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# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/General

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​GENERAL (Lat. generalis, of or relating to a genus, kind or class), a term which, from its pointing to all or most of the members of a class, the whole of an area, &c. as opposed to “particular” or to “local,” is hence used in various shades of meaning, for that which is prevalent, usual, widespread or miscellaneous, indefinite, vague. It has been added to the titles of various officials, military officers and others; thus the head of a religious order is the “superior-general,” more usually the “general,” and we find the same combination in such offices as that of “accountant-general,” “postmaster-general,” “attorney-” or “solicitor-general,” and many others, the additional word implying that the official in question is of superior rank, as having a wider ​authority or sphere of activity. This is the use that accounts for the application of the term, as a substantive, to a military officer of superior rank, a “general officer,” or “general,” who commands or administers bodies of troops larger than a regiment, or consisting of more than one arm of the service (see also Officers). It was towards the end of the 16th century that the word began to be used in its present sense as a noun, and in the armies of the time the “general” was commander-in-chief, the “lieutenant-general” commander of the horse and second in command of the army, and the “major-general” (strictly “sergeant-major-general”) commander of the foot and chief of the staff. Field marshals, who have now the highest rank, were formerly subordinate to the general officers. These titles—general, lieutenant-general and major-general—are still applied in most armies to the first, second and third grades of general officer, and in the French service until 1870 the chief of the staff of the army bore the title of major-general. In the German and Russian services the three grades are qualified by the addition of the words “of cavalry,” “of infantry” and “of artillery.” The French service possesses only two grades, “general of brigade” and “general of division.” The Austrian service has two ranks of general officers peculiar to itself, “lieutenant field marshal,” equivalent to lieutenant-general, and Feldzeugmeister (master of the ordnance), equivalent to the German general of infantry or artillery. There is also the rank of “general of cavalry.” The Spanish army still retains the old term “captain-general.” In the German service General Oberst (colonel-general) and General Feldzeugmeister (master-general of ordnance) are ranks intermediate between that of full general and that of general field marshal. It may be noted that during the 17th century “general” was not confined to a commanding officer of an army, and was also equivalent to “admiral”; thus when under the Protectorate the office of lord high admiral was put into commission, the three first commissioners, Blake, Edward Popham and Richard Deane, were styled “generals at sea.”
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Geneva (New York)

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​GENEVA, a city of Ontario county, New York, U.S.A., at the N. end of Seneca Lake, about 52 m. S.E. of Rochester. Pop. (1890) 7557; (1900) 10,433 (of whom 1916 were foreign-born); (1910 census) 12,446. It is served by the New York Central & Hudson River, and the Lehigh Valley railways, and by the Cayuga & Seneca Canal. It is an attractively built city, and has good mineral springs. Malt, tinware, flour and grist-mill products, ​boilers, stoves and ranges, optical supplies, wall-paper, cereals, canned goods, cutlery, tin cans and wagons are manufactured, and there are also extensive nurseries. The total value of the factory product in 1905 was $4,951,964, an increase of 82.3% since 1900. Geneva has a public library, a city hospital and hygienic institute. It is the seat of the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station and of Hobart College (non-sectarian), which was first planned in 1812, was founded in 1822 (the majority of its incorporators being members of the Protestant Episcopal church) as successor to Geneva Academy, received a full charter as Geneva College in 1825, and was renamed Hobart Free College in 1852 and Hobart College in 1860, in honour of Bishop John Henry Hobart. The college had in 1908–1909 107 students, 21 instructors, and a library of 50,000 volumes and 15,000 pamphlets. A co-ordinate woman’s college, the William Smith school for women, opened in 1908, was endowed in 1906 by William Smith of Geneva, who at the same time provided for a Hall of Science and for further instruction in science, especially in biology and psychology. In 1888 the Smith Observatory was built at Geneva, being maintained by William Smith, and placed in charge of Dr William Robert Brooks, professor of astronomy in Hobart College. The municipality owns its water-supply system. Geneva was first settled about 1787 almost on the site of the Indian village of Kanadasega, which was destroyed in 1779 during Gen. John Sullivan’s expedition against the Indians in western New York. It was chartered as a city in 1898.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Generation

