Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/92

 also filled the chair of astronomy, and during the scholastic year 1S14-1.">, officiated as rector of the university. From about 1S02 until ISIO, Gugliclmini was put in charge of the extensive waterworks of Bo- logna. If he was a relative of the famous engineer and physician, Domenico Guglielmini, who had been general superintendent of the Bologna waterworks a hundred years previously, he was certainly not his direct descendant. Don Guglielmini bore the title of "Cavaliere", was a member of the " Accademia Bene- dettina" (founded by Benedict XIV), of the " Regio Istituto Italiano" and " Elettore del CoUegio dei Dotti ". He was continually in frail health, and died of slow consumption, at the age of 54. In 1837, the city of Bologna ordered a marble bust of him to be erected in the pantheon of the cemetery. M.zzETTi, ^lemorie storirhe sopra rUniversith e V Istituto delle Scienze di Bologna (Bologna, 1840); Repertorio di tutli i pTufesson, . . delta famosa Uitiversita e del celehre Istituto delle scienze di Bologna, Qtc, (Bologna, 1S47); Benzenberg, V'er^-j/c/ic iit)er die Umdrehunq der Erde (Dortmund. 1804), 294. 384; PoG- GEXDORFF. H andwnrlerbuch (Leipzig, 1863); // Panleon di Bologna (Bologna, ISSl). J. G. Hagbn.

Guiana (or Gu.w.^^na) was the name given to all that region of South America which extends along the Atlantic coast from the Orinoco to the Amazon. This name is still locally apphed to a district of Vene- zuela and another in Brazil, but its ordinarj' geo- graphical application is limited to the tliree colonies of British, Dutch, and French Guiana. British Guiana is separated from Venezuela, partly by the Orinoco, and partly by a line drawn to the east of that river. The Coreiityn River separates British Guiana from Dutch Guiana, on the east, while the latter is separated from the French colony by the Maroni. A decided similarity exists in the climate, physical formation, flora, and fauna of all Guiana; the low, flat coast, h'ing between 8° and 2° N. lat., is hot, humid, and so scourged with yellow fever and other tropical di.seases that the French Government has been obligeil to stop the use of Cayenne as a penal settlement for white convicts. This coast country is hemmed in on the south by high table lands, rising in Mount Roraima to a height of about 8000 feet. The lowlands are fertile, and their forests are comparable to those of the Amazon basin, while the elevated country, with a fairly healthy climate, is mostly barren. Guiana is the habitat of several dangerous species of wild beasts, including the jaguar, as well as of the anaconda and of the most deadly reptiles in the New World. Among the first explorers to sit this coast were Vespucci, Pinzon, Ojeda, and Balboa (1409-1504), but the first real discoverj' of Guiana is claimed by Diego de Ordaz, a follower of Cortrs (1.531). During this earliest period Catholic missionaries are said to have gone inland to attempt the conversion of the Arawaks, Warraus, and other races. But exploration wa.s diverted during the sixteenth century from the Guiana coast to the neighbouring Orinoco, which Raleigh ascended in 1505, in quest, Uke other adven- turers of his day, of the fabled "Dorado" or "Gilded Man". In 1580 Dutch adventurers attempted a settlement near the Pomerun River; the earliest French attempts, chiefly on the Sinnaman,' River, were made in 14. In 1635 a corporation of mer- chants of Xoniiandy, ha-ing been granted by the French king all the privileges within the whole terri- tory of Guiana, made a settlement where now is the city of Cayenne, but eight years later Poncet de Br<;- tigny, coming with reinforcements, found only a few of his predecessors alive, lixing as savages among the aborigines. Of all these, and a still later reinforce- ment, only two remained aUve in 1645, to take refuge in the Dutch settlement in Surinam. By the middle of the seventeenth century the long, though inter- mittent struggle between French, Dutch, and English for the possession of this country had fairly begun. The French being then absent from Guiana, Charles II of England, in defiance of the Treaty of Westphaha, which had given all Guiana to the Dutch ^'est India Company-, granted to Francis, Lord VVilloughby of Parham, the territorial rights of Paramaribo. By the Treaty of Breda, in 1667, the British gave up all claims to any part of Guiana in exchange for the surrender by the Dutch of all their claim to the terri- tory of New Netherlands (now New York), which had in fact been occupied by an English force, under the orders of the Duke of York, three years previously. In 1664 the Dutch West India Company ha<l begun in earnest the settlement of Guiana. Simultaneously the French West India Companj- made a new attempt to settle Cayenne, and from that time forward the Cayenne territory has remained French. During most of the eighteenth century Guiana, with the exception of this French portion, remained Dutch. The difficulties of the Dutch during this period came chiefly from rebellious slaes, or from savages wlio roamed in the interior. But when the American Revolution deprived the British of New York, aggres- sion recommenced in Guiana, and in 1799 a British administration replaced the Dutch. What is now British Guiana finally became so between the years 1803 and 1815, while in the latter year Surinam was restored to the Dutch. The actually existing status in Guiana may be considered as having begun in 1815. Leaving aside the vague reports of earlj- Spanish missionaries, the history of Catholicism in Guiana during the first century after the di.scovery lielongs to the story of Portuguese missionary effort. The Treaty of Tordesillas gave this territory to Portugal. No important success appears to have been achieved in the conversion of the aborigines until the seven- teenth century. With French West India Company's colonists some Dominicans arricti at Cayenne, and these friars were followed by Capuchins. In 1666 the proprietary company brought the Jesuits into Cayenne, and that order laboured with considerable success among the negro slaves and the savages. Among the most remarkable .Jesuits in this missionary field were Fatheis de Creuilly, Lombard, d'Ayma, Fauque, Dausillac, and d'Huberland. De Creuilly spent thirty-three years on the mission (168.3-1718), during a great part of which he cruised from point to point along the coast, landing here and there to preach ; the others are memorable for having established .settle- ments of Indian converts on the pl;in of the Paraguay "reductions". While in Protest.mt Dutch Guiana httle could be done for the spread of the Faith, in Cayenne at least the work was in a promising con- dition w'hen the anti-Jesuit movement in continental Europe brought about the expulsion of the Society from this field (1768). The Revolution checke<l the efforts of the French secular clergy to continue what the Jesuits had begun. British Guiann, the largest of the three colonies, has an area of 90,277 .s<iuare miles. It.s western boundary was the subject of a dispute with Venezuela in 1894; the United States intervening and insisting that the matter should be settled by arbitration; Great Britain accepted the award of the arbitrators in Octol)er, 1899. The population is about .307,000. Of these, the whites are less than 6 per cent. ; negnjes, 41 per cent. ; coolies, 38 per cent.; aborigines, 3 per cent. The government Ls carried on by an Engli.sh governor, assisted by a council. The Vicariate Apostolic of British Guiana, estab- lished by Gregory NVI in 1,S37, covers a mission which has now for some time been entrusted to the Society of Jesus. The vicar .Apostolic resides at Georgetown, and his jurisdiction includes Barbados. There are twenty-six ohurchcs and five mission stations, served by seventeen priests. The Catholic population is about 22,000.