GARONNE (Lat. Garumna), a river of south-western France, rising in the Maladetta group of the Pyrenees and flowing in a wide curve to the Atlantic ocean. It is formed by two tor rents, one of which has a subterranean course of 24 m., disappear ing in the sink known as the Trou du Taureau ("bull's hole") and reappearing at the Goueil de Joueou. After a course of 3o m. in Spanish territory, during which it flows through the fine gorge, the Vallee d'Aran, the Garonne enters France in the department of Haute Garonne through the narrow defile of the Pont du Roi, and at once becomes navigable for rafts. At Montrejeau it re ceives on the left the Neste, and encountering at this point the vast plateau of Lannemezan turns abruptly east, flowing in a wide curve to Toulouse. At Saint Martory it gives off the irrigation canal of that name. At this point the Garonne enters a fertile plain, and supplies the motive power to several mills. It is joined on the right by various streams fed by the snows of the Pyrenees. Such are the Salat, at whose confluence river navigation begins, and the Arize and the Ariege (both names signifying "river").
From Toulouse the Garonne flows to the north-west, now skirt ing the northern border of the plateau of Lannemezan which here drains into it by the Save, Gers and Baise. On its right the Garonne receives its two chief tributaries, the Tarn, near Moissac, and the Lot, below Agen; afterwards it is joined by the Drot (or Dropt), and on the left by the Ciron. Between Toulouse and Castets, 33 m. above Bordeaux, the river is accompanied at a distance of from m. to 3 m. by the so-called "lateral canal" of the Garonne, con structed in 1838-56. This canal is about I20m. long. From Tou louse to Agen the main canal follows the right bank of the Gar onne, crossing the Tarn on an aqueduct at Moissac, while another aqueduct carries it across the Garonne at Agen. It has a fall of 420 ft. and over 5o locks. The carrying trade upon it is chiefly in agricultural produce and provisions, building materials, wood and industrial products. At Toulouse the canal connects with the Canal du Midi, which runs to the Mediterranean.
After passing Castets the Garonne begins to widen out consid erably to about 65o yd. at Bordeaux, its great commercial port. From here it flows between two flat shores to the Bec d'Ambes (151- m.), where, after a course of 357 m., it unites with the Dor dogne to form the vast estuary known as the Gironde. The pen insula lying between these two great tidal rivers, the entre-deux mers ("between two seas") , is famous for its wines. The drainage area of the Garonne is nearly 33,00o square miles. Floods are of common occurrence, and descend very suddenly. The most dis astrous occurred in 1875, 1856 and in 177o, when the flood level at Castets attained the record height of 421 ft. above low-water mark.
(Lepidosteus) a genus of fishes with four, or perhaps more, species in the rivers of North and Central America, with elongate body covered with hard rhombic scales, with the jaws produced, and with strong conical teeth. Fishes with ganoid scales of the same structure were abundant in Mesozoic times.
but Lepidosteus is not known before the Eocene. In the bill-fish or long-nosed gar (L. osseus) the jaws are exceedingly long and slender, in other species shorter and broader. The alligator gar of Cuba, Mexico and the southern States, reaches a length of i o ft. These are piscivorous fishes, of sluggish habits, but very voracious. The name gar or garfish is also given to the Belonidae, fishes of warm seas, slender and with long jaws, but with thin cycloid scales, and not related to the gar-pikes.