Page:EB1911 - Volume 12.djvu/755

 James I. he published in 1624 The Description and Use of His Majestie’s Dials in Whitehall Garden, the only one of his works which has not been reprinted. He introduced the words cosine and cotangent, and he suggested to Henry Briggs, his friend and colleague, the use of the arithmetical complement (see Brigg’s Arithmetica Logarithmica, cap. xv.). His practical inventions are briefly noticed below:

Gunter’s Chain, the chain in common use for surveying, is 22 yds. long and is divided into 100 links. Its usefulness arises from its decimal or centesimal division, and the fact that 10 square chains make an acre.

Gunter’s Line, a logarithmic line, usually laid down upon scales, sectors, &c. It is also called the line of lines and the line of numbers, being only the logarithms graduated upon a ruler, which therefore serves to solve problems instrumentally in the same manner as logarithms do arithmetically.

Gunter’s Quadrant, an instrument made of wood, brass or other substance, containing a kind of stereographic projection of the sphere on the plane of the equinoctial, the eye being supposed to be placed in one of the poles, so that the tropic, ecliptic, and horizon form the arcs of circles, but the hour circles are other curves, drawn by means of several altitudes of the sun for some particular latitude every year. This instrument is used to find the hour of the day, the sun’s azimuth, &c., and other common problems of the sphere or globe, and also to take the altitude of an object in degrees.

Gunter’s Scale (generally called by seamen the Gunter) is a large plane scale, usually 2 ft. long by about 1 in. broad, and engraved with various lines of numbers. On one side are placed the natural lines (as the line of chords, the line of sines, tangents, rhumbs, &c.), and on the other side the corresponding artificial or logarithmic ones. By means of this instrument questions in navigation, trigonometry, &c., are solved with the aid of a pair of compasses.

GÜNTHER, JOHANN CHRISTIAN (1695–1723), German poet, was born at Striegau in Lower Silesia on the 8th of April 1695. After attending the gymnasium at Schweidnitz, he was sent in 1715 by his father, a country doctor, to study medicine at Wittenberg; but he was idle and dissipated, had no taste for the profession chosen for him, and came to a complete rupture with his family. In 1717 he went to Leipzig, where he was befriended by J. B. Mencke (1674–1732), who recognized his genius; and there he published a poem on the peace of Passarowitz (concluded between the German emperor and the Porte in 1718) which acquired him reputation. A recommendation from Mencke to Frederick Augustus II. of Saxony, king of Poland, proved worse than useless, as Günther appeared at the audience drunk. From that time he led an unsettled and dissipated life, sinking ever deeper into the slough of misery, until he died at Jena on the 15th of March 1723, when only in his 28th year. Goethe pronounces Günther to have been a poet in the fullest sense of the term. His lyric poems as a whole give evidence of deep and lively sensibility, fine imagination, clever wit, and a true ear for melody and rhythm; but an air of cynicism is more or less present in most of them, and dull or vulgar witticisms are not infrequently found side by side with the purest inspirations of his genius.

Günther’s collected poems were published in four volumes (Breslau, 1723–1735). They are also included in vol. vi. of Tittmann’s Deutsche Dichter des 17ten Jahrh. (Leipzig, 1874), and vol. xxxviii. of Kürschner’s Deutsche Nationalliteratur (1883). A pretended autobiography of Günther appeared at Schweidnitz in 1732, and a life of him by Siebrand at Leipzig in 1738. See Hoffmann von Fallersleben, ''J. Ch. Günther (Breslau, 1833); O. Roquette, Leben und Dichten'' ''J. Ch. Günthers (Stuttgart, 1860); M. Kalbeck, Neue Beiträge zur'' Biographie des Dichters C. Günther (Breslau, 1879).