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​GENERATION (from Lat. generare, to beget, procreate; genus, stock, race), the act of procreation or begetting, hence any one of the various methods by which plants, animals or substances are produced. As applied to the result of procreation, “generation” is used of the offspring of the same parents, taken as one degree in descent from a common ancestor, or, widely, of the body of living persons born at or near the same time; thus the word is also used of the age or period of a generation, usually taken as about thirty years, or three generations to a century. As a term in biology or physiology, generation is synonymous with the Gr. βιογένεσις and the Ger. Zeugung, and may comprehend the whole history of the first origin and continued reproduction of living bodies, whether plants or animals; but it is frequently restricted to the sexual reproduction of animals. The subject may be divided into the following branches, viz.: (1) the first origin of life and living beings, (2) non-sexual or agamic reproduction, and (3) gamic or sexual reproduction. For the first two of these topics see Abiogenesis, Biogenesis and Biology; for the third and more extensive division, including (1) the formation and fecundation of the ovum, and (2) the development of the embryo in different animals, see Reproduction and Embryology.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hoyland Nether

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​HOYLAND NETHER, an urban district in the Hallamshire parliamentary division of the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, 51/2 m. S.S.E. of Barnsley, on the Midland railway. Collieries and brickworks employ the large industrial population. Pop. (1901) 12,464.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hrólfr Kraki

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​HRÓLFR KRAKI, perhaps the most famous of the Danish kings of the heroic age. In Beowulf, where he is called Hrothwulf, he is represented as reigning over Denmark in conjunction with his uncle Hrothgar, one of the three sons of an earlier king called Healfdene. In the Old Norse sagas Hrólfe is the son of Helgi (Halga), the son of Halfdan (Healfdene). He is represented as a wealthy and peace-loving monarch similar to Hrothgar in Beowulf, but the latter (Hróarr, or Roe) is quite overshadowed by his nephew in the Northern authorities. The chief incidents in Hrólfr’s career are the visit which he paid to the Swedish king Aðils (Beowulf’s Eadgils), of which several different explanations are given, and the war, in which he eventually lost his life, against his brother-in-law Hiörvarðr. The name Kraki (pole-ladder) is said to have been given to him on account of his great height by a young knight named Vöggr, whom he handsomely rewarded and who eventually avenged his death on Hiörvarðr. There is no reason to doubt that Hrólfr was an historical person and that he reigned in Denmark during the early years of the 6th century, but the statement found in all the sagas that he was the stepson of Aðils seems hardly compatible with the evidence of Beowulf, which is a much earlier authority.
See Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, pp. 52-68, ed. A. Holder (Strassburg, 1886); and A. Olrik, Danmarks Hettedigtning (Copenhagen, 1903).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hoyle, Edmund

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​HOYLE, EDMUND, or Edmond (1672–1769), the first systematizer of the laws of whist, and author of a book on games, was born in 1672. His parentage and place of birth are unknown, and few details of his life are recorded. For some time he was resident in London, and partially supported himself by giving instruction in the game of whist. For the use of his pupils he drew up a Short Treatise on the game, which after circulating for some time in manuscript was printed by him and entered at Stationers’ Hall in November 1742. The laws of Hoyle continued to be regarded as authoritative until 1864, since which time they have been gradually superseded by the new rules adopted by the Arlington and Portland clubs in that year (see Whist). He also published rules for various other games, and his book on games, which includes the Short Treatise, has passed into many editions. The weight of his authority is indicated by the phrase “according to Hoyle,” which, doubtless first applied with reference to whist, has gained currency as a general proverb. Hoyle died in London on the 29th of August 1769.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hu-peh

