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 Henderson, who had gone to the sofa camp to parley, was held prisoner for some time, while Ferguson was killed. Meantime negotiations were opened in Europe to settle the spheres of influence of the respective countries. (The Anglo-French agreement of 1889 had fixed the boundaries of the hinterlands of the French colony of the Ivory Coast and the British colony of the Gold Coast as far as 9° N. only.) A period of considerable tension, arising from the proximity of British and French troops in the disputed territory, was ended by the signature of a convention in Paris (14th of June 1898), in which the western and northern boundaries were defined. The British abandoned their claim to the important town and district of Wagadugu in the north. In the following year (14th of November 1899) an agreement defining the eastern frontier was concluded with Germany. Previously a square block of territory to the north of 8° N. had been regarded as neutral, both by Britain and Germany. This was in virtue of an arrangement made in 1888. By the 1899 convention the neutral zone was parcelled out between the two powers. The delimitation of the frontiers agreed upon took place during 1900–1904.

In 1897 the Northern Territories were constituted a separate district of the Gold Coast hinterland, and were placed in charge of a chief commissioner. Colonel H. P. Northcott (killed in the Boer War, 1899–1902) was the first commissioner and commandant of the troops. He was succeeded by Col. A. H. Morris. In 1901 the Territories were made a distinct administration, under the jurisdiction of the governor of the Gold Coast colony. The government was at first of a semi-military character, but in 1907 a civilian staff was appointed to carry on the administration, and a force of armed constabulary replaced the troops which had been stationed in the protectorate and which were then disbanded. The prosperity of the country under British administration has been marked.

.—A good summary of the condition and history of the colony to the close of the 19th century will be found in vol. 3, “West Africa,” of the Historical Geography of the British Empire by C. P. Lucas (2nd ed., Oxford, 1900). For current information see the Gold Coast Civil Service List (London, yearly), the annual Blue Books published in the colony, and the annual Report issued by the Colonial Office, London. For fuller information consult the Report from the Select Committee on Africa (Western Coast) (London, 1865), a mine of valuable information; The Gold Coast, Past and Present, by G. Macdonald (London, 1898); History of the Gold Coast and Ashanti, by C. C. Reindorf, a native pastor (Basel, 1895); A History of the Gold Coast, by Col. A. B. Ellis (London, 1893); Wanderings in West Africa (London, 1863) and To the Gold Coast for Gold (London, 1883), both by Sir Richard Burton. Of the earlier books the most notable are The Golden Coast or a Description of Guinney together with a relation of such persons as got wonderful estates by their trade thither (London, 1665), and A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea written (in Dutch) by Willem Bosman, chief factor for the Dutch at Elmina (Eng. trans., 2nd ed., 1721). For a complete survey of the Gold Coast under Dutch control see “Die Niederländisch West-Indische Compagnie an der Gold-Küste” by J. G. Doorman in Tijds Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenk, vol. 40 (1898). For ethnography, religion, law, &c., consult The Land of Fetish (London, 1883) and The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the West Coast of Africa (London, 1887), both by Col. A. B. Ellis; Fanti Customary Law (2nd ed., London, 1904) and Fanti Law Report (London, 1904), both by J. M. Sarbah. The Sketch of the Forestry of West Africa by Sir Alfred Moloney (London, 1887) contains a comprehensive list of economic plants. See also Report on Economic Agriculture on the Gold Coast (Colonial Office Reports, No. 110, 1890), and Papers relating to the Construction of Railways in the Gold Coast (London, 1904). The best map is that of Major F. G. Guggisberg, over 70 sheets, scale 1: 125,000 (London, 1907–1909). There is a War Office map on the scale 1 : 1,000,000 in one sheet. See also the works quoted under .

For the Northern Territories see L. G. Binger, Du Niger au Golfe de Guinée (Paris, 1892), a standard authority; H. P. Northcott, Report on the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast (War Office, London, 1899), a valuable compilation summarizing the then available information. Annual Reports on the protectorate are issued by the British Colonial Office. A map on the scale of 1:1,000,000 is issued by the War Office.

