GEEZ, gez, a name applied to the inhabit ants of Semitic origin dwelling in Abyssinia and to their language also. The word means (wandering,) which evidently refers to the nomadic character of the tribes.
GEFFCKEN,.gerken, Friedrich Heinrich, German diplomatist and jurist: b. Hamburg, 9 Dec. 1830; d. Munich, 1 May 1896. He was educated at the universities of Bonn, Gottingen, and Berlin, and in 1854 became secretary of legation at Paris. From 1856 to 1866 he was diplomatic representative of Hamburg in Berlin and subsequently removed to London in a similar capacity. In 1872 he was appointed professor of constitutional history and public law at the reorganized University of Strassburg. He was made member of the Council of State of Alsace-Lorraine in 1880, but retired after two years and resided thereafter at Munich, where he was suffocated by escaping gas in his bedroom. He was a trusted adviser of Fred erick William, afterward Frederick III, and is the supposed author of the German Federal Constitution, which he drew up at Bismarck's suggestion. He also drew up the memorandum
which Frederick sent the Chancellor on the occasion of the former's accession in 1888. In October of that year Geffcken published in the Deutsche Rundschau extracts from Frederick's diary which gave umbrage to Bismarck and Geffcken was prosecuted for treason but was released after three months. He wrote