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​HU-PEH, a central province of China, bounded N. by Ho-nan, E. by Ngan-hui, S. by Hu-nan, and W. by Shen-si and Szechʽuen. It has an area of 70,450 sq. m. and contains a population of 34,000,000. Han-kow, Ichʽang and Shasi are the three open ports of the province, besides which it contains ten other prefectural cities. The greater part of the province forms a plain, and its most noticeable feature is the Han river, which runs in a south-easterly direction across the province from its north-westerly corner to its junction with the Yangtsze Kiang at Han-kow. The products of the Han valley are exclusively agricultural, consisting of cotton, wheat, rape seed, tobacco and various kinds of beans. Vegetable tallow is also exported in large quantities from this part of Hu-peh. Gold is found in the Han, but not in sufficient quantities to make working it more than barely remunerative. It is washed every winter from banks of coarse gravel, a little above I-chʽêng Hien, on which it is deposited by the river. Every winter the supply is exhausted by the washers, and every summer it is renewed by the river. Baron von Richthofen reckoned that the digger earned from 50 to 150 cash (i.e. about 11/2d. to 41/4d.) a day. Only one waggon road leads northwards from Hu-peh, and that is to Nan-yang Fu in Ho-nan, where it forks, one branch going to Peking by way of Kʽai-fêng Fu, and the other into Shan-si by Ho-nan Fu.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hu-chow-fu

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​HU-CHOW-FU, a city of China, in the province of Cheh-Kiang (30° 48′ N., 120° 3′ E.), a little S. of Tai-hu Lake, in the midst of the central silk district. According to Chinese authorities it is 6 m. in circumference, and contains about 100,000 families. A broad stream or canal crosses the city from south to north, and forms the principal highway for boat traffic. The main trade of the place is in raw silk, but some silk fabrics, such as flowered crape (chousha), are also manufactured. Silk is largely worn even by the lowest classes of the inhabitants.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ghilzai

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​GHILZAI, a large and widespread Afghan tribe, who extend from Kalat-i-Ghilzai on the S. to the Kabul river on the N., and from the Gul Koh range on the W. to the Indian border on the E., in many places overflowing these boundaries. The popular theory of the origin of the Ghilzais traces them to the Turkish tribe of Kilji, once occupying districts bordering the upper course of the Syr Darya (Jaxartes), and affirms that they were brought into Afghanistan by the Turk Sabuktagin in the 10th century. However that may be, the Ghilzai clans now rank collectively as second to none in strength of military and commercial enterprise. They are a fine, manly race of people, and it is from some of their most influential clans (Suliman Khel, Nasir Khel, Kharotis, &c.) that the main body of povindah merchants is derived.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Giacometti, Paolo

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​GIACOMETTI, PAOLO (1816–1882), Italian dramatist, born at Novi Ligure, was educated in law at Genoa, but at the age of twenty had some success with his play Rosilda and then devoted himself to the stage. Depressed circumstances made him attach himself as author to various touring Italian companies, and his output was considerable; moreover, such actors as Ristori, Rossi and Salvini made many of these plays great successes. Among the best of them were La Donna (1850), La Donna in seconde nozze (1851), Giuditta (1857), Sofocle (1860), La Morte civile (1880). A collection of his works was published at Milan in eight volumes (1859 et seq.).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ghost

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​GHOST (a word common to the W. Teutonic languages; O.E. gæst, Dutch, geest, Ger. Geist), in the sense now prevailing, the spirit of a dead person considered as appearing in some visible or sensible form to the living (see Apparitions; Psychical Research, “Phantasms of the Dead”; Spiritualism). In the earlier and wider sense of spirit in general, or of the principle of life, the word is practically obsolete. The language of the Authorized Version of the Bible, however, has preserved the phrase “to give up the ghost,” still sometimes used of dying. The Spirit of God, too, the third person of the Trinity, is still called, not in the technical language of theology only, the Holy Ghost. The adjective “ghostly” is still occasionally used for “spiritual” (cf. the Ger. geistlich) as contrasted with “bodily,” especially in such combinations as “ghostly counsel,” “ghostly comfort.” We may even speak of a “ghostly adviser,” though not without a touch of affectation; on the other hand, the phrase ​“ghostly man” for a clergyman (cf. the Ger. Geistlicher) is an archaism the use of which could only be justified by poetic licence, as in Tennyson’s Elaine (1842). The word “ghost,” from the shadowy and unsubstantial quality attributed to the apparitions of the dead, has come also to be commonly used to emphasize the want of force or substance generally, in such phrases as “not the ghost of a chance,” “not the ghost of an idea.” It is also applied to those literary and artistic “hacks” who are paid to do work for which others get the credit.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ghost Dance