 GOLDEN, a city and the county-seat of Jefferson county, Colorado, U.S.A., on Clear Creek (formerly called the Vasquez fork of the South Platte), about 14 m. W. by N. of Denver. Pop. (1900) 2152; (1910) 2477. Golden is a residential suburb of Denver, served by the Colorado & Southern, the Denver & Intermountain (electric), and the Denver & North-Western Electric railways. It is about 5700 ft. above sea-level. About 600 ft. above the city is Castle Rock, with an amusement park, and W. of Golden is Lookout Mountain, a natural park of 3400 acres. About 1 m. S. of the city is a state industrial school for boys, and in Golden is the Colorado State School of Mines (opened 1874), which offers courses in mining engineering and metallurgical engineering. The Independent Pyritic Smelter is at Golden, and among the city’s manufactures are pottery, firebrick and tile, made from clays found near by, and flour. There are deposits of coal, copper and gold in the vicinity. Truck-farming and the growing of fruit are important industries in the neighbourhood. The first settlement here was a gold mining camp, established in 1859, and named in honour of Tom Golden, one of the pioneer prospectors. The village was laid out in 1860, and Golden was incorporated as a town in 1865 and was chartered as a city in 1870. Golden was made the capital of Colorado Territory in 1862, and several sessions (or parts of sessions) of the Assembly were held here between 1864 and 1868, when the seat of government was formally established at Denver; the territorial offices of Colorado, however, were at Golden only in 1866–1867.  GOLDEN BULL (Lat. Bulla Aurea), the general designation of any charter decorated with a golden seal or bulla, either owing to the intrinsic importance of its contents, or to the rank and dignity of the bestower or the recipient. The custom of thus giving distinction to certain documents is said to be of Byzantine origin, though if this be the case it is somewhat strange that the word employed as an equivalent for golden bull in Byzantine Greek should be the hybrid  (cf. Codinus Curopalates,  ; and Anna Comnena, Alexiad, lib. iii.  ; lib. viii.,  ). In Germany a Golden Bull is mentioned under the reign of Henry I. the Fowler in Chronica Cassin. ii. 31, and the oldest German example, if it be genuine, dates from 983. At first the golden seal was formed after the type of a solid coin, but at a later date, while the golden surface presented to the eye was greatly increased, the seal was really composed of two thin metal plates filled in with wax. The number of golden bulls issued by the imperial chancery must have been very large; the city of Frankfort, for example, preserves no fewer than eight.

The name, however, has become practically restricted to a few documents of unusual political importance, the golden bull of the Empire, the golden bull of Brabant, the golden bull of Hungary and the golden bull of Milan—and of these the first is undoubtedly the Golden Bull par excellence. The main object of the Golden Bull was to provide a set of rules for the election of the German kings, or kings of the Romans, as they are called in this document. Since the informal establishment of the electoral college about a century before (see ), various disputes had taken place about the right of certain princes to vote at the elections, these and other difficulties having arisen owing to the absence of any authoritative ruling. The spiritual electors, it is true, had exercised their votes without challenge, but far different was the case of the temporal electors. The families ruling in Saxony and in Bavaria had been divided into two main branches and, as the German states had not yet accepted the principles of primogeniture, it was uncertain which member of the divided family should vote. Thus, both the prince ruling in Saxe-Lauenburg and the prince ruling in Saxe-Wittenberg claimed the vote, and the two branches of the family of Wittelsbach, one settled in Bavaria and the other in the Rhenish palatinate, were similarly at variance, while the duke of Bavaria also claimed the vote at the expense of the king of Bohemia. Moreover, there had been several disputed and double elections to the German crown during the past century. In more than one instance a prince, chosen by a minority of the electors, had claimed to exercise the functions of king, and as often civil war had been the result. Under these circumstances the emperor Charles IV. determined by an