Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 2).djvu/651

Rh Texas, 28 June, 1849, was graduated at the U. S. military aeadgmy in 1836, and appointed 2d lieu- tenant of the 4th infantry. He served in the Semi- nole war in 1836-'8, when he was made 1st lieuten- ant of the 8th infantry. In 1838 he served on the northern frontier during the Canada border dis- turbances. He was engaged again in Florida against the Seminole Indians in 1840. In 1843 he served in Texas, and in 1845 in the war with Mex- ico, was in the battles of Palo Alto, 8 May, 1846, and Resaca de la Palma, 9 May, 1846, where he was wounded and brevetted colonel. He was on recruiting service in 1846, and in the following year returned to his regiment, being engaged in various important battles of Mexico. In 1848 he was in garrison at Jefferson barracks. Mo., and in the following year served on frontier duty in Texas. GrATLINtr, Richard Jordan, inventor, b. in Hertford county, N. C, 12 Sept., 1818. While yet a boy he assisted his father in perfecting a machine for sowing cotton-seed, and another for thinning cotton-plants. His first invention was a screw for propelling water-craft, but, on ap]ilying for letters- patent, he found that he had been anticipated by Ericsson. He subsequently invented and patented a machine for sowing rice, and, on his removal to St. Louis in 1844, he adapted it to sowing wheat in drills. He attended medical lectures at Laporte, Ind., in 1847-'8, and also at the Ohio medical col- lege in Cincinnati in 1848-'9, but never practised his profession. In 1850 he invented a machine for breaking hemp, and in 1857 a steam plough, which, however, was never brought into use. In 1861 he conceived the idea of his revolving battery gun. The first of these was made at Indianapolis in 1862. Twelve were subsequently manufactured and used by Gen. Butler on the James river, Va. In 1865 Dr. Gatling further improved his invention, and in 1866, after satisfactory trials at Washington and at Fortress Monroe, the arm was adopted into the U. S. service. It is also made in Austria and in England, and is used by several European govern- ments. As now perfected, the gun is made of various calibres and weights, for different kinds of service, and consists of a number of simple breech- loading rifled barrels, grouped around and revolv- ing about a common axis, with which they lie par- allel. These component barrels are loaded and fired while revolving, the empty cartridge shells being ejected in continuous succession. Each bar- rel is fired only once in a revolution, so that a ten- barrel gun fires ten times in one revolution of the group of barrels. The mode of firing is simple. One man places one end of a feed-case full of car- tridges into a hopper at the top of the gun, while another turns a crank by which the gun is revolved. As soon as the supply of cartridges in one feed-case is exhausted, another feed-case may be substituted without interrupting the revolution or the succes- sion of discharges. The usual number of barrels composing the gun is ten. The invention is now protected by five patents, which cover successive improvements. The nature of these may be in- ferred from the statement that, whereas the original Gatling gun only fired from 250 to 300 shots per minute, those now made discharge 1.200 shots, as many as 500 having frequently been fired in two and one half seconds. Dr. Gatling resides in New York, and has recently patented a new gun-metal, composed of steel and ahiminum.

GATSCHET, Albert Samuel, ethnologist, b. in St. Beatenberg, Berne, Switzerland, 3 Oct., 1832. He studied at Neuchatel in 1843-'5, in Berne in 1846-'52, and in the universities of Berne and Berlin in 1852-8. His attention was early directed to philological researches, and in 1865 he began the publication of a series of brief monographs on the local etymology of his own country, entitled " Ortsetymologische Forschungen aus der Schweiz " (18Q5-'7). In 1867 he spent some time in London, pursuing antiquarian investigations in the British museum, and during the following year came to the United States. At first he settled in New York, and devoted himself to literary pursuits, publish- ing several articles on the languages of the Ameri- can Indians. These led to his being appointed ethnologist of the U. S. geological survey, under Maj. John W. Powell, and he was occupied for a time in arranging the linguistic manuscripts of the Smithsonian institution. In 1879 the bureau of ethnology became a department of the institution, and he has since been actively connected with it. For the better accomplishment of his work, he has made extensive trips for ethnologic and linguistic exploration among the Indians of North America, including journeys to California and Oregon in 1877, to South Carolina and Louisiana in 1881-2, and to Texas, Louisiana, and Mexico in 1884— '6, and is compiling an extensive report embodying his researches among the Klamath Lake and Modoc Indians of Oregon. Among the languages of other tribes discussed by him in separate publications are the Timucua. Tonkawa, Yuma, Chumeto, Creek, and Hitchiti. He has published very extensively both in magazines and government repoils, also in the volumes issued by the American philosophi- cal society. Upward of sixty titles are credited to him by James C. Pilling in his " Bibliography of North American Languages " (Washington, 1885).

GAUL, Gilbert William, artist, b. in Jersey City, N. J.. 31 March, 1855. He studied art under John G. Brown, and has devoted himself to genre painting. He was made an associate of the Na- tional academy of design in 1879, was elected an academician iii 1882, and also in that year became a member of the Society of American artists. Among his works are "Siories of Liberty to the Confined " (1879) ; " Charging the Battery " (1882) ; " Holding the Line at all Hazards," which received the first medal of the American art association (1886) ; and " With Fate Against Them " (1887).

GAULT, Matthew Hamilton, Canadian capitalist, b. in Strabane, Ireland, in July, 1822 ; d. in Montreal, 1 June, 1887. He was educated at home, and in 1843 went to Canada and engaged in the insurance business. Subsequently he was for several years resident manager of the British Ameri- can assurance company for the province of Quebec, director of the Richelieu and Ontario navigation companv, and interested in many other industrial and financial enterprises. He was the founder of the Irish-Protestant benevolent society of Mon- treal, and took an active interest for many years in the Montreal garrison artillery, from which he retired in 1866, retaining his rank as an officer. He was elected a member of the Dominion parlia- ment, for Montreal west, in 1878, and was re-elected in 1882. He was a Conservative, and favored the protection of native industries.

GAVIT, John E., engraver, b. in New York, 39 Oct., 1819 ; d. in Stockbridge. Mass., 25 Aug., 1874. At an early age he went to Albany, where he engaged in steel-engraving and printing. As an engraver of bank-notes his attention was directed to the study of finance and banking in their relations to engraving, and by his inventive and mechanical talent he soon made improvements in his work. In 1855 he assisted in organizing the American bank-note company in New York, and in 1858 united his business with that enterprise.