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GRAND CANAL....GREEKS.

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poses. They grow to such an enormous magnitude, that some of them will contain from ten to a dozen gallons. In order to adapt them the better to their respective uses, they take care to give them different shapes, by fastening bandages round them during their growth. Thus, some of them are in the form of a dish, serving to hold their puddings, vegetables, salted provisions, &c. Others are of a long cylindrical form, and serve to contain their fishing tackle; each of these two sorts being furnished with close covers, made also of the shell of the gourd. Others are in the shape of a long necked bottle; and in these water is kept. They frequently score them with a heated instrument, so as to communicate to them the appearance of being painted, in a great variety of elegant designs.... Cooke's Voy

ages.

GRAND CANAL, or Languedoc Canal, a famous 'canal in France, which opens a communication between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean; and was made by Lewis XIV. This canal, which was begun in the year 1666, and finished in 1680, was carried over hills and vallies, and in one place through a mountain. It begins with a large reservoir, four hundred paces in circumference and twenty-four feet deep, which receives many springs from the mountain Noire. This canal is about sixty-four leagues in length, is supplied by a number of rivulets and is furnished with a hundred and four locks, with about eight feet rise each. In some places it passes over bridges of vast height; and in others it cuts through solid rocks for a thousand paces. When that great work, which had cost the king of France prodigious sums of money, was finished, the most likely method, it was found, of keeping it in constant repair, was to make a present of the tolls, in perpetuity, to Mr. Piquet, the engineer, who had planned and conducted the work. Those tolls constitute a very large estate to the different branches of the family of that gentleman.....Adam Smith, et cet.

GREEKS, or Grecians, a people who inhabited the country, in Europe, that borders on the Mediterranean Sea, the Adriatic, and the Archipelago; and whose ter

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GREENLAND.

ritory (exclusive of a number of islands) was about four hundred miles both in length and breadth; situated between thirty-six and forty-four degrees north latitude. The Greeks derived their origin from the Egyptians and Phoenicians. In the year 1556 before our Saviour's nativity, and fifteen years after the birth of Moses, Cecrops brought a colony of people from Egypt into Attica, and began the kingdom of Athens in Greece. Literature dawned in Greece more than a thousand years earlier than in the other parts of Europe. The Grecians received the letters of the alphabet, from Cadmus, two years before the departure of the Israelites out of Egypt they were also among the first of the Europeans who were enlightened by the gospel, which was preached among them by Paul and Timothy. No people ever had so great a thirst for learning, or carried the fine arts to so great perfection, as the Grecians.All the Roman learning was derived from Greece; which, being conquered by the Romans, about a hundred and forty years before the Christian era, spread the arts and sciences among its conquerors; who diffused them among the other nations of Europe, which were subjected to their power. Thus, the arts and sciences travelled from Egypt, their fountain head, to Greece; from Greece to Rome; and from Rome, among the corquered and tributary nations of the Roman empire. The descendants of the ancient Greeks, having been long and horribly oppressed by the Turks, are now as remarkable for ignorance and servility, as their ancestors were for brilliancy of genius and a love of liberty.

GREENLAND. East and West Greenland, (supposed to be one continued body of land; West Greenland being the most easterly part of America,) extends from about sixty-three degrees north latitude towards the north pole. The whole coast is surrounded with prodigious mountains of ice, which reflect a multitude of colours, and exhibit a most dazzling appearance. In the year 889, a part of this country was discovered by some Danish adventurers; and, under the conduct of Eric Raule, or Redhead, a Danish chief, it was soon peo pled: it still belongs to the crown of Denmark. The

GREEN MOUNTAINS....GREEN TURTLE. 151

inhabitants of this most wretched country pride themselves in their superiority to other nations. Grantz assures us, that when the Greenlanders are met together, nothing is so customary among them as to turn the (southern) Europeans into ridicule. They count themselves the only civilized and well bred people in the world; and it is common with them, when they see a modest stranger, to say, that he is almost as well bred as a Greenlander. During winter, they are confined by the weather in large cabins, composed of earth and stones, and the top secured with turf. Along the sides of the cabins are several partitions, in each of which a Greenlander lives with his family. Each of these families has a small lamp continually burning before them, to give them light; the sun not appearing for several months together, and the ground being covered with snow of a prodigious depth. In this manner these contented people pass away the long and sunless winters; living on smoked fish, and the dried flesh of bears, and wrapping their limbs in warm furs.... Belknap, Goldsmith, Day.

