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 1840–1842); P. P. Pacheco, “La Ketmie potagère ou comestible,” La Belgique horticole, iv. 63 (1853); Della Sudda, “De l’emploi à Constantinople de la racine de l’Hibiscus esculentus,” Répert. de pharm., January 1860, p. 229; E. J. Waring, Pharm. of India, p. 35 (1868); O. Popp, “Über die Aschenbestandteile der Samen von Acacia nilotica und Hibiscus esculentus in Ägypten,” Arch. der Pharm. cxcv. p. 140 (1871); Drury, The Useful Plants of India, pp. 1, 2 (2nd ed., 1873); U. C. Dutt, The Mat. Med. of the Hindus, pp. 123, 321 (1877); Lanessan, Hist. des drogues, i. 181-184 (1878); G. Watt, Dictionary of the Economic Products of India (1890).

GUMTI, a river of northern India. It rises in a depression in the Pilibhit district of the United Provinces, and after a sinuous but generally south-easterly course of 500 m. past Lucknow and Jaunpur joins the Ganges in Ghazipar district. At Jaunpur it is a fine stream, spanned by a 16th-century bridge of sixteen arches, and is navigable by vessels of 17 tons burden. There is also a small river of the same name in the Tippera district of eastern Bengal and Assam.

GUMULJINA, or, a town of European Turkey, in the vilayet of Adrianople. Pop. (1905), about 8000, of whom three-fourths are Turks and the remainder Greeks, Jews or Armenians. Gumuljina is situated on the river Karaja-Su, south of the eastern extremity of the Rhodope range of mountains and 13 m. inland from the Aegean Sea. It has a station on the railway between Salonica and Dédéagatch. The district produces wheat, maize, barley and tobacco; sericulture and viticulture are both practised on a limited scale. A cattle fair is held annually on Greek Palm Sunday. Copper and antimony are found in the neighbourhood.

GUMUS, or, Negroes of the Shangalla group of tribes, dwelling in the mountainous district of Fazogli on the Sudan-Abyssinian frontier. They live in independent groups, some being mountaineers while others are settled on the banks of the Blue Nile. Gumz in the native tongue signifies “people,” and the sub-tribes have distinctive names. The Gumus are nature-worshippers, God and the sun being synonymous. On ceremonial occasions they carry parasols of honour (see ).

GÜMÜSH-KHANEH, the chief town of a sanjak of the same name in the Trebizond vilayet of Asiatic Turkey, situated on high ground (4400 ft.) in the valley of the Kharshut Su, about m. to south of the Trebizond-Erzerum chaussée. The silver mines from which the place takes its name were noted in ancient times and are mentioned by Marco Polo. Pop. about 3000, chiefly Greeks, who are in the habit of emigrating to great distances to work in mines. They practically supply the whole lead and silver-mining labour in Asiatic Turkey, and in consequence the Greek bishop of Gümüsh-Khaneh has under his jurisdiction all the communities engaged in this particular class of mines.

GUN, a general term for a weapon, tubular in form, from which a projectile is discharged by means of an explosive. When applied to artillery the word is confined to those pieces of ordnance which have a direct as opposed to a high-angle fire, in which case the terms “howitzer” and “mortar” are used (see and ). “Gun” as applied to firearms which are carried in the hand and fired from the shoulder, the old “hand gun,” is now chiefly used of the sporting shot-gun, with which this article mainly deals; in military usage this type of weapon, whether rifle, carbine, &c., is known collectively as “small arms” (see and ). The origin of the word, which in Mid. Eng. is gonne or gunne, is obscure, but it has been suggested by Professor W. W. Skeat that it conceals a female name, Gunnilde or Gunhilda. The names, e.g. Mons Meg at Edinburgh Castle and faule Grete (heavy Peg), known to readers of Carlyle’s Frederick the Great, will be familiar parallelisms. “Gunne” would be a shortened “pet name” of Gunnhilde. The New English Dictionary finds support for the suggestion in the fact that in Old Norwegian gunne and hilde both mean “war,” and quotes an inventory of war material at Windsor Castle in 1330–1331, where is mentioned “una magna balista de cornu quae vocatur Domina Gunilda.” Another suggestion for the origin of the word is that the word represents a shortened form, gonne, of a supposed French mangonne, a mangonel, but the French word is mangonneau.

Firearms are said to have been first used in European warfare in the 14th century. The hand gun (see fig. 1) came into practical use in 1446 and was of very rude construction. It consisted of a simple iron or brass tube with a touch-hole at the top fixed in a straight stock of wood, the end of which passed under the right armpit when the “gonne” was about to be fired. A similar weapon (see fig. 2) was also used by the horse-soldier, with a ring at the end of the stock, by which it was suspended by a cord round the neck; a forked rest, fitted by a ring to the saddlebow, served to steady the gun. This rest, when not in use, hung down in front of the right leg. A match was made of cotton or hemp spun slack, and boiled in a strong solution of saltpetre or in the lees of wine. The touch-hole was first placed on the top of the barrel, but afterwards at the side, with a small pan underneath to hold the priming, and guarded by a cover moving on a pivot.

An improvement in firearms took place in the first year of the reign of Henry VII., or at the close of Edward IV., by fixing a cock (Fr. serpentine) on the hand gun to hold the match, which was brought down to the priming by a trigger, whence the term matchlock. This weapon is still in use among the Chinese, Tatars, Sikhs, Persians and Turks. An improvement in the stock was also made during this period by forming it with a wide butt end to be placed against the right breast. Subsequently the stock was bent, a German invention, and the arm was called a hackbutt or hagbut, and the smaller variety a demihague. The arquebus and hackbutt were about a yard in length, including barrel and stock, and the demihague was about half the size and weight, the forerunner of the pistol. The arquebus was the standard infantry firearm in Europe from the battle of Pavia to the introduction of the heavier and more powerful musket. It did not as a rule require a rest, as did the musket. The wheel-lock, an improvement on the matchlock, was invented in Nuremberg in 1517; was first used at the siege of Parma in 1521; was brought to England in 1530, and continued in partial use there until the time of Charles II. This wheel-lock consisted of a fluted or grooved steel wheel which protruded into the priming pan, and was connected with a strong spring. The cock, also regulated by a spring, was fitted with a piece of iron pyrites. In order to discharge the gun the