Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 2).djvu/660

626  and he has greatly enriched the literature of chemistry with his very many and careful analyses of minerals. His name is associated with the ammonia cobalt bases which he discovered in 1846, and, in joint authorship with Dr. Wolcott Gibbs, he has contributed to the &ldquo;Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge&rdquo; a monograph on &ldquo;Researches on the Ammonia-Cobalt Bases&rdquo; (Washington, 1856). Prof. Genth is the author of nearly 100 separate papers on subjects in chemistry and mineralogy, and has published &ldquo;Tabellarische Übersicht der wichtigsten Reactionen welche Basen in Salzen zeigen&rdquo; (Marburg, 1845), also the same in relation to &ldquo;Acids&rdquo; (1845); &ldquo;Minerals of North Carolina,&rdquo; being appendix &ldquo;C&rdquo; of the &ldquo;Report on the Geology of North Carolina&rdquo; (Raleigh, 1875); also &ldquo;First and Second Preliminary Reports on the Mineralogy of Pennsylvania&rdquo; (Harrisburg, 1875-'6), and &ldquo;Minerals and Mineral Localities of North Carolina&rdquo; (Raleigh, 1881).

GENTRY, Meredith Poindexter, statesman, b. in Rockingham countv, N. C, 15 Sept., 1809; d. near Nashville. Tenn., 2 Nov., 1866. In 1813 his father, a wealthy planter, removed to Williamson county, Tenn., where the facilities for education were limited. Meredith's school-days ended at the age of fourteen, when he had acquired little more than the rudiments. He, however, supplemented these while working on his father's plantation by reading the standard Eng- lish authors. He also took great delight in perusing the congres- sional debates. He early con- ceived a fancy for military life,andjoined a militia com- pany, of which he was soon elected cap- tain, and sub- sequently pro- moted colonel of the regiment. He became known as a popular orator, and in 1835 was chosen to a seat in the legislature, which he retained until 1839, when he was elected to con- gress, taking his seat, 2 Dec, 1839, and at once joining Messrs. Clay, Webster, and Calhoun in their efforts to stem the tide of what they held to be the dangerous encroachments of the executive. Mr. Gentry was an original Whig, and remained such until the party ceased to exist. His first speech, which attracted universal attention, was in favor of the reception of petitions praying for the abolition of slavery. Although himself a large slave-holder, and maintaining that the Federal government had no right to interfere with slavery in individual states, he urged that the petitions, although ask- ing what could not be constitutionally granted, should nevertheless be received and considered. His second speech, on the bill to secure freedom of elections and restrict executive patronage, was one of the ablest of that congress, and became an effective campaign document in the presidential canvass of 1840. Mr. Gentry was re-elected to the 27th, known as the " Whig congress," but, on account of the death of his first wife, refused to be a candidate for election to the 28th. He was, however, returned to the 29th, and was also elected to the 30th, 31st, and 32d. Mr. Gentry's first speech, after his return to congress in December, 1845, was in reply to the charge of President Polk that the Whigs were giving aid and comfort to the ene- my through their opposition to the Mexican war. Mr. Gentry, in behalf of himself and his political friends, indignantly repelled the aspersions of the president. As a result of the speech, a resolution was introduced by the Whigs declaring that, while patriotism required that the armies should be sus- tained, yet the war should be waged only for the purpose of obtaining an honorable peace, and not with any view to conquest. On leaving congress Mr. Gentry retired to his plantation in Tennessee, and after the election of Mr. Lincoln became a secessionist. He was elected to the Confederate congress in 1862, and again in 1863. He did not approve, however, of the policy of the authorities at Richmond. He advocated secession only as a temporary expedient. " There were very few men in the house of representatives," said Alexander H. Stephens, " who could compare with Mr. Gen- try in ])litical knowledge, and in the readiness with which he brought this knowledge to bear on any point in running debate. His eulogy on Clay, delivered without premeditation, was apt, power- ful, and pathetic. Socially he was urbane and genial, and was possessed of high conversational jiowers, with a fund of humor and anecdote."

GEOFFRION, Felix P. C., Canadian statesman, b. in Quebec, 4 Oct., 1832 ; d. there, 7 Aug., 1894. He was registrar for Vercheres from 1854 to 1863, and president of the Montreal, Chambly, and Sorel railway. He represented Vercheres in the Canada assembly from 1863 till the union, when he was elected to the Dominion parliament. He moved for a select committee in 1874 to inquire into the causes of the difficulties in the Northwest territory, of which committee he became chairman, and prepared the report which was submitted to parliament. Li July, 1874, he was appointed min- ister of inland revenue, and was re-elected by ac- clamation. He resigned his portfolio in conse- quence of illness in December, 1876, retaining, however, his seat in parliament. He was re-elect- ed in 1878, and again in 1882.

GEORGE, Enoch, M. E. bishop, b. in Lancaster county, Va., in 1767; d. in Staunton, Va., in Au- gust, 1828. He was under the ministry of Rev. Devereux Jarratt, then of the Church of England, and was in early life the subject of deep religious impressions ; but, having been separated from Mr. Jarratt's ministry, he became negligent of his re- ligious duties, till, after several years, the place where he resided was visited by a Methodist evan- gelist, under whose exhortations young George be- came connected with the little Methodist society of his neighborhood. In 1790 he was admitted on trial into the Virginia conference of the Method- ist Episcopal church, and served for two years as junior preacher in Caswell circuit. After this he went to South Carolina, and in 1796 was presiding elder of Charleston district, and the next year, on account of impaired health, he retired from active work of the ministry. In 1803 he entered the Bal- timore conference, where he labored with great zeal and success, till at the general conference, held in Baltimore in May, 1816, he was elected and ordained a bishop, in which office he served with zeal and effectiveness for twelve years. Bishop George belonged to the primitive school of Ameri- can Methodist preachers, some of whom without