue Vie de Jesus de M. Renan (1864) ; De V Ency clique du 8 decembre, 1864 (1865); and Exposition de la ^doctrine de VEglise or- thodoxe et des autres Eglises chretiennes (1868). GUGGENBUHL, Louis, a Swiss philanthropist, born in Zurich in 1816, died Feb. 2, 1863. He took his medical degree in 1836, and then spent three years in the study of cretinism at Seruf in the canton of Glarus. In 1842 he opened a retreat for cretins at ' Abendberg, above Interlaken. At first he encountered some opposition from the government in con- sequence of having substituted Protestants for the sisters of mercy who had been originally employed, but afterward had great success, and showed that the condition of many of the cretins is susceptible of improvement. The institution established by him was abandoned after his death. He published a treatise (Ba- sel, 1851) and various pamphlets on cretinism. GUAM, Guyana, or Gnayana. I. An extensive territory on the N. E. coast of South America, comprising three distinct colonies, viz. : British, Dutch, and French Guiana. It lies between lat. 55' and 8 40' N., and Ion. 51 30' and 61 W., and is bounded N. by the Atlantic, E. and S. by Brazil, from which it is separated by the Oyapok river and the Tumucuraque and Acaray mountains, and W. by Brazil and the Venezuelan province of Guayana; area esti- mated at 195,000 sq. m. ; pop. about 280,000. The coast line is about 740 m. long. The shore is skirted with mud banks, the water on which gradually decreases in depth toward the beach ; which circumstance, added to the absence of landmarks, and the existence of rocks, bars of mud, and quicksands at the mouths of the rivers, renders the approach difficult for all craft, and impossible for vessels drawing more than 12 ft., these being obliged to moor 3 m. from shore. The level of the coast region, from Ion. 54 to 61, normally corresponding to that of the sea at high water, sinks at least one foot when the lands are drained and cultivated, so that the water can only be kept back by means of embankments and sluices. From Ion. 54 eastward, the shore is not quite so low; but it is in some parts marshy, and is chiefly covered with mangrove forests. Beyond the flat country, which ex- tends to a mean distance of 50 m. inland, ex- cept E. of Ion. 54, where it ends much nearer the sea, the surface gradually swells to an ele- vation of 200 ft., forming the northern edge of the table land of Guiana. This plateau, with a generally rising tendency, is intersected by parallel ranges of hills, much more numer- ous to the eastward, extending rib-like to the sierras of Tumucuraque and Acaray at the
