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 680 GENTILESCHI GEODE when he speaks of " the middle wall of parti- tion " between Jews and gentiles as being broken down by the gospel. GENTILESCHI, Orazio, an Italian painter, whose family name was LOMI, born in Pisa in 1563, died in London, or according to some authori- ties in Kome, about 1646. At the invitation of Charles I. he took up his residence at the court of England, and decorated the palace at Green- wich and other buildings. Vandyke included him in his portraits of 100 illustrious men. GENTRY, a N. W. county of Missouri, inter- sected by Grand river and drained by its E. and W. forks ; area, about 500 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 11,607, of whom 56 were colored. The chief productions in 1870 were 61,765 bushels of wheat, 640,951 of Indian corn, 135,555 of oats, 44,929 of potatoes, 177,834 Ibs. of butter, 52,641 of wool, and 11,082 tons of hay. There were 5,516 horses, 4,014 milch cows, 7,553 other cattle, 18,756 sheep, and 20,585 swine ; 3 flour mills, 14 saw mills, and a woollen fac- tory. Capital, Albany. GENTZ, Friedrich Ton, a German diplomatist and publicist, born in Breslau in 1764, died in Vienna, June 9, 1832. He was considered a dunce until, in his 21st year, he attended Kant's lectures at Konigsberg, when his mind was awakened, and he became familiar with the Greek and Roman classics, and mastered French and English. Returning to Berlin, where he had previously studied, he became a favorite in the highest circles, and commenced a career of gallantry, adventure, and author- ship. In 1793 he published a translation into German of Burke's "Essay on the French Revolution," with copious notes. In 1794 he translated and annotated Mallet du Pau's book on the same subject, and in 1795 Mounier's. In 1799 he visited England, and for 20 years he was in correspondence with leading mem- bers of the British ministries, for whom he drew up many papers on taxation and finance. In 1802 he visited Vienna, and on Sept. 6 of that year was engaged by the emperor Francis as a councillor. He was sent to England to nego- tiate an alliance, and drew up the Austrian manifesto of 1805. Gentz was furiously as- sailed in Napoleon's bulletins, and as the court of Vienna was fearful of being compromised by his further presence, he was directed to leave the capital, and for a time he used his skilful pen in combating Napoleon in Prussia. He was recalled to Vienna by Metternich in 1809, wrote the Austrian manifesto of that year, and subsequently proved himself merely the tool of his employer. He took an active part in the congress of Vienna, assisted in framing the treaty of the holy alliance, and acted as secre- tary at the congresses of Aix-la-Chapelle, Trop- pau, Laybach, and Verona. He wasted his talents in sophistical pleas for reaction and po- litical quietism, and his means in extravagance and dissipation. His diaries were found among the literary remains of Varnhagen von Ense and published in 1861 (complete ed., 2 vols., Leipsic, 1874). His Brief e an Pilat, a contri- bution to recent German history, was edited by Karl Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, with a biographi- cal notice (2 vols., Leipsic, 1868). GEMS, a closely allied group of animals or plants, characterized by ultimate structural peculiarities. Great confusion prevails among describers in the formation of genera, from their considering form and complication of structure as generic characters, whereas the former is characteristic of families, and the latter of orders; hence generic, family, and ordinal characters are mixed up in the deter- minations of almost all naturalists from Linnaeus to the present time, and genera have been un- necessarily and absurdly multiplied. Genera are subdivisions of families, and species are sub- divisions of genera ; the former, as has been stated, are limited by ultimate structural pecu- liarities, while the latter bear a closer relation to each other and to their special localities, their existence being also confined within a definite period. Generic peculiarities extend to the most minute details of structure of teeth, hair, scales, cerebral convolutions, distribution of vessels, arrangement of intestinal folds and appendages, and microscopic anatomy of the organs ; so complete is this identity of structure that (in the words of Agassiz, " Essay on Clas- sification," part i., chap. 1) if an animal were "submitted to the investigation of a skilful anatomist, after having been mutilated to such an extent that none of its specific characters could be recognized, yet not only its class, or its order, or its family, but even its genus, could be identified as precisely as if it were perfectly well preserved in all its parts." Every species of the genus wipes (fox), for example, has the same dental formula, toes and claws, and other generic characters, whether arctic, tropic, or temperate, American, European, or Asiatic, in its habitat. Genera may or may not resemble each other in form ; they usually have a wide geographical range, and are less modified in their characters by physical and external agen- cies. The generic distinctions of the testudi- nata or tortoises, both land and marine, found- ed principally on the characters of the skull, jaws, skin, and feet (see Agassiz, " Natural History of the United States," vol. i.), give an admirable idea of what constitutes a genus, as distinguished from families and orders. GEODE, a hollow shell of stone, commonly of quartz, found in various rocks, and usually lined with crystals pointing toward the centre. These crystals are for the most part of quartz, often amethystine. Among the amygdaloids of the trap are found geodes of agate and chal- cedony, the shell made up of concentric layers of these variously colored silicious matters. Be- sides quartz crystals, others of calcareous spar, analcime, &c., are found in the cavities of geodes. Some of the most remarkable speci- mens of this kind in the quartz geodes are found in low stages of water loose in the rapids of the upper Mississippi river. Externally they are