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​GHOST DANCE, an American-Indian ritual dance, sometimes called the Spirit Dance, the dancers wearing a white cloak. It is connected with the doctrine of a Messiah, which arose in Nevada among the Paiute Indians in 1888 and spread to other tribes. A young Paiute Indian medicine-man, known as Wovoka, and called Jack Wilson by the whites, proclaimed that he had had a revelation, and that, if this ghost dance and other ceremonies were duly performed, the Indians would be rid of the white men. The movement led to a sort of craze among the Indian tribes, and in 1890 it was one of the causes of the Sioux outbreak.
See J. Mooney, 14th Report (1896) of Bureau of American Ethnology.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Epicene

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​EPICENE (from the Gr. ἐπίκοινος, common), a term in Greek and Latin grammar denoting nouns which, possessing but one gender, are used to describe animals of either sex. In English grammar there are no true epicene nouns, but the term is sometimes used instead of common gender. In figurative and literary language, epicene is an adjective applied to persons having the characteristics of both sexes, and hence is occasionally used as a synonym of “effeminate.”
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ephraim

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​EPHRAIM, a tribe of Israel, called after the younger son of Joseph, who in his benediction exalted Ephraim over the elder brother Manasseh (Gen. xlviii.). These two divisions were often known as the “house of Joseph” (Josh. xvii. 14 sqq.; Judg. i. 22; 2 Sam. xix. 20; 1 Kings xi. 28). The relations between them are obscure; conflicts are referred to in Is. ix. 21, and Ephraim’s proud and ambitious character is indicated in its demands as narrated in Josh. xvii. 14; Judg. viii. 1-3, xii. 1-6. throughout, Ephraim played a distinctive and prominent part; it probably excelled Manasseh in numerical strength, and the name became a synonym for the northern kingdom of Israel. Originally the name may have been a geographical term for the central portion of Palestine. Regarded as a tribe, it lay to the north of Benjamin, which traditionally belongs to it; but whether the young “brother” (see Benjamin) sprang from it, or grew up separately, is uncertain. Northwards, Ephraim lost itself in Manasseh, even if it did not actually include it (Judg. i. 27; 1 Chron. vii. 29); the boundaries between them can hardly be recovered. Ephraim’s strength lay in the possession of famous sites: Shechem, with the tomb of the tribal ancestor, also one of the capitals; Shiloh, at one period the home of the ark; Timnath-Serah (or Heres), the burial-place of Joshua; and Samaria, whose name was afterwards extended to the whole district (see Samaria).
Shechem itself was visited by Abraham and Jacob, and the latter bought from the sons of Hamor a burial-place (Gen. xxxiii. 19). The story of Dinah may imply some early settlement of tribes in its vicinity (but see Simeon), and the reference in Gen. xlviii. 22 (see R.V. marg.) alludes to its having been forcibly captured. But how this part of Palestine came into the hands of the Israelites is not definitely related in the story of the invasion (see Joshua).
A careful discussion of the Biblical data referring to Ephraim is given by H. W. Hogg, Ency. Bib., s.v. On the characteristic narratives which appear to have originated in Ephraim (viz. the Ephraimite or Elohist source, E), see Genesis and Bible: Old Testament Criticism. See further Abimelech; Gideon; Manasseh; and Jews: History.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Epicharmus

