court of Saxe-Wcimar; in 1615 he entered the service of the count of Schaumburg at Biickeburg, and in 1625 returned to F1".n1kfort. As the transport of his books from Bucke- burg to Frankfort was attended with danger, owing to the warlike operations then on foot, he entrusted them to the town of Bremen, and they now form part of the municipal library. Appointed in 1627 councillor to the emperor and to the elector of Treves, Goldast soon after passed into the service of the landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, who raised him to be chancellor of the university of Giessen. H.e died at Giessen in the beginning of 1635. Nothing perhaps proves the value of Goldast’s labours better than the fact that, in consideration of the service he has rendered, the modern historical and philological investigator is willing to condone the almost unpardonable sin of direct literary
forgery of which he has been accused and convicted.
Among his more important works are his I’a)'ccnctic0rzIm rctcrum (Lille, 160-1), which contained the Ifmzitj T]/1'0 4.-on Schotllaml, the IV insbrkcn, and the IV1')Lsbck2‘n; Ifcrum Ala.mmmz'cnr2I.m Sr/‘z7pz‘-v)1'c..s', Frankf. 1606, 3 vols. , new ed. by Senckenberg, ibid. 1730; .l['):1(u'c/liw S. 1.’omanz' z‘-mpcrii, F rankf. 1621 ; C'02m2zcn.t(u'ii dc rcgno J}-r/z".2ziu', Ilanover, 1627, new ed. by H. Schmink, Frankf. 1719. He edited the works of Pirkheimer and De Thou; and a volume of correspondence, V i7'o7'um Cll. ad Golclastzmz cpistolcc, was published in 1688. See Senekenberg’s Goldasti .-llcmoria, prefixed to Iicr. Alamamz. Scr1'p., 1730; Bayle’s Dz'ctz'onar_1/; and Von li.'lll1l1'Z'l‘, Gcscldclztc dcr go-rman-Lschcn I’ln'lologz‘c, Munich, 1870.
GOLDBERG, a town in the Prussian province of Silesia, capital of a circle in the government district of Liegnitz, is situated 14 miles S.W. of that town, on the Katzbach, an afiluent of the Oder. The principal buildings are an old church dating from the beginning of the 13th century, the Schwabe-Priesemuth institution, completed in 1876, for the board and education of orphans, and the gymnasium, which in the 17th century enj oycd great prosperity, and numbered Wallenstein among its pupils. The chief manufactures are woollen cloth, flannel, gloves, stockings, leather, and beer, and there is a considerable trade in corn and fruit. Gold- berg owes its origin and name to a gold mine in the neigh- bourhood, which, however, has been wholly abandoned since the time of the Hussite wars. Population (1875), 6492.
The town suffered heavily from the Tartars in 1241, from the plague in 1334, from the Hussites in 1428, and from the Saxon, imperial, and Swedish forces during the Thirty Years’ ‘Var. On 27th May 1813 a battle took place near it between the French under Macdonald and the rear guard of the Russians under Vittgenstein; and on the 23d August of the same year a skirmish, in which lIac- donald sull'ercd defeat from the Prussians under Bliicller.
GOLD COAST, a British colony in Vestcrn Africa recon- stituted on the 24th of July 1876 by a royal charter which defines it as consisting of two settlements——(l) the Gold Coast proper, comprising “all places, settlements, and terri- tories which may at any time belong to us in Vestcrn Africa, between the fifth degree of west longitude and the second degree of east longitude ; and (2) the settlement of Lagos, similarly comprising all possessions between the second and fifth degrees of east longitude.” The charter appoints a governor, establishes a legislative andan executive council, and authorizes the appointment of judges and other legal officers, &c. Both the Gold Coast colony and Lagos had previously been administered by lieutenant-governors dependent on the governor of Sierra Leone; and the two divisions are still sufiiciently distinct to require separate treatment.
