GAUSSES, a natural region in the south of the central plateau of France, chiefly in the departments of Lozere and Aveyron, west of the curving Cevennes and south of the Lot valley. This vast plateau of Jurassic limestone, sloping westwards, is divided into several sections by deep-cut river channels. These smaller plateaux, barren and deserted, are called the Gausses from cau,the local form of the French chaux, i.e., lime. The most typical is the Causse Mejean, south of the Tarn between Florac and Millau, a sterile sparsely-peopled table-land lying between 3,00o and 4,000ft. above sea-level. To the north lies the Causse de Sauveterre prolonged westwards by the Causse de Severac. Those of Quercy, Gramat and Rouergue are lower and less arid. Drainage features such as underground streams, fissures and pot-holes (ovens) are charac teristic. The inhabitants (Caussenards) cultivate rye and potatoes where possible, but subsist for the most part on the sheep from whose milk Roquefort cheese is made. Similar dry limestone areas elsewhere are designated under the cognate German Karst or Italian Carso (q.v.).
C A U S S IN DE PER C EV AL, ARMAND-PIERRE French Orientalist, was born in Paris, where he died during the siege.
His father, Jean Jacques (1759-1835), was professor of Arabic at the College de France, and his son, after extended travels in Asia Minor, succeeded to his chair.
His works include a useful Grammaire arabe vulgaire (4th ed., 1858), and an enlarged edition of Elie Bocthor's Dictionnaire f rancais-arabe (3rd ed., 1864) ; but his great reputation rests on his Essai sur l'histoire des Arabes avant l'Islamisme, pendant l'epoque de Mahomet (3 vols., 1847-49), in which the native traditions as to the early history of the Arabs, down to the death of Mohammed and the complete subjection of all the tribes to Islam, are set forth with much learning and lucidity.