GREEN MOUNTAINS, a range of mountains, extending through the whole tract of country which lies between the west side of Connecticut river, and the east side of Hudson's river, and lake Champlain. These mountains begin in the province of Canada: thence they extend through the states of Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, and terminate within a few miles of the sea coast. Their general direction is from north northeast to south south-west; and their extent is through a country, not less than four hundred miles in length.... Williams.

GREEN TURTLE, the most noted and the most valuable of all animals of the tortoise kind; by reason of the delicacy of its flesh and its nutritive qualities, together with the property of being easily digested. This animal which is found in great abundance on the coasts of Jamaica and some other West-India islands, is called green turtle from the colour of its skin, which is ragreener than that of others of the tortoise kind. It is generally found to weigh about two hundred;

the

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GREY SQUIRREL....GROVE....GUANA.

though some are five hundred, and others not above fifty. Dampier tells us, of one that was seen at Port Royal, in Jamaica, that was six feet across the back; and that the son of captain Roach, a boy about ten years old, sailed in the shell, as in a boat, from the shore to his father's ship, which was about a quarter of a mile from land.... Goldsmith.

GREY SQUIRREL, a well known animal that is found all along the continent of America, from NewEngland to Chili and Peru. They make a nest of moss in a hollow tree, and here they deposit their provisions of nuts and acorns; this is their place of residence. during winter, and here they bring forth their young. Their summer-house, which is built of sticks and leaves, is placed near the top of the tree. They sometimes migrate in considerable numbers: if in their course they meet with a river, each of them takes a piece of bark, and carries it to the water; thus equipped, they embark, and spread their tails to the gentle breeze, which soon wafts them over in safety.... Winterbotham.

GROVE, a walk formed by trees, whose branches meet above. In the patriarchal ages groves were planted for places of devotion and religious worship. Abraham planted a grove in Bersheba, and called on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God. In process of time, however, the practice of worshipping in groves was corrupted into a species of idolatry; forasmuch as it was imagined that green trees were inhabited by genii, or a kind of demi-gods. For this reason the children of Israel were commanded in their laws, not only to destroy all the graven images, but also to cut down all the groves that were used in religious worship. Virgil in his Georgics tells us, that the Grecians believed oak trees to be oracles: and this notion spread from Greece into Germany and Britain; where the Druids, who were the ancient priests of those countries, performed their worship in groves, and paid religious homage to green trees, particularly the oak.

GUANA, a species of lizard, that is worshipped as a god by the Negroes of Benin, who are called, in the

GUANCHES....GUINEA.

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West-Indies, Eboes in the worship of this animal they frequently offer up human sacrifices. In the year-1787, two of the seamen of a Liverpool ship, being ashore watering, had the misfortune to kill a Guana, as they were rolling a cask to the beach. An outcry was immediately raised by the natives; the boat's crew were seized, carried to the negro king, and condemned to die : their release, however, was offered for a present of one hundred and seventy-five pounds sterling, which the captain refused to pay, and inhumanly left them to their fate....Bryan Edwards.

GUANCHES, the skeletons, covered with skin, of the original inhabitants of the Canary Islands. The body of the guancho was deposited in a cavity adapted to its size, hewn out of a rock. The stone being of a porous nature, the animal juices were absorbed, or filtered through, and the solid parts, with their natural skinny mantle, became indurated by a process of natural embalming, to such a degree as to resist the future assaults of time. They are still exhibited by the natives of those islands, with emotions of pride and veneration: as the images of their illustrious ancestors were ostentaciously displayed by the patrician families of Rome. Avarice has, however, infected the Canaries, as well as more enlightened islands; and families have been prevailed on to part with their guanches to the museums of European collectors of curiosities, for a little ready money....St. Pierre.

GUINEA, a large district of country in the western parts of Africa, bordering on the Atlantic. This is represented as being a most charming country; and the inhabitants are reported to be good natured, sociable and hospitable. Here the negroes live on the spontaneous productions of the earth, without labor and without care, reclining in ease and indolence under the shade of their spreading trees. The barbarous slave-trade has drenched this terrestrial paradise in tears and blood. From this delightful land, says Dr. Morse, it is supposed one hundred thousand slaves are annually exported to the different countries of Europe and America. Thousands are slaughtered on their native shore; thousands

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