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 GASCONY GASPARIN 641 The Pacific railroad of Missouri passes through the N. part. The chief productions in 1870 were 222,850 bushels of wheat, 260,178 of In- dian corn, 163,717 of oats, 31,738 of potatoes, 82,600 Ibs. of butter, 128,917 gallons of wine, and 3,264 tons of hay. There were 3,270 hor- ses, 3,311 milch cows, 4,301 other cattle, 8,398 sheep, and 17,057 swine. Capital, Hermann. GASCONY (Fr. Gascogne), an old province in the S. W. corner of France, bounded N. by Guienne, E. by Languedoc and the county of Foix, from which it was partly separated by the upper Garonne, S. by the Pyrenees and Beam, and W. by the Atlantic (the gulf of Gascon y). It was originally inhabited by a population of Ibe- rian blood, and received from the Romans the name of Novempopulana or Aquitania Tertia, which was changed to that of Gascony about the middle of the 6th century, when it was occu- pied by the Vascones, a tribe of northern Spain, whom the Goths had driven across the Pyre- nees. It was more than once invaded by the Merovingian kings, but was never entirely sub- jugated until the time of Charlemagne. The supremacy of the French crown being finally established, the country was placed under the direct sovereignty of the duke of Aquitaine. Through the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine, ex-queen of France, with Henry Plantagenet, Gascony, in conjunction with the whole country which that princess held south of the Loire, fell to the crown of England in 1152. For 300 years it remained under the same allegiance, and returned by conquest to France in 1453. It formed afterward, with Guienne, one of the great governments of that country, and is now mainly comprised in the departments of Hautes-Pyr6nees, Gers, and Landes. GASCOYGNE, William, the inventor of the mi- crometer, born in England about 1621, killed fighting for Charles I. at Marston Moor, July 2, 1644. The instrument, as constructed by him, consisted principally of two parallel wires or metallic plates, capable of being moved, which were placed in the focus of the eye glass of the telescope. The image was comprehended be- tween these, and by means of a scale for the measure of angles its diameter was determined. Gascoygne used his instrument in various astro- nomical observations, and in determining the magnitude or distance of terrestrial objects. GASKELL, Elizabeth Cleghora, an English au- thoress, born at Chelsea about 1810, died at Alton, Hants, Nov. 12, 1865. Her maiden name was Stevenson, and she was the wife of a Unitarian clergyman, who was for some time a resident of Manchester. Her first novel, " Mary Barton," published in 1848, is a stri- king picture of the daily life of a large manu- facturing town. The pathetic power of many of the scenes delineated, and the literary merit I of the book, gave Mrs, Gaskell at once a posi- tion among the first writers of fiction of the day. She afterward became a contributor to "Household Words" and "All the Year Round," And her tales, after having appeared in these journals, were republished in book form. Her principal works of fiction besides the one already mentioned were: "Moorland Cottage" (1850); "Ruth" (1853); "Cranford" (1853); "North and South" (1855); "Lizzie Leigh ;" " Round the Sofa " (1859) ; " Right at Last "(1860); "Sylvia's Lovers" (1863) ; and " Wives and Daughters " (1866). Most of them were republished in this country and translated into French. The work, however, which at- tracted the greatest attention was " The Life of Charlotte Bronte " (2 vols. 8vo, 1857). It was written in a charming style, and, as Mrs. Gaskell had been a personal friend of the au- thor of "Jane Eyre," she was able to furnish many interesting details of her private life. GASPARIN. I. Adrien Etienne Pierre, count de, a French statesman and agriculturist, born in Orange, June 29, 1783, died there, Sept. 7, 1862. He entered the army, but was soon compelled by illness to give up military life. After the revolution of 1830 he was made suc- cessively prefect of the departments of Loire and Isere, and in 1831 of Rhone ; and for his promptness in suppressing an insurrection at Lyons in 1834 he was raised to the peerage. He became minister of the interior in 1836, and gave his attention especially to prison re- forms and the establishment of hospitals. He occupied the same position in the short-lived cabinet of March, 1839. In 1848 he accepted the management of the national agricultural institute at Versailles, which was abolished in 1852. He published a large number of papers and several extended works on agricultural subjects, the principal of which is Cours d? agriculture (5 vols., Paris, 1843-'9). II. Agenor Etienne, count de, a French publicist, son of the preceding, born in Orange, July 10, 1810, died in Geneva, May 14, 1871. He was employed in the ministries of public in- struction and the interior, under Guizot and his father, and in 1842 was elected to the chamber of deputies for Bastia, Corsica. He was a conservative, but advocated parliamen- tary reform, the emancipation of slaves in the colonies, and the rights of the Protestant church, of which he was a member. His inde- pendence was not relished by the government ; and his sympathy for Protestantism not being shared by his constituents, he failed of reelec- tion to the chamber in 1 846, and retired from political life. He was in the East when the revolution of 1848 took place. When solicited to declare himself in favor of the new consti- tution, he refused. His disapprobation of the form afterward given to the government by Louis Napoleon was even stronger, and he per- manently removed to Switzerland. In the winter he resided near Geneva, and delivered courses of lectures on economical, historical, and religious subjects, many of which were subsequently published. During the civil war in the United States he published two works warmly sustaining the Union cause : Les Etats- Unis en 1861 : un grand peuple qui se releve