Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VIII.djvu/106

 GONGORA Y ARGOTE usually MOTCTM among themselves in their .rigue. Their religion is a degraded sort of pantheism. While polygamy is not pro- hibited, it is practically of rare occurrence, as a wife cannot be obtained without a payment, i-itluT in money or services, to her family. The women engage in every sort of labor ex- cept that of the chase, in which the men are t xm-rnely expert. The chief hunters of the villages now use matchlocks in place of the bow and arrow, and the men very generally carry little axes, which they throw with such skill" and precision as to kill birds and animals at a considerable distance. These axes are in fact the principal agricultural implement of the Gonds, as their simple system of cultiva- tion consists merely in felling timber, burning it, and planting grain in the ashes. The ad- vance of the Gonds in civilization appears to be proportional to the admixture of the Hindoo element with the aboriginal race. Where this is small, as in the interior of the highlands, the scanty means of the people for subsistence, and the constant exposure to malaria and disease, operate most powerfully against any increase of prosperity. Their general condition as a people, however, seems to be gradually im- proving under British rule. GONGORA T ARGOTE, Luis de, a Spanish poet, born in Cordova, Jan. 11, 1561, died there, May 23, 1627. He was the son of a distin- guished lawyer, and was educated at Sala- manca for his father's profession, but aban- doned it for poetry. He lived in his native city poor and obscure till the age of 43, when, having entered holy orders, he was made titu- lar chaplain to Philip III.; but after 11 years of neglect he returned to Cordova in broken health. His early poetry, consisting of ballads and odes, is remarkable for vigor and simplicity, but later in life he adopted an affected, obscure, and highly metaphorical style, which for a time became fashionable in Spain, and even in France, and was imitated by a large school of succeeding poets. It is known as the estilo ml to. or cultivated style, and one of its most marked features was the use of obsolete and i words and of new and forced construc- tions. So unintelligible were the poems of Gongora that even in his own lifetime com- mentaries were written to explain them. His were published in 1636-'46, with a com- mentary 1,500 pages long by Ooronel, a poet of the saroeschool (3 vols. 4to, Madrid). MmiUTKS, a group of fossil cephalopods, a nautilus-like shell, but with the siphun- ns between the chambers, have one or more flexures at the margin. These flexures become more and more complex, from the species of the Hamilton (middle Devonian) period, when they first appear, to those of the carbon i ft- n MIS p.-ri...!, vlu-n they disappear, 'plaivd in mesozoic time by the cera- tites and ammonites, to which they are nearlv related. The 0. Marcellentis (Van.), from the GONSALVO DE CORDOVA Marcellus shales of New York, has been found a foot in diameter. Clymenia, an allied genus, Goniatites (G. retorsus). had the siphuncle ventral, and the septa with- out a distinct dorsal lobe on the median line. GONIOMETER (Gr. ywvfa, an angle, and fitrpov, a measure), an instrument for measuring the angles of crystals. Two kinds of goniometers are in use, one designed to measure the angles by direct application of the instrument to the faces of the crystal, and the other by the arc through which the crystal must be turned for two adjoining faces to reflect in succession the same object to the eye. The first and simplest form is the common or Haiiy's goniometer. It is a graduated semicircular arc with a fixed and a movable radius, between which the crys- tal is placed, each radius being made to coin- cide with the plane of one of its faces. The angle of their opening may then be read off on the arc. This instrument cannot be depended upon for nicety of measurement. The reflect- ing goniometer was invented by Dr. Wollaston, and several modified forms of it have been in- troduced by others. It requires for its use crystals with clear faces, that can distinctly re- flect the image of a dark line across a clear light, as the bar of a window sash. The instrument is made with great precision, and its graduated arc is furnished with a vernier, by which the degrees are divided into minutes. The French goniometer of Adelman combines the principles of both the common and reflecting instruments, and is much less expensive than Wollaston's. GONSALVO DE CORDOVA, or Gonzalo Hernandez de Cordova, called el Gran Capitan (the Great Captain), a Spanish general, born at Montilla, near Cordova, March 16, 1453, died in Granada, Dec. 2, 1515. His family name was Aguilar, but his ancestors rendered such services at the conquest of Cordova that St. Ferdinand per- mitted them to assume the name of that city. At the court of Ferdinand and Isabella Gon- salvo attracted attention by his beauty and knightly skill and the magnificence of his liv- ing. He distinguished himself at Albuera da- ring the war with Portugal (1479), but gained the greatest renown in the war with the Moors, which began in 1481 and ended at the begin- ning of 1492. In conjunction with the king's