district was garrisoned at first by four, later by fewer legions, which were disposed at various times in some of the following fortresses: Vetera (Xanten), Novaesium (Neuss), Bonne (Bonn), Moguntiacum (Mainz), Argentorate (Strassburg) and Vindonissa (Windisch in Switzerland). At first the districts were purely military, were called, after the garrisons, “exercitus Germanicus superior” (south) and “inferior” (north). Later one or two municipalities were founded—Colonia Agrippinensis at Cologne (A.D. 51), Colonia Augusta Treverorum at Trier (date uncertain), Colonia Ulpia Traiana outside Vetera—and about 80–90 A.D. the two “Exercitus” were turned into the two provinces of Upper and Lower Germany. The armies in these districts formed the defence of Gaul against German invaders. They also helped to keep Gaul itself in order and their presence explains why the four provinces of Gaul proper contained no troops.
These provincial divisions were modified by Diocletian but without seriously affecting the life of Gaul. The whole country, indeed, continued Roman and fairly safe from barbarian invasions till after 400. In 407 a multitude of Franks, Vandals, &c., burst over Gaul: Roman rule practically ceased and the three kingdoms of the Visigoths, Burgundians and Franks began to form. There were still a Roman general and Roman troops when Attila was defeated in the campi Catalaunici in A.D. 451, but the general, Aetius, was “the last of the Romans,” and in 486 Clovis the Frank ended the last vestige of Roman rule in Gaul.
For Roman antiquities in Gaul see, beside articles on the modern towns (Arles, Nîmes, Orange, &c.), Bibracte, Alesia, Itius Portus, Aqueduct, Architecture, Amphitheatre, &c.; for religion see Druidism; for the famous schools of Autun, Lyons, Toulouse, Nîmes, Vienne, Marseilles and Narbonne, see J. E. Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship (ed. 1906–1908), i. pp. 247-250; for the Roman provinces, Th. Mommsen, Provinces of the Roman Empire (trans. 1886), vol. i. chap. iii. See also Desjardins, Géographie historique et administrative de la Gaule romaine (Paris, 1877); Fustel de Coulanges, Histoire des institutions politiques de l’ancienne France (Paris, 1877); for Caesar’s campaigns, article Caesar, Julius, and works quoted; for coins, art. Numismatics and articles in the Numismatische Zeitschrift and Revue numismatique (e.g. Blanchet, 1907, pp. 461 foll.). (F. J. H.)
GAULT, in geology, one of the members of the Lower Cretaceous
System. The name is still employed provincially in parts
of England for a stiff blue clay of any kind; by the earlier
writers it was sometimes spelt “Galt” or “Golt.”
The formation now known as Gault in England has been variously designated “Blue Marle,” “Brick Earth,” “Golt Brick Earth” and “Oak-tree-soil.” In certain parts of the south of England the Gault appears as a well-marked deposit of clay, lying between two sandy formations; the one above came to be known as the “Upper Greensand,” the one below being the “Lower Greensand” (see Greensand). Since the typical clayey Gault is continually taking on a sandy facies as it is traced both horizontally and vertically; and since the fossils of the Upper Greensand and Gault are inseparably related, it has been proposed by A. J. Jukes-Browne that these two series of beds should be regarded as the arenaceous and argillaceous phases of a single formation, to which he has given the name “Selbornian” (from the village of Selborne where the beds are well developed). Lithologically, then, the Selbornian includes the blue and grey clays and marls of the Gault proper; the glauconitic sands of the Upper Greensand, and their local equivalent, the “malm,” “malm rock” or “firestone,” which in places passes into the micaceous sandstone containing sponge spicules and globules of silica, the counterpart of the rock called “gaize” on the same horizon in northern France. In Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and parts of Norfolk the Selbornian is represented by the Red Chalk. The malm is a ferruginous siliceous rock, the silica being mainly in the colloidal condition in the form of globules and sponge spicules; some quartz grains, mica and glauconite are usually present along with from 2 to 25% of calcareous matter. Chert-bands and nodules are common in the Upper Greensand of certain districts; and calcareous concretions, locally recognized as cowstones (Lyme Regis), doggers or buhrstones, are not infrequent.
