is the seat of Georgetown College (Baptist), established in 1829. The city is in an agricultural and stock-raising section, and has brick-works, flouring-mills, and manufactures of hemp and bagging. “The Royal Spring,” rising in the centre of the city and flowing 200,000 gallons per hour, supplies the city with water and furnishes power for an ice plant, street-railway, flour-mill, and other industrial establishments. Settled in 1776, Georgetown was first incorporated in 1790, and was chartered as a city of the fourth class in 1894. The government is administered by a mayor, chosen every four years, and a unicameral council, elected on a general ticket. Population, in 1900, 3823.
GEORGETOWN. A village and the county-seat of Brown County, Ohio, 42 miles east by south of Cincinnati; on the Cincinnati, Georgetown and Portsmouth Railroad (Map: Ohio, C 8). It is the centre of a tobacco-growing district, and has some manufactures. Limestone is quarried in the vicinity. Population, in 1890, 1473; in 1900, 1529.
GEORGETOWN. A city and the county-seat of Georgetown County, S. C., at the head of Winyah Bay, about 55 miles northeast of Charleston; on the Georgetown and Western Railroad (Map: South Carolina, E 3). It is a seaport of some importance, the market for a fertile agricultural region traversed by 1000 miles of navigable rivers that empty into the bay; has steamship communication with New York, Charleston, and Wilmington, and exports rice, cotton, turpentine, shingles, lumber, fish, etc. Georgetown, settled about 1700, and incorporated in 1805, is famous as the landing-place of Lafayette on his first visit to the United States. The government is administered under a charter of 1892, which provides for a mayor, chosen biennially, and a council elected at large. Population, in 1890, 2895; in 1900, 4138.
GEORGETOWN. A city and the county-seat of Williamson County, Tex., 30 miles north of Austin; on the San Gabriel River, and on a branch of the international and Great Northern Railroad (Map: Texas, F 4). It has cotton-gins, cottonseed-oil mills, and planing-mills, and is the seat of Southwestern University (Methodist Episcopal, South), founded in 1873. In Page Park are mineral wells, which analysis shows to be similar to the famous Karlsbad springs. Settled in 1854, Georgetown was incorporated twenty years later, and is governed under revised statutes of 1895 by a mayor and council, elected biennially on a general ticket. Population, in 1890, 2447; in 1900, 2790.
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY. An institution of higher education, situated at Georgetown, D. C. It was founded in 1799 by members of the Roman Catholic Church, and was in 1805 transferred to the Society of Jesus in Maryland, in whose control it remains. By a Congressional act of 1815 the university was empowered to grant academic degrees, and in 1833 the Holy See authorized it to confer degrees in the name of the Church, in philosophy and theology. The university consists of the college, the school of medicine, organized in 1851. and including a school of dentistry, and the school of law, organized in 1870. The college comprises the graduate school, organized in 1856; the undergraduate department; and the astronomical observatory, established in 1842. A preparatory school, with a student enrollment of about 150, is also connected with the university. The scheme of instruction is, in general, conducted in accordance with the famous Ratio Studiorum (q.v.) of the Jesuits; the supervision of students is closer than in most denominational colleges of equal standing, and the standard of scholarship is very high, especially in Latin, philosophy, logic, and English. The elective system has not been introduced. Degrees are conferred in arts, philosophy, medicine, dentistry, and law.
GEOR′GIA (Pers. Gurjistān, Arm. Vrastan, Lat. Iberia, Russ. Grusia; influenced in popular etymology by the name of the patron saint George). A region in Transcaucasia, constituting, until the year 1799, an independent kingdom, and now forming the main part of the Russian governments of Tiflis and Kutais. It comprises the ancient Iberia, Colchis, and Albania. The native name of the country is Kathli, or Sakarthvélo.
Tradition traces the origin of the Georgians to Thargamos, a great-grandson of Japhet. Mtskhathos, the supposed builder of Mtsketha, the ancient capital, near Tiflis, is a prominent figure in their legendary history. They are known to have submitted to Alexander the Great, and to have been freed from foreign rule and united in one kingdom by Pharnabazus (B.C. 324). Georgia was Christianized during the fourth century. A Sassanide dynasty was established in A.D. 265, and continued with a half-century's interregnum until 787, when the long line of Bagratian sovereigns (see Bagratides) came to the throne. The latter drove out the Arab invaders who had subjected the Sassanide princes, reunited the disorganized country, and advanced its civilization and material welfare. In the eleventh century the country was temporarily brought under the yoke of the Seljuk Turks, but regained its independence under David III. (1090-1125). Until the thirteenth century, when it was conquered by the Mongols, Georgia prospered greatly, and increased in extent under a series of able sovereigns. Under Queen Tamara (1184-1212), who married a Russian prince, and thus initiated the intimate connection of Georgia with Russia, the country attained the height of its prosperity and power. Toward the end of the fourteenth century Timur subdued Georgia, but was expelled in the beginning of the next century by George VII. Alexander I., who succeeded George VII., divided the kingdom among his three sons. Each of these States was again divided, and at one time twenty-six different princes reigned in Georgia. The history of Georgia now falls into two parts: that of the Eastern States, Karthli and Kakheth; and that of the Western States, including Imeritia, Mingrelia, and Guria. This division was fatal to the independence and power of Georgia. From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century the Eastern States were oppressed by Persia, and in 1799 George XIII. resigned in favor of Paul, Emperor of Russia. In 1802 the Emperor Alexander proclaimed the territory a Russian province. Of the three States forming Western Georgia, Guria fell into the hands of Russia in 1801, and formally surrendered itself to that empire by the treaty of 1810; Mingrelia was virtually added to Russia in 1803; Imeritia