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​EPICHARMUS (c. 540–450 B.C.), Greek comic poet, was born in the island of Cos. Early in life he went to Megara in Sicily, and after its destruction by Gelo (484) removed to Syracuse, where he spent the rest of his life at the court of Hiero, and died at the age of ninety or (according to a statement in Lucian, Macrobii, 25) ninety-seven. A brazen statue was set up in his honour by the inhabitants, for which Theocritus composed an inscription (Epigr. 17). Epicharmus was the chief representative of the Sicilian or Dorian comedy. Of his works 35 titles and a ​few fragments have survived. In the city of tyrants it would have been dangerous to present comedies like those of the Athenian stage, in which attacks were made upon the authorities. Accordingly, the comedies of Epicharmus are of two kinds, neither of them calculated to give offence to the ruler. They are either mythological travesties (resembling the satyric drama of Athens) or character comedies. To the first class belong the Busiris, in which Heracles is represented as a voracious glutton; the Marriage of Hebe, remarkable for a lengthy list of dainties. The second class dealt with different classes of the population (the sailor, the prophet, the boor, the parasite). Some of the plays seem to have bordered on the political, as The Plunderings, describing the devastation of Sicily in the time of the poet. A short fragment has been discovered (in the Rainer papyri) from the Ὁδυσσεὺς αὐτόμολος, which told how Odysseus got inside Troy in the disguise of a beggar and obtained valuable information. Another feature of his works was the large number of excellent sentiments expressed in a brief proverbial form; the Pythagoreans claimed him as a member of their school, who had forsaken the study of philosophy for the writing of comedy. Plato (Theaetetus, 152 E) puts him at the head of the masters of comedy, coupling his name with Homer and, according to a remark in Diogenes Laërtius, Plato was indebted to Epicharmus for much of his philosophy. Ennius called his didactic poem on natural philosophy Epicharmus after the comic poet. The metres employed by Epicharmus were iambic trimeter, and especially trochaic and anapaestic tetrameter. The plot of the plays was simple, the action lively and rapid; hence they were classed among the fabulae motoriae (stirring, bustling), as indicated in the well-known line of Horace (Epistles, ii. 1. 58):
“Plautus ad exemplar Siculi properare Epicharmi.”
Epicharmus is the subject of articles in Suidas and Diogenes Laërtius (viii. 3). See A. O. Lorenz, Leben und Schriften des Koers E. (with account of the Doric drama and fragments, 1864); J. Girard, Études sur la poésie grecque (1884); Kaibel in Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopädie, according to whom Epicharmus was a Siceliot; for the papyrus fragment, Blass in Jahrbücher für Philologie, cxxxix., 1889.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Epicycle

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​EPICYCLE (Gr. ἐπί, upon, and κύκλος, circle), in ancient astronomy, a small circle the centre of which describes a larger one. It was especially used to represent geometrically the periodic apparent retrograde motion of the outer planets, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, which we now know to be due to the annual revolution of the earth around the sun, but which in the Ptolemaic astronomy were taken to be real.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Isar

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​ISAR (identical with Isère, in Celtic “the rapid”), a river of Bavaria. It rises in the Tirolese Alps N.E. from Innsbruck, at an altitude of 5840 ft. It first winds in deep, narrow glens and gorges through the Alps, and at Tölz (2100 ft.), due north from its source, enters the Bavarian plain, which it traverses in a generally north and north-east direction, and pours its waters into the Danube immediately below Deggendorf after a course of 219 m. The area of its drainage basin is 38,200 sq. m. Below Munich the stream is 140 to 350 yards wide, and is studded with islands. It is not navigable, except for rafts. The total fall of the river is 4816 ft. The Isar is essentially the national stream of the Bavarians. It has belonged from the earliest times to the Bavarian people and traverses the finest corn land in the kingdom. On its banks lie the cities of Munich and Landshut, and the venerable episcopal see of Freising, and the inhabitants of the district it waters are reckoned the core of the Bavarian race.
See C. Gruber, Die Isar nach ihrer Entwickelung und ihren hydrologischen Verhältnissen (Munich, 1889); and Die Bedeutung der Isar als Verkehrsstrasse (Munich, 1890).