Online Encyclopedia

GAUGE, or GAGE (Med. Lat. gauja, jaug...

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V11, Page 534 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
Spread the word: del.icio.us del.icio.us it!

GAUGE, or GAGE (Med.
See also:
Lat. gauja, jaugia, Fr. jauge, perhaps connected with Fr. jale, a bowl, galon,
See also:
gallon)
  , a standard of measurement, and also the name given to various
See also:
instruments and appliances by which measurement is effected . The word seems to have been primarily used in connexion with the
See also:
process of ascertaining the contents of wine casks; the name gauger is still applied to certain custom-house officials in the
See also:
United States, and in Scotland it means an exciseman . Thence it was extended to other measurements, and used of the instruments used in making them or of the
See also:
standards to which they were referred . In the
See also:
mechanical arts gauges are employed in
See also:
great variety to enable the workmen to ascertain whether the
See also:
object he is making is of the proper dimensions (see Tool), and similar gauges of various forms are employed to ascertain and to specify the sizes of manufactured articles such as wire and screws . A rain gauge is an apparatus for measuring the amount of the rainfall at any locality, and a wind gauge indicates the pressure and force of the wind . The boilers of steam engines are provided with a
See also:
water gauge and a steam or pressure gauge . The purpose of the former is to enable the attendant to see whether or not there is a sufficient quantity of water in the
See also:
boiler . It consists of two cocks or taps communicating with the interior, one being placed at the lowest point to which it is permissible for the water to fall, and the other at the point above which it should not rise; a glass tube connects the two cocks, and when they are both open the water in this stands at the same level as in the boiler . The steam gauge shows the pressure of the steam in the boiler . One of the commonest forms, known as the Bourdon gauge, depends on the fact that a curved tube tends to straighten itself if the pressure within it is greater than that outside it . This gauge therefore consists of a curved or coiled tube of. elastic material, and preferably of elliptic section, connected with the boiler and arranged with a multiplying gear so that its bending or unbending actuates a pointer moving over a graduated scale . If the pressure within the tube is less than that outside it, the tube tends to
See also:
bend or coil itself up further; with a pointer arranged as before, the gauge then becomes a vacuum gauge, indicating how far the pressure in the vessel to which it is attached is below that of the atmosphere .

In railway

See also:
engineering the gauge of a
See also:
line is the distance between the two rails (see RAILWAY) . In nautical
See also:
Montpellier to the Pyrenees (i.e. all that was not Massiliot) with its
See also:
port of Narbo (mod .
See also:
Narbonne) and its trade route by Toulouse to the
See also:
Atlantic, was formed into the province of Gallia Narbonensis and Narbo itself into a
See also:
Roman
See also:
municipality . Commercial motives prompted the step, and Roman traders and
See also:
land speculators speedily flocked in . Gradually the province was extended north of Massilia, up the Rhone, while the Greek
See also:
town itself became weak and dependent on Rome . It is not, however, until the
See also:
middle of the 1st century B.C. that we have any detailed knowledge of pre-Roman Gaul . The earliest account is that contained in the Commentaries of
See also:
Julius Caesar . According to this authority, Gaul was at that time divided among three peoples, more or less distinct from one another, the Aquitani, the Gauls, who called themselves Celts, and the
See also:
Belgae . The first of these extended from the Pyrenees to the Garumna (Garonne); the second, from that
See also:
river to the Sequana (Seine) and its chief tributary the Matrona (
See also:
Marne), reaching eastward presumably as far as the Rhenus (Rhine); and the third, from this bounding line to the mouth of the last-named river, thus bordering on the Germans . By implication Caesar recognizes as a
See also:
fourth division the province of Gallia Narbonensis . By far the greater
See also:
part of the country was a plain watered by numerous rivers, the chief of which have already been mentioned, with the exception of its great central stream, the Liger or Ligeris (
See also:
Loire) . Its
See also:
principal mountain ranges were Cebenna or Gebenna (Cevennes) in the south, and Jura, with its continuation Vosegus or Vogesus (Vosges), in the east .

