suspicion. The structure of the toes in these lizards forms one of their most characteristic anatomical features.
_EB1911_-_Volume_11.jpg) |
| Leaf-tailed Gecko (Gymnodactylus platurus) of Australia. |
 |
| Lower Surface of the Toe of (a) Gecko, (b) Hemidactylus—enlarged. |
Most geckoes have adhesive digits and toes, by means of which they are enabled not only to climb absolutely smooth and vertical surfaces, for instance a window-pane, but to run along a white-washed ceiling, back downwards. The adhesion is not produced by sticky matter but by numerous transverse lamellae, each of which is further beset with tiny hair-like excrescences. The arrangement of the lamellae and pads differs much in the various genera and is used for classificatory purposes. Those which live on sandy ground have narrow digits without the adhesive apparatus. Most species have sharp, curved claws, often retractile between some of the lamellae or into a special sheath. The tail is very brittle and can be quickly regenerated; it varies much in size and shape; the most extraordinary is that of the leaf-tailed gecko. Ptychozoon homalocephalon of the Malay countries has membranous expansions on the sides of the head, body, limbs and tail, which look like parachutes, but more probably they aid in concealing the creature when it is closely pressed to the similarly coloured bark of a tree. Most geckoes are dull coloured, yellow to brown, and they soon change colour from lighter to dark tints. They are insectivorous and chiefly nocturnal, but are fond of basking in the sun, motionless on the bark of a tree, or on a rock the colour of which is then imitated to a nicety. Some species are more or less transparent.
Geckoes, of which about 270 species are known, subdivided into about 50 genera, are cosmopolitan within the warmer zones, including New Zealand, and even the remotest volcanic islands. This wide distribution is due partly to the great age of the suborder (although fossils are unknown), partly to their being able to exist for several months without food so that, concealed in hollow trunks of trees, they may float about for a very long time. Ships, also, act as distributors. In south Europe occur only Hemidactylus turcicus, Tarentola mauritanica (Platydactylus facetanus) and Phyllodactylus europaeus.
GED, WILLIAM (1690–1749), the inventor of stereotyping,
was born at Edinburgh in 1690. In 1725 he patented his invention,
developed from the simple process of soldering together
loose types of Van der Mey. Ged, although he succeeded in
obtaining a cast in similar metal, of a type page, could not
persuade Edinburgh printers to take up his invention, and
finally entered into partnership with a London stationer named
Jenner and Thomas James, a typefounder. The partnership,
however, turned out very ill; and Ged, broken-hearted at his
want of success due to trade jealousy and the compositors’
dislike of the innovation, died in poverty on the 19th of October
1749. Two prayer-books for the university of Cambridge and
an edition of Sallust were printed from his stereotype plates.
In his time the best type was imported from Holland, and Ged’s
daughter reports that he had repeated offers from the Dutch
which, from patriotic motives, he refused. His sons tried to
carry out his patent, and it was eventually perfected by Andrew
Wilson.
GEDDES, ALEXANDER (1737–1802), Scottish Roman Catholic
theologian, was born in Rathven, Banffshire, on the 14th of
September 1737. He was trained at the Roman Catholic
seminary at Scalan and at the Scottish College in Paris, where
he studied biblical philology, school divinity and modern
languages. In 1764 he officiated as a priest in Dundee, but in
May 1765 accepted an invitation to live with the earl of Traquair;
where, with abundance of leisure and the free use of an adequate
library, he made further progress in his favourite biblical studies.
After a second visit to Paris, which was employed by him in
reading and making extracts from rare books and manuscripts,
he was appointed in 1769 priest of Auchinhalrig and Preshome
in his native county. The freedom with which he fraternized
with his Protestant neighbours called forth the rebuke of his
bishop (George Hay), and ultimately, for hunting and for
occasionally attending the parish church of Cullen, where one
of his friends was minister, he was deprived of his charge and
forbidden the exercise of ecclesiastical functions within the
diocese. This happened in 1779; and in 1780 he went with his
friend Lord Traquair to London, where he spent the rest of his
life. Before leaving Scotland he had received the honorary
degree of LL.D. from the university of Aberdeen, and had been
made an honorary member of the Society of Antiquaries, in the
institution of which he had taken a very active part. In London
Geddes soon received an appointment in connexion with the
chapel of the imperial ambassador, and was also helped by Lord
Petre in his scheme for a new Catholic version of the Bible.
In 1786, supported also by such scholars as Benjamin Kennicott
and Robert Lowth, Geddes published a Prospectus of a new
Translation of the Holy Bible, a considerable quarto volume, in
which the defects of previous translations were fully pointed
out, and the means indicated by which these might be removed.
It was well received, and led to the publication in 1788 of Proposals
for Printing, with a specimen, and in 1790 of a General
Answer to Queries, Counsels and Criticisms. The first volume
of the translation itself, which was entitled The Holy Bible . . .
faithfully translated from corrected Texts of the Originals, with
various Readings, explanatory Notes and critical Remarks,
appeared in 1792, and was the signal for a storm of hostility on
the part of both Catholics and Protestants. It was obvious
enough—no small offence in the eyes of some—that as a critic
Geddes had identified himself with C. F. Houbigant (1686–1783),
Kennicott and J. D. Michaelis, but others did not hesitate to
stigmatize him as the would-be “corrector of the Holy Ghost.”
Three of the vicars-apostolic almost immediately warned all the
faithful against the “use and reception” of his translation, on
the ostensible ground that it had not been examined and approved
by due ecclesiastical authority; and by his own bishop
(Douglas) he was in 1793 suspended from the exercise of his
orders in the London district. The second volume of the translation,
completing the historical books, published in 1797, found
no more friendly reception; but this circumstance did not discourage
him from giving forth in 1800 the volume of Critical
Remarks on the Hebrew Scriptures, which presented in a somewhat
brusque manner the then novel and startling views of
Eichhorn and his school on the primitive history and early records of mankind.
Geddes was engaged on a critical translation of the Psalms (published in 1807) when he was seized with an illness of which he died on the 26th of February 1802. Although under ecclesiastical censures, he had never swerved from a consistent profession of faith as a Catholic; and on his death-bed he duly received the last rites of his communion.
Besides pamphlets on the Catholic and slavery questions, as well as several fugitive jeux d’esprit, and a number of unsigned articles in the Analytical Review, Geddes also published a free metrical version of Select Satires of Horace (1779), and a verbal rendering of the First Book of the Iliad of Homer (1792). The Memoirs of his life and writings by his friend John Mason Good appeared in 1803.
GEDDES, ANDREW (1783–1844), British painter, was born
at Edinburgh. After receiving a good education in the high
school and in the university of that city, he was for five years in
the excise office, in which his father held the post of deputy
auditor. After the death of his father, who had opposed his
desire to become an artist, he came to London and entered the
Royal Academy schools. His first contribution to the exhibitions
of the Royal Academy, a “St John in the Wilderness,” appeared
at Somerset House in 1806, and from that year onwards Geddes
was a fairly constant exhibitor of figure-subjects and portraits.
His well-known portrait of Wilkie, with whom he was on terms
of intimacy, was at the Royal Academy in 1816. He alternated
for some years between London and Edinburgh, with some
excursions on the Continent, but in 1831 settled in London, and
was elected associate of the Royal Academy in 1832; and he
