close-fitting and for the most part somewhat irregular hexagons, made up of articulated portions varying from a few inches to some feet in depth, and concave or convex at the upper and lower surfaces. In diameter the pillars vary from 15 to 20 in., and in height some are as much as 20 ft. The Great Causeway is chiefly from 20 to 30, and for a few yards in some places nearly 40 ft. in breadth, exclusive of outlying broken pieces of rock. It is highest at its narrowest part. At about half a dozen yards from the cliff, widening and becoming lower, it extends outwards into a platform, which has a slight seaward inclination, but is easy to walk upon, and for nearly 100 yds. is always above water. At the distance of about 150 yds. from the cliff it turns a little to the eastward for 20 or 30 yds., and then sinks into the sea. The neighbouring cliffs exhibit in many places columns similar to those of the Giant’s Causeway, a considerable exposure of them being visible at a distance of 500 to 600 yds. in the bay to the east. A group of these columns, from their arrangement, have been fancifully named the “Giant’s Organ.” The most remarkable of the cliffs is the Pleaskin, the upper pillars of which have the appearance of a colonnade, and are 60 ft. in height; beneath these is a mass of coarse black amygdaloid, of the same thickness, underlain by a second range of basaltic pillars, from 40 to 50 ft. in height. The view eastward over Bengore and towards Fair Head is magnificent. Near the Giant’s Causeway are the ruins of the castles of Dunseverick and Dunluce, situated high above the sea on isolated crags, and the swinging bridge of Carrick-a-Rede, spanning a chasm 80 ft. deep, and connecting a rock, which is used as a salmon-fishing station, with the mainland. In 1883 an electric railway, the first in the United Kingdom, was opened for traffic, connecting the Causeway with Portrush and Bushmills. After a protracted lawsuit (1897–1898) the Causeway, and certain land in the vicinity, were declared to be private property, and a charge is made for admission.
GIANT’S KETTLE, Giant’s Cauldron or Pot-Hole, in
physical geography, the name applied to cavities or holes which
appear to have been drilled in the surrounding rocks by eddying
currents of water bearing stones, gravel and other detrital
matter. The size varies from a few inches to several feet in
depth and diameter. The commonest occurrence is in regions
where glaciers exist or have existed; a famous locality is the
Gletscher Garten of Lucerne, where there are 32 giant’s kettles,
the largest being 26 ft. wide and 30 ft. deep; they are also
common in Germany, Norway and in the United States. It
appears that water, produced by the thawing of the ice and
snow, forms streams on the surface of the glacier, which, having
gathered into their courses a certain amount of morainic débris,
are finally cast down a crevasse as a swirling cascade or moulin.
The sides of the crevasse are abraded, and a vertical shaft is
formed in the ice. The erosion may be continued into the bed
of the glacier, and, the ice having left the district, the giant’s
kettle so formed is seen as an empty shaft, or as a pipe filled with
gravel, sand or boulders. Such cavities and pipes afford valuable
evidence as to the former extent of glaciers (see J. Geikie, The
Great Ice Age). Similar holes are met with in river beds at the
foot of cascades, and under some other circumstances. The term
“pot-hole” is also sometimes used synonymously with
“swallow-hole” (q.v.).
GIAOUR (a Turkish adaptation of the Pers. gâwr or gōr,
an infidel), a word used by the Turks to describe all who are
not Mahommedans, with especial reference to Christians. The
word, first employed as a term of contempt and reproach, has
become so general that in most cases no insult is intended in its
use; similarly, in parts of China, the term “foreign devil”
has become void of offence. A strict analogy to giaour is found
in the Arabic kaffir, or unbeliever, which is so commonly in use
as to have become the proper name of peoples and countries.