The tribes inhabiting Gaul in Caesar's time, and belonging to one or other of the three races distinguished by him, were numerous . Prominent among them, and dwelling in the division occupied by the Celts, were the

Helvetii, the
See also:
Sequani and the
See also:
Aedui, in the basins of the Rhodanus and its tributary the Arar (
See also:
Saone), who, he says, were reckoned the three most powerful nations in all Gaul; the
See also:
Arverni in the mountains of Cebenna; the
See also:
Senones and Carnutes in the basin of the Liger; the
See also:
Veneti and other Armorican tribes between the mouths of the Liger and Sequana . The Nervii, Bellovaci, Suessiones, Remi, Morini, Menapii and Aduatuci were Belgic tribes; the Tarbelli and others were Aquitani; while the Allobroges inhabited the north of the Provincia, having been conquered in 121 B.C . The ethnological divisions thus set forth by Caesar have been much discussed (see CELT, and articles on the chief tribes) . The Gallic
See also:
Wars (58—51) of Caesar (q.v.) added all the rest,of Gaul, north-west of the Cevennes, to the Rhine and the Ocean, and in 49 also annexed Massilia . All Gaul was now Roman territory . Now the second period of her
See also:
history opens; it remained for Roman territory to become romanized . Caesar had no time to organize his
See also:
conquest; this
See also:
work was
See also:
left to Augustus . As settled by him, and in part perhaps also by his successor Tiberius, it fell into the following five administrative areas . (i) Narbonensis, that is, the land between
See also:
Alps, sea and Cevennes, extending up the Rhone to Vienne, was as Augustus found it, distinct in many ways from the rest of Gaul . By nature it is a sun-steeped
See also:
southern region, the home of the
See also:
vine and olive, of the minstrelsy of the Provencal and the exuberance of Tartarin, distinct from the colder and more sober north . By history it had already (in the time of Augustus) been Roman for from 8o to loo years and was familiar with Roman ways .

It was ready to be Italianized and it was civilized enough to need no

garrison . Accordingly, it was henceforward governed by a proconsul (appointed by the senate) and freed from the burden of troops, while its
See also:
local government was assimilated to that of Italy . The old
See also:
Celtic tribes were broken up: instead, municipalities of Roman citizens were founded to
See also:
rule their territories . Thus the Allobroges now disappear and the colonia of Vienna takes their place: the
See also:
Volcae vanish and we find Nemausus (Nimes) . Thus thrown into
See also:
Italian fashion, the province took rapidly to Italian ways . By A.D . 70 it was " Italia verius quam provincia " (Pliny) . The Gauls obviously had a natural bias towards the Italian
See also:
civilization, and there soon became no difference between Italy and southern Gaul . But though educa-tion spread, the results were somewhat disappointing . Trade flourished; the corporations of bargemen and the like on the Rhone made
See also:
money; the many towns grew rich and could afford splendid public buildings . But no great writer and no great
See also:
administrator came from Narbonensis; itinerant lecturers and journalists alone were produced in plenty, and at times minor poets . (ii.-iv.) Across the Cevennes
See also:
lay Caesar's conquests, Atlantic in
See also:
climate, new to Roman ways .

The whole

See also:
area, often collectively styled " Gallia Comata," often " Tres Provinciae," was divided into three provinces, each under a legatus
See also:
pro praetore appointed by the emperor, with a
See also:
common capital at Lugudunuin (Lyons) . The three provinces were: Aquitania, reaching from the Pyrenees almost to the Loire; Lugudunensis, the land between Loire and Seine, reaching from
See also:
Brittany in the west to Lyons in the south-east; and Belgica in the north . The boundaries, it will be observed, were wholly artificial . Here also it was found possible to dispense with garrisons, not because the provinces were as peaceful as Narbonensis, but because the Rhine army was close at hand . As befitted an unromanized region, the local government was unlike that of Italy or Narbonensis . Roman municipalities were not indeed unknown, but very few: the local authorities were the magistrates of the old tribal districts . Local autonomy was here carried to an extreme . But the policy succeeded . The Gauls of the Three Provinces, or some of them, revolted in A.D . 21 under Florus and Sacrovir, in 68 under Vindex, and in 70 under Classicus and Tutor (see Ovals, CLAUDIUS) . But all five leaders were romanized nobles, with Roman names and Roman citizenship, and their risings were directed rather against the Roman government than the Roman
See also:
empire: In general, the Gauls of these provinces accepted Roman civilization more or less rapidly, and in due course became hardly distinguishable from the Italian . In particular, they eagerly accepted the worship of " Augustus and Rome," devised by the first emperor as a bond of state religion connecting the provinces with Rome .

