GOMPERS. 26 GONCOURT. passed at his instance are the eight-hour law for Government work, the ten-hour law for the employees of street railways, and that making the first ilonday of September a legal holiday with the title of "Labor Day.' His writings in- clude pamphlets on labor matters. GOMPERZ, gom'perts, Theodor (1832—). An Austrian Hellenist. He was born at Brilnn, and studied at the University of Vienna, wheie he became professor of -classical philology in 18G9. He is celebrated chiefly for his decipherment of the papyri found at Herculaucuui. His best known works are: Demosthenes der Staatsmann (1864) ; Philodemi dt Ira Liber (1804) ; Hercu- lanische Siudien (2 vols., 1865-06) ; Die Bruch- stiicke der griechischnn Tragiker und C'ohets neucste krilische ilunier (1878): Herodoteische Studien (1883) : Zu PhUotlims Biichern von der Musik (1885) ; and his masterpiece, Griechische Dcnker, eitie Geschickte der antiken Philosophie (1893-05). He also edited the German edition of the works of .John Stuart Mill (1809-80). GOMPHOCERAS, gom-fos'e-ras ( Neo-Lat., from Gk. y6fi<po;, gomphos, nail, bolt + Kepnc, keras, horn). A genus of tetrabranehiate cepha- lopods, allied to Orthoceras, and found in the Paleozoic rocks, with sliort. thick, straight, or curved shells, and restricted lobate aperture. The siphuncle is situated near the ventral wall, and is usually beadetl. The shell, when curved, turns away from the ventral side. Gomphoceras pre- sents variations that grade toward Phragmo- ceras, of which it perhaps presents, in a loose sense, an ancestral stage. About one hundred and fifty species of Gomphoceras have been de- scribed from rocks of Ordovician and Silurian age of Europe and North America. They are especially abundant in the Silurian basin of Bohemia. See Cephalopoda : Obthoceras; Nau- tilus. GOMPHO'SIS (Xeo-Lat., from Gk. yo/Kpuaic, a nailing together, from yo/j^inrv, gomphoiin, to nail, from y6/j(poc, jfowi/i/ios. nail, bolt ) . A joint in which one bone is implanted into a process in another bone, as in the case of the teeth, im- planted into the alveolar processes of the jaw. GOMUTI, go-moo't! (JIalay), Areng. or Ejoo Palm (Arenga sacc)iarifera) . An impor- tant palm which grows in dry ground in Cochin China and in the interior of Java, Sumatra, Celebes, and Amboyna. The stem is 20 to 40 feet high; the pinnated leaves 15 to 25 feet long. The flowers, in bunclies to 10 feet long, are succeeded by yellowish-brown, three-seeded, ex- tremely acid beiTies of the size of a small apple. The stiem. when young, is entirely covered with sheaths of fallen leaves, and Idack horsehair- like fibres, which issue in great abundance from their margins: but as the tree increases in age, these drop off, leaving a beautiful naked col- umnar stem. The strongest of the fibres, re- sembling porcupine quills in thickness, are used by the Malays a.s styles for writing on the leaves of other palms. The finer fibres, or Ejoo fibre, well known in Eastern commerce as gomuti. are by far the most valuable. They are much used for m.aking strong cordage, particularly for the cable.s and standing rigging of ships, Euro- pean as well as native. Want of pliancy ren- ders them less fit for nmning-rigging, and for many other purposes. They need no preparation but spinning or twisting. No ropes of vegetable fibre withstand wet as well as those made of gomuti fibre. At the base of the leaves of the gomuti palm there is a fine woolly material, called "bara," much employed in calking ships and stufling cushions. The saccharine sap, obtained in great abundance by cutting the spadices of the flowers, is boiled by the Japanese to make a brown sugar. It is also a delicious beverage, and by fermentation yields an intoxicating wine (neroo), from which a spirituous liquor called 'brum' is made. According to Roxburgh, the pith of the tree yields sago, as much a.s 150 pounds being taken from a single specimen. After fruiting, the tree dies, and the stems, which become hollow, are used for troughs, spouts, etc. The young fruits are employed for making presei-'es. GONAIVES, go'na'ev'. A .seaport town of Haiti, with an excellent harbor, situated on the western coast, about 67 miles northwest of Port- au-Prince (Map: West Indies, L 5). It is a prosperous place, with a large trade in cotton, coffee, and logwood. It is purely Haitian in its character, and has played a prominent part in the histoiy of Haiti. Its population is estimated at 18.000. Gonai'ves is the seat of a United States consul. GONAQUAS, go-na'kwaz. A mixed Hotten- tot-Kaflir people of Cape Colony. See Griquas. GONCOURT, gON'koor', Edmond de (1822- 96), and Jules de (1830-70). Brothers, impor- tant in the development of French fiction. They fostered naturalism by the minuteness of their observation, and so continued the naturalistic method of Flaubert, and regarded themselves as masters of a school in which Zola was the most lirilliant pupil : while on the other hand in the tortured artificiality of their style they presage the painful striving of the symbolists (q.v. ) to express feeling and emotion by sound. Their intensely modern style, often bizarre, sometimes intentionally faulty, always supple, clear, rapid, made all their contemporary' novelists in some degree their debtors, while it estranged the gen- eral public. Their work consists of unimportant dramas, of minute and valualile studies in the social life of the French eighteenth centuiy: nistoire de la sociHf fran<;aise petidamt la revolu- lioii (1854); Histoire de la socifte frangaise pendant le dircctoire (1855); La revolution dans Ics inceurs (1854); Portraits intimes du XVIlleme Steele (1856-58); Marie Antoinette (1858) ; Les mailresses de Louis XT. (1860-79) ; La femme an XVlIIertie siecle (1862) ; L'art an XTIIleme siecle (1874): L'amour ati XTIIIhvr sieele (1877) : to which Edmond added liistorical studies of Wattean (1876). Prudlion (!877i. and Les uetrices an XVIlIime sidele (1885-90) ; of articles that first directed French attention to -Japanese art: and. finallv. of novels: Charles DemailUj (1860): Sccur ' Philomene (1861): Renee Mauperin (1864): Germinie Laeerteux (1865) ; Manette ffalomon (1867) : Madame Ger- raisais (1869): to which Edmond added: La pile Elisa (1878) : Ijes freres Zemganno (1879) ; La Faustin (1882): Ch&rie (1884). All the.se are minutely realistic. They seek to present nature unadorned and unarranged. discarding all conventions of structure and artistic unity, thus "sterilizing their human documents" (Zola). Their observation, however, is apt to be super-