The principal divisions of the Selbornian stage with their characteristic zonal fossils are as follows:—
| Warminster Beds | Pecten asper and Cardiaster fossarius. | |
| Upper Gault | Devizes Beds or Merstham Beds with Schloenbachia rostratus. | |
| Lower Gault | Hoplites lautus. | |
| H. interruptus. | ||
| Acanthoceras mammillatum. |
The Gault (with Upper Greensand) crops out all round the Wealden area; it extends beneath the London basin and reappears from beneath the northern scarp of the Chalk along the foot of the Chiltern Hills to near Tring. In the south of England the Gault clay is fairly constant in the lower part, with the Greensand above; the clay, however, passes into sand as it is followed westward and, as already pointed out, the clay and sand appear to pass into a red chalk towards the north-east. The Gault overlaps the Lower Greensand towards the east, where it rests upon the old Paleozoic axis; it also overlaps the same formation towards the west about Frome, and thence passes unconformably across the Portlandian beds, Kimeridge Clay, Corallian beds and Oxford Clay; in south Dorsetshire it rests upon the Wealden Series. The Gault (with Upper Greensand) passes on to the Jurassic and Rhaetic rocks near Axmouth, and oversteps farther westward, in the Haldon Hills, on to the Permian. A large outlier occurs on the Blackdown Hills of Devonshire. Good localities for fossils are Folkestone—where many of the shells are preserved with their original pearly nacre,—Burnham, Merstham, Isle of Wight, the Blackdown and Haldon Hills, Warminster, Hunstanton and Speeton, Black Venn near Lyme Regis, and Devizes (malmstone and gaize). The beds are well developed in the vale of Wardour, and in the Isle of Wight; the Gault forms the so-called “blue slipper” at Ventnor which has been the cause of the landslip or undercliff.
The Gault of north France is very similar to that in the south of England, but the French term Albien includes only a portion of the Selbornian formation. The Gault of north-west Germany embraces beds that would be classed as Albien and Aptien by French authors; it comprises the “Flammenmergel”—a pale siliceous marl shot with flame-shaped darker patches—a clay with Belemnites minimus, and the “Gargasmergel” (Aptian). In the Diester and Teutoberger Wald, and in the region of Halberstadt, the clays and marls are replaced by sandstones, the so-called Gault-Quader. Continental writers usually place the Gault or Albian at the summit of the Lower Cretaceous; while with English geologists the practice is to commence the Upper Cretaceous with this formation. In addition to the fossils already noticed, the following may be mentioned: Acanthoceras Desmoceras Beaudanti, Hoplites splendens, Hamites, Scaphites, Turrilites, Aporrhais retusa, Trigonia aliforme, also Ichthyosaurus and Ornithocheirus (Pterodactyl). From the clays, bricks and tiles are made at Burham, Barnwell, Dunton Green, Arlesey, Hitchin, &c. The cherts in the Greensand portion are used for road metal, and in the Blackdown Hills, for scythe stones; hearthstone is obtained about Merstham; phosphatic nodules occur at several horizons.
See Cretaceous System; Albian; Aptian; also A. J. Jukes-Browne, “The Gault and Upper Greensand of England.” vol. i., Cretaceous Rocks of Britain; Mem. Geol. Survey, 1900.
GAUNTLET (a diminutive of the Fr. gant, glove), a large
form of glove, and especially the steel-plated glove of medieval
armour. To “run the gauntlet,” i.e. to run between two rows
of men who, armed with sticks, rope-ends or other weapons,
beat and strike at the person so running, was formerly a punishment
for military and naval offences. It was abolished in the
Prussian army by Scharnhorst. As a method of torturing
prisoners, it was employed among the North American Indians.
“Gauntlet” (earlier “gantlet”) in this expression is a corruption
of “gantlope,” from a Swedish gatlope, from gata, lane, and lopp,
a course (cf. Ger. gassenlaufen, to run the gauntlet). According
to the New English Dictionary the word became familiar in
England at the time of the Thirty Years’ War.
GAUR, or Lakhnauti, a ruined city of British India, in Malda district of Eastern Bengal and Assam. The ruins are situated about 8 m. to the south of English Bazar, the civil station of the district of Malda, and on the eastern bank of the Bhagirathi, an old channel of the Ganges. It is said to have been founded by Lakshman, and its most ancient name was Lakshmanavati, corrupted into Lakhnauti. Its known history begins with its conquest in A.D. 1198 by the Mahommedans, who retained it as the chief seat of their power in Bengal for more than three centuries. When the Afghan kings of Bengal established their independence, they transferred their seat of government (about 1350) to Pandua (q.v.), also in Malda district, and to build their new capital they plundered Gaur of every monument that could be removed. When Pandua was in its turn deserted (A.D. 1453), Gaur once more became the capital under the