GÜNTHER OF SCHWARZBURG (1304–1349), German king, was a descendant of the counts of Schwarzburg and the younger son of Henry VII., count of Blankenburg. He distinguished himself as a soldier, and rendered good service to the emperor Louis IV., on whose death in 1347 he was offered the German throne, after it had been refused by Edward III., king of England. He was elected German king at Frankfort on the 30th of January 1349 by four of the electors, who were partisans of the house of Wittelsbach and opponents of Charles of Luxemburg, afterwards the emperor Charles IV. Charles, however, won over many of Günther’s adherents, defeated him at Eltville, and Günther, who was now seriously ill, renounced his claims for the sum of 20,000 marks of silver. He died three weeks afterwards at Frankfort, and was buried in the cathedral of that city, where a statue was erected to his memory in 1352.

GUNTRAM, or (561–592), king of Burgundy, was one of the sons of Clotaire I. On the death of his father (561) he and his three brothers divided the Frankish realm between them, Guntram receiving as his share the valleys of the Saône and Rhone, together with Berry and the town of Orleans, which he made his capital. On the death of Charibert (567), he further obtained the civitates of Saintes, Angoulême and Périgueux. During the civil war which broke out between the kings of Neustria and Austrasia, his policy was to try to maintain a state of equilibrium. After the assassination of Sigebert (575), he took the youthful Childebert II. under his protection, and, thanks to his assistance against the intrigues of the great lords, the latter was able to maintain his position in Austrasia. After the death of Chilperic (584) he protected the young Clotaire II. in the same way, and prevented Childebert from seizing his dominions. His course was rendered easier by the fact that his own sons had died; consequently, having an inheritance at his disposal, he was able to offer it to whichever of his nephews he wished. The danger to the Frankish realm caused by the expedition of Gundobald (585), and the anxiety which was caused him by the revolts of the great lords in Austrasia finally decided him in favour of Childebert. He adopted him as his son, and recognized him as his heir at the treaty of Andelot (587); he also helped him to crush the great lords, especially Ursion and Berthefried, who were conquered in la Woëvre. From this time on he ceased to play a prominent part in the affairs of Austrasia. He died in 592, and Childebert received his inheritance without opposition. Gregory of Tours is very indulgent to Guntram, who showed himself on occasions generous towards the church; he almost always calls him “good king Guntram,” and in his writings are to be found such phrases as “good king Guntram took as his servant a concubine Veneranda” (iv. 25); but Guntram was really no better than the other kings of his age; he was cruel and licentious, putting his cubicularius Condo to death, for instance, because he was suspected of having killed a buffalo in the Vosges. He was moreover a coward, and went in such constant terror of assassination that he always surrounded himself with a regular bodyguard.

See Krusch, “Zur Chronologie der merowingischen Könige,” in the Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte, xxii. 451-490; Ulysse Chevalier, Bio-bibliographie (2nd ed.), s.v. “Guntram.”

GUNTUR, a town and district of British India, in the Madras presidency. The town (pop. in 1901, 30,833) has a station on the Bellary-Bezwada branch of the Southern Mahratta railway. It is situated east of the Kondavid hills, and is very healthy. It appears to have been founded in the 18th century by the French. At the time of the cession of the Circars to the English in 1765, Guntur was specially exempted during the life of Basalat Jang, whose personal jagir it was. In 1788 it came into British possession, the cession being finally confirmed in 1823. It has an important trade in cotton, with presses and ginning factories. There is a second-grade college supported by the American Lutheran Mission. Until 1859, Guntur was the headquarters of a district of the same name, and in 1904 a new was constituted, covering territory which till then had been divided between Kistna and Nellore. Area, 5733 sq. m. The population on this area in 1901 was 1,490,635. The district is bounded on the E. and N. by the river Kistna; in the W. a considerable part of the boundary is formed by the Gundlakamma river. The greater part consists of a fertile plain irrigated by canals from the Kistna, and producing cotton, rice and other crops.

GUPTA, an empire and dynasty of northern India, which lasted from about 320 to 480. The dynasty was founded by Chandragupta I., who must not be confounded with his famous predecessor Chandragupta Maurya. He gave his name to the Gupta era, which continued in use for several centuries, dating