GIB, ADAM (1714–1788), Scottish divine and leader of the Antiburgher section of the Scottish Secession Church, was born on the 14th of April 1714 in the parish of Muckhart, Perthshire, and, on the completion of his literary and theological studies at Edinburgh and Perth, was licensed as a preacher in 1740. His eldest brother being a prodigal he succeeded to the paternal estate, but threw the will into the fire on his brother’s promising to reform. In 1741 he was ordained minister of the large Secession congregation of Bristo Street, Edinburgh. In 1745 he was almost the only minister of Edinburgh who continued to preach against rebellion while the troops of Charles Edward were in occupation of the town. When in 1747 “the Associate Synod,” by a narrow majority, decided not to give full immediate effect to a judgment which had been passed in the previous year against the lawfulness of the “Burgess Oath,” Gib led the protesting minority, who separated from their brethren and formed the Antiburgher Synod (April 10th) in his own house in Edinburgh. It was chiefly under his influence that it was agreed by this ecclesiastical body at subsequent meetings to summon to the bar their “Burgher” brethren, and finally to depose and excommunicate them for contumacy. Gib’s action in forming the Antiburgher Synod led, after prolonged litigation, to his exclusion from the building in Bristo Street where his congregation had met. In 1765 he made a vigorous and able reply to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, which had stigmatized the Secession as “threatening the peace of the country.” From 1753 till within a short period of his death, which took place on the 18th of June 1788, he preached regularly
in Nicolson Street church, which was constantly filled with an audience of two thousand persons. His dogmatic and fearless attitude in controversy earned for him the nickname “Pope Gib.”
Principal publications: Tables for the Four Evangelists (1770, and with author’s name, 1800); The Present Truth, a Display of the Secession Testimony (2 vols., 1774); Vindiciae dominicae (Edin., 1780). See Chambers’s Eminent Scotsmen; also article United Presbyterian Church.
GIBARA, or Jibara (once “Punta del Yarey” and “Yarey
de Gibara”), a north-coast city of Oriente Province, Cuba,
80 m. N.W. of Santiago de Cuba. Pop. (1907) 6170. It is served
by railway to the S.S.W., to Holguín and Cacocum (where it
connects with the main line between Santiago and Havana),
and is a port of call for the American Munson Line. It lies on a
circular harbour, about 1 m. in diameter, which, though open
to the N., affords fair shelter. At the entrance to the harbour
is San Fernando, an old fort (1817), and the city is very quaint
in appearance. At the back of the city are three stone-topped
hills, Silla, Pan and Tabla, reputed to be those referred to by
Columbus in his journal of his first voyage. Enclosing the town
is a stone wall, built by the Spaniards as a defence against attack
during the rebellion of 1868–1878. Gibara is the port of Holguín.
It exports cedar, mahogany, tobacco, sugar, tortoise-shell,
Indian corn, cattle products, coco-nuts and bananas; and is
the centre of the banana trade with the United States. Gibara
is an old settlement, but it did not rise above the status of a
petty village until after 1817; its importance dates from the
opening of the port to commerce in 1827.
GIBBON, EDWARD (1737–1794), English historian, was descended, he tells us in his autobiography, from a Kentish family of considerable antiquity; among his remoter ancestors he reckons the lord high treasurer Fiennes, Lord Say and Sele, whom Shakespeare has immortalized in his Henry VI. His grandfather was a man of ability, an enterprising merchant of London, one of the commissioners of customs under the Tory ministry during the last four years of Queen Anne, and, in the judgment of Lord Bolingbroke, as deeply versed in the “commerce and finances of England” as any man of his time. He was not always wise, however, either for himself or his country; for he became deeply involved in the South Sea Scheme, in the disastrous collapse of which (1720) he lost the ample wealth he had amassed. As a director of the company, moreover, he was suspected of fraudulent complicity, taken into custody and heavily fined; but £10,000 was allowed him out of the wreck of his estate, and with this his skill and enterprise soon constructed a second fortune. He died at Putney in 1736, leaving the bulk of his property to his two daughters—nearly disinheriting his only son, the father of the historian, for having married against his wishes. This son (by name Edward) was educated