Each

August, despite the heat, representatives from the 6o (or 64) tribes of Gallia Comata met at Lyons, elected a priest, " sacerdos ad aram Augusti et Romae," and held games . The
See also:
post of representative, and still more that of priest, was eagerly coveted and provided a scope for the ambitions which despotism usually crushes . It agrees with the vigorous development of this worship that the Three Provinces, though romanized, retained their own local feeling . Even in the 3rd century the cult of Celtic deities (Hercules Magusanus, Deusoniensis, &c.) were revived, the Celtic leuga reintroduced. instead of the Roman mile on official milestones, and a brief effort made to establish an
See also:
independent, though romanized, Gaul under Postumus and his short-lived successors (A.D . 259—273) . Not only was the area too large and strong to lose its individuality: it was also too rural and too far from the Mediterranean to be romanized as fully and quickly as Narbonensis . It is even probable that Celtic was spoken in
See also:
forest districts into the 4th century A.D . Town
See also:
life, however, grew . The chefs-lieux of the tribes became practically, though not officially, municipalities, and many of these towns reached considerable
See also:
size and magnificence of public buildings . But they attest their tribal relations by their appellations, which are commonly
See also:
drawn from the name of the tribe and not of the town itself . Thus the capitals of the Remi and• Parisii were actually Durocortorum and Lutetia: the appellations in use were Remis or Remus, Parisiis or Parisiusthese forms being indeclinable nouns formed from a sort of locative of the tribe names . Literature also flourished .

In the latest empire

Ausonius,
See also:
Symmachus, Apollinaris, Sidonius and other Gaulish writers, chiefly of Gallia Comata, kept alive the classical
See also:
literary tradition, not only for Gaul but for the
See also:
world . (v.) The fifth division of Gaul was the Rhenish military frontier . Augustus had planned the conquest of Germany up to the Elbe . His plans were foiled by the courage of Arminius and • the inability of the Roman
See also:
exchequer to pay a larger army . Instead, his successor Tiberius organized the Rhine frontier in two military districts . The
See also:
northern one was the valley of the Meuse and that of the Rhine to a point just south of
See also:
Bonn: the southern was the rest of the Rhine valley to
See also:
Switzerland . Each
See also:
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 (
See also:
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
See also:
superior " (south) and "inferior " (north) . Later one or two municipalities were founded—Colonia Agrippinensis at Cologne (A.D . 51), Colonia
See also:
Augusta Treverorum at Trier (date uncertain), Colonia Ulpia Traiana outside Vetera—and about 8o–90 A.D. the two " Exercitus " were turned into the two provinces of Upper and
See also:
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
See also:
modern towns (ARLES, NIMEs, ORANGE, &c.),
See also:
BIBRACTE,
See also:
ALESIA, ITIUS
See also:
PORTUS, AQUEDUCT, ARCHITECTURE, AMPHITHEATRE, &C.; for religion see
See also:
DRUIDISM; for the famous
See also:
schools of
See also:
Autun, Lyons, Toulouse, Nimes, Vienne,
See also:
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.
See also:
chap. iii .

End of Article: GAUGE, or GAGE (Med. Lat. gauja, jaugia, Fr. jauge, perhaps connected with Fr. jale, a bowl, galon, gallon)
[back]
FRIEDRICH GAUERMANN (1807-1862)
[next]
GAUHATI

Additional information and Comments

There are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click and select "copy." Paste it into a website, email, or other HTML document.