By Bosnian, the Dutch factor at Elmina in the begin- ning of the 18th century, the Gold Coast is said to extend “about 60 miles, beginning with the Gold River, 3 miles west of Assini, or 12 miles above Axim, and ending with the village Ponni, 7 or 8 miles east of Acra.”[1] In modern times, Cape Apollonia (2° 35’ W. long.) being accepted as the western boundary, and the mouth of the Volta river (0° 41' 2" E. long.) as the eastern, the whole coast measures about 225 miles, and this is divided into two sections, the windward or western and the leaward or eastern, the boundary between the two being the Secoom river (0° 3' 2" VV. long.). Beginning at the west, the first places on the coast that deserve to be mentioned are Grand Bassam and Assini, botl1 French settlements up to 1870. ‘ The mouth of the river Assini forms the outlet of a series of lagoons, the eastmost of which is fed by a considerable river —the Tanno or Tando. About 55 miles eastward from this point are the Four Hills or H ummocks of Apollonia, where the English formerly had a fort ; and about 20 miles from Apollonia is the mouth of the Ankobne. Three miles further and we come to Axim, the site of an old Dutch fort built near the mouth of the Axim river; and other 20 miles and we reach Great Friedrichsburg, founded by the Brandenburg Company. Rounding Cape Three Points (2° 7' W. long.), whose vicinity is marked by a line of breakers nearly miles long, the first place of importance that we find is Akodah or Aquidah, and 10 miles beyond Akodah lies the better known Dixcove or Dick’s Cove. From Dixcove Pompendi is distant 10 miles, and other 12 or 13 miles brings us to Secondee, which is only 8 or 0 miles from the mouth of the Busum (or Sacred) Prah. With the exception of the Volta this is the largest river of the Gold Coast; it is on one of its sub-tributaries that Coomassee is situated. At the mouth of the Beyah, 19 or 20 miles eastward, stands Elmina, or in the native language Edena, one of the most important posts of European settlement, with a native population of some 10,000 (sec Elmina). Eight miles east of Elmina is Cape Coast Castle, which was the capital of the British territory until 1876. Anamaboe, 10 miles distant, is a town of some 4000 or 5000 inhabitants, with a free port and a good landing-place ; and about 38 miles further on we come to Winnebah, which up till 1812 was the seat of an English fort. About 11 miles eastward there is another abandoned fort at Barrocoe; and at Barrocoe we are only 23 miles from Acra or Accra (in Tshi Nkran), the present capital of the Gold Coast colony. It was selected instead of Cape Coast Castle on account of its comparatively healthy position. In the words of Dr A. F. Elliot, it is the healthiest station on the west coast of Africa, being surrounded for miles by fresh undulating ground, and backed at the distance of a day’s journey, or about 30 miles, by a range of hills where Europeans can recruit. A sanitary station has been fixed at Akropong, 1800 feet above the sea-level, where the Basel missionaries have their headquarters. About 2 miles east of Acra is the old Danish fort of Christiansborg. There is no station of mu_ch importance except Tassi, Ponce, and Great Ningo or Ningua, in the 60 miles between Acra and the Volta. The Volta, otherwise known as the Firaw, the Shilao, or the Amu, is a large river, the course of which has been only partially explored, but which may be ex- pected to furnish a means of opening up the interior. In December 1875, M. M. J. Bonnat, journeying partly by water and partly by land, proceeded as far as Salaha or Paraha, a commercial town of some 18,000 inhabitants. He reports that the Labelle rapids, though 25 feet high, can be ascended by steamers during the rains in September and October, because at that season the river rises 50 feet. The lower part of the course is of diflicult navigation in the dry season owing to the shallows. Addah, on the right bank of the river near its mouth ; Quittah, the seat of a British fort; and Jcllah Cotli, a trading port, are the principal places on the coast between the Volta and Flouhow, which lies at the eastmost extremity of the Volta lagoon. Accord- ing to the ordinary divisions we enter the Slave Coast when we proceed east of the Volta.
- ↑ See Namultem-ige I}esch.ryving wn de Guinese Go-ud-Tmul-en Slave Kusl, Amsterdam, 1709 (frequently translated).
