70 GOGOL porters before the palace gates, and when .,-,1 tlu-iri-nVu-s took their place. An- other K-gend says that one of the giants is Gog- m&soK and tlie other Corineus, a British giant , who killed him. The effigies, originally of and pasteboard, were borne about j in public shows and processions as early as in. and j.robably long before. The present trved in wood, and hollow, were set up 8, They stand upon octagonal pedes- tals, and are 14 ft. high. GOGOL, Nikolai, a Russian author, born about 1809, died in Moscow, March 4, 1852. He is said to have failed as an actor, and afterward to have attempted in vain to obtain a posi- tion under the government. Subsequently he published " Evenings at a Farmhouse," a col- lection of tales and sketches, which met with much favor. His first drama was "The In- spector," in which the corruption and venality >f the officials was severely satirized. About 1834 he was appointed professor of history in the university of St. Petersburg. In 1842 he published a novel, " Dead Souls," which has been translated into English nnder the title of "Home Life in Russia" (London, 1854). It narrates the adventures of a rogue who goes about purchasing the rights of the proprietors to serfs recently dead, whose names have not yet been taken from the rolls, in order to obtain advances from government. This work attained great popularity. He went abroad soon after, and in his " Correspondence " (published in 1847) he eulogized the abuses which he had before satirized. By this he lost the favor which he had won from the liberals. He fell into a state of religious melancholy, and de- stroyed all his unpublished manuscripts, some of which he said were written under the in- spiration of the devil. His complete works, comprising tales, dramas, and poems, have been published in 4 vols. (Moscow, 1862). GOGRA, or Goghra (Hindoo, Gharghara ; the Sareyu of Hindoo mythology, and, according to Rennell, the Agoranis of Arrian), a river of In- dia, which rises on the frontiers of Thibet, in the Himalayas, at an altitude of about 18,000 ft., il..u , S. and then S. E., and falls into the -i near Chupra, 115 m. below Benares. i'n-t a vast torrent, having a descent of 15,500 ft in 75 m. ; but after receiving several affluents, it becomes navigable for vessels of considerable size, the descent diminishing to 12 ft. per mile. Its whole length is about 600 m. iun.-tion with the Ganges it exceeds that a depth, breadth, and volume of water. (.01 1 l< V/.KS, an Indian tribe of Brazil, long masters of the region lying between the Rio Ca-
- ia or Itabapuana and Cape Sao Thome,
i- they repeatedly repulsed the Portu- .ipti-il tn si'ttK- in those parts. "ii was the bow and arrow, in "i which tlu-v won- very skilful. They took up their abode in places sur- rnin.!. p, their dwellings being cab- i palm leaves suspended from tree GOITRE trunks, serving at the same time as a sort of ambuscade. Father Vasconcellos, a writer of the 17th century, reports that they were a fero- cious and cruel people, addicted to eating hu- man flesh. Many of these Indians had never- theless before his time been baptized as Chris- tians, and lived in villages where their descen- dants are still found, in the northern portion of the province of Rio de Janeiro, rarely mingling with the whites. Their numbers are consider- able, and they are ingenious, skilful, sprightly, and frank when kindly treated, but vindictive, improvident, and intemperate, GOITRE, an elastic swelling on the front and sides of the neck, arising from a hypertrophy of the thyroid gland ; it is also called broncho- cele and Derbyshire neck. It is generally soft and yielding, and varies in size from that of a nut to a mass surrounding the greater part of the neck, sometimes descending far upon the chest ; it is usually slow in its growth, and may increase in either lateral lobe or in the median isthmus ; it is accompanied by neither tender- ness nor discoloration of the skin, and is gene- rally definitely circumscribed. When of small size it occasions no inconvenience; but when large its weight and pressure upon the trachea, oesophagus, vessels, and nerves cause headache, difficulty of breathing and swallowing, conges- tion of the brain, with dizziness, lividity of the face, protrusion of the eyes, alteration of the voice, dulness of hearing, obstinate cough, end- ing in pulmonary disease, and threatening even apoplexy and suffocation. The anatomical char- acter of the disease is the enlargement of the cells of the gland, which are filled with a vis- cid fluid or with blood ; in old cases the tumor may become hard and partly bony. All ages are subject to goitre, but young persons and the female sex are most liable to it; it is also hereditary. Though occasionally sporadic, it is essentially an endemic disease in cold and damp countries, as in the deep valleys of the Alps, where the air is moist, cold, and stagnant ; it is most common in mountain valleys of the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Himalaya chain in Asia, the Cordilleras in America, the high regions of Scotland, and the chalky districts of Derby- shire and Nottingham in England. Though often connected with cretinism, it does not appear to be a scrofulous disease; neither is it confined to persons living in poverty and uncleanliness, for it is the sad inheritance of many wealthy families. Various causes have been assigned for goitre, but none of them are entirely satisfactory; the most probable are the insufficient illumination by the sun, mois- ture, and stillness of deep valleys ; deleterious emanations from clayey soils ; the use of snow water, or that from springs, arising from calca- reous formations ; the dcoxygenation of water from great elevation, or its contact with metal- lic and organic matters eagerly absorbing oxy- gen. It seems to be connected rather with the geological than with any other character of a region. Goitre may be distinguished from oth-
