Page:EB1911 - Volume 12.djvu/86

 Montenegrins) among whom it has survived by special licence of the Pope (see  for table of letters).

GLAIR (from Fr. glaire, probably from Lat. clarus, clear, bright), the white of an egg, and hence a term used for a preparation made of this and used, in bookbinding and in gilding, to retain the gold and as a varnish. The adjective “glairy” is used of substances having the viscous and transparent consistency of the white of an egg.

 GLAISHER, JAMES (1809–1903), English meteorologist and aeronaut, was born in London on the 7th of April 1809. After serving for a few years on the Ordnance Survey of Ireland, he acted as an assistant at the Cambridge and Greenwich observatories successively, and when the department of meteorology and magnetism was formed at the latter, he was entrusted with its superintendence, which he continued to exercise for thirty-four years, until his retirement from the public service. In 1845 he published his well-known dew-point tables, which have gone through many editions. In 1850 he established the Meteorological Society, acting as its secretary for many years, and in 1866 he assisted in the foundation of the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain. He was appointed a member of the royal commission on the warming and ventilation of dwellings in 1875, and for twelve years from 1880 acted as chairman of the executive committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund. But his name is best known in connexion with the series of balloon ascents which he made between 1862 and 1866, mostly in company with Henry Tracey Coxwell. Many of these ascents were arranged by a committee of the British Association, of which he was a member, and were strictly scientific in character, the object being to carry out observations on the temperature, humidity, &c., of the atmosphere at high elevations. In one of them, that which took place at Wolverhampton on the 5th of September 1862, Glaisher and his companion attained the greatest height that had been reached by a balloon carrying passengers. As no automatically recording instruments were available, and Glaisher was unable to read the barometer at the highest point owing to loss of consciousness, the precise altitude can never be known, but it is estimated at about 7 m. from the earth. He died on the 7th of February 1903 at Croydon.

 GLAMIS, a village and parish of Forfarshire, Scotland, 5 m. W. by S. of Forfar by the Caledonian railway. Pop. of parish (1901) 1351. The name is sometimes spelled Glammis and the i is mute: it is derived from the Gaelic, glamhus, “a wide gap,” “a vale.” The chief object in the village is the sculptured stone, traditionally supposed to be a memorial of Malcolm II., although Fordun’s statement that the king was slain in the castle is now rejected. About a mile from the station stands Glamis Castle, the seat of the earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, a fine example of the Scottish Baronial style, enriched with certain features of the French château. In its present form it dates mostly from the 17th century, but the original structure was as old as the 11th century, for Macbeth was Thane of Glamis. Several of the early Scots kings, especially Alexander III., used it occasionally as a residence. Robert II. bestowed the thanedom on John Lyon, who had married the king’s second daughter by Elizabeth Mure and was thus the founder of the existing family. Patrick Lyon became hostage to England for James I. in 1424. When, in 1537, Janet Douglas, widow of the 6th Lord Glamis, was burned at Edinburgh as a witch, for conspiring to procure James V.’s death, Glamis was forfeited to the crown, but it was restored to her son six years later when her innocence had been established. The 3rd earl of Strathmore entertained the Old Chevalier and eighty of his immediate followers in 1715. After discharging the duties of hospitality the earl joined the Jacobites at Sheriffmuir and fell on the battlefield. Sir Walter Scott spent a night in the “hoary old pile” when he was about twenty years old, and gives a striking relation of his experiences in his Demonology and Witchcraft. The hall has an arched ceiling and several historical portraits, including those of Claverhouse, Charles II. and James II. of England. At Cossans, in the parish of Glamis, there is a remarkable sculptured monolith, and other examples occur at the Hunters’ Hill and in the old kirkyard of Eassie.

 GLAMORGANSHIRE (Welsh Morganwg), a maritime county occupying the south-east corner of Wales, and bounded N.W. by Carmarthenshire, N. by Carmarthenshire and Breconshire, E. by Monmouthshire and S. and S.W. by the Bristol Channel and Carmarthen Bay. The contour of the county is largely determined by the fact that it lies between the mountains of Breconshire and the Bristol Channel. Its extreme breadth from the sea inland is 29 m., while its greatest length from east to west is 53 m. Its chief rivers, the Rhymney, Taff, Neath (or Nêdd) and Tawe or Tawy, have their sources in the Breconshire mountains, the two first trending towards the south-east, while the two last trend to the south-west, so that the main body of the county forms a sort of quarter-circle between the Taff and the Neath. Near the apex of the angle formed by these two rivers is the loftiest peak in the county, the great Pennant scarp of Craig y Llyn or Carn Moesyn, 1970 ft. high, which in the Glacial period diverted the ice-flow from the Beacons into the valley on either side of it. To the south and south-east of this peak extend the great coal-fields of mid-Glamorgan, their surface forming an irregular plateau with an average elevation of 600 to 1200 ft. above sea-level, but with numerous peaks about 1500 ft. high, or more; Mynydd y Caerau, the second highest being 1823 ft. Out of this plateau have been carved, to the depth of 500 to 800 ft. below its general level, three distinct series of narrow valleys, those in each series being more or less parallel. The rivers which give their names to these valleys include the Cynon, the Great and Lesser Rhondda (tributaries of the Taff) and the Ely flowing to the S.E., the Ogwr or Ogmore (with its tributaries the Garw and Llynfi) flowing south through Bridgend, and the Avan bringing the waters of the Corwg and Gwynfi to the south-west into Swansea Bay at Aberavon. To the south of this central hill country, which is wet, cold and sterile, and whose steep slopes form the southern edge of the coal-field, there stretches out to the sea a gently undulating plain, compendiously known as the “Vale of Glamorgan,” but in fact consisting of a succession of small vales of such fertile land and with such a mild climate that it has been styled, not inaptly, the “Garden of Wales.” To the east of the central area referred to and divided from it by a spur of the Brecknock mountains culminating in Carn Bugail, 1570 ft. high, is the Rhymney, which forms the county’s eastern boundary. On the west other spurs of the Beacons divide the Neath from the Tawe (which enters the sea at Swansea), and the Tawe from the Loughor, which, with its tributary the Amman, separates the county on the N.W. from Carmarthenshire, in which it rises, and falling into Carmarthen Bay forms what is known as the Burry estuary, so called from a small stream of that name in the Gower peninsula. The rivers are all comparatively short, the Taff, in every respect the chief river, being only 33 m. long.

Down to the middle of the 19th century most of the Glamorgan valleys were famous for their beautiful scenery, but industrial operations have since destroyed most of this beauty, except in the so-called “Vale of Glamorgan,” the Vale of Neath, the “combes” and limestone gorges of Gower and the upper reaches of the Taff and the Tawe. The Vale of Neath is par excellence the waterfall district of South Wales, the finest falls being the Cilhepste fall, the Sychnant and the three Clungwyns on the Mellte and its tributaries near the Vale of Neath railway from Neath to Hirwaun, Scwd Einon Gam and Scwd Gladys on the Pyrddin on the west side of the valley close by, with Melin Court and Abergarwed still nearer Neath. There are also several cascades on the Dulais, and in the same district, though in Breconshire, is Scwd Henrhyd on the Llech near Colbren Junction. Almost the only part of the county which is now well timbered is the Vale of Neath. There are three small lakes, Llyn Fawr and Llyn Fach near Craig y Llyn and Kenfig Pool amid the sand-dunes of Margam. The rainfall of the county varies from an average of about 25 in. at Porthcawl and other parts of the Vale of Glamorgan to about 37 in. at Cardiff, 40 in. at Swansea and to upwards of 70 in. in the northern part of the county,