GAWAIN, git'wttn, SIR. One of the knights of the Round Table. He is the nephew of King Arthur (q.v.), and his ally in the war with Launcelot. He tries in vain to pull the magic sword from the magic stone, fails in the quest of the Holy Grail (q.v.), and dies from wounds received in a fight with Launcelot. Consult: Mal ory, Morte d'Arthur; and Tennyson, Idylls of the King. The name is also given to a knight in Amadis of Gaul.
GAY, gh, CLAUDE (1800-73). A French trav eler and naturalist, born at Draguignan, France. He pursued scientific studies primarily in Paris, and after a few months' travel in Greece and Asia Minor, sailed, in 1828, from Chile with the intention of making an extensive study of the flora of the South American continent. With the exception of a short period in 1832-33, which he spent in Paris supervising the construction of some scientific instruments of his own invention, Gay remained in South America until 1843, mak ing extensive researches in Chile and parts of Peru, and collecting a great mass of material, not only in regard to the flora of the country, but its physical characteristics and political history as well. In 1843 he returned to Paris, where, by
means of financial aid furnished by the Chilean Government, he was enabled to publish (in Spanish) his monumental Historic fisica y po litica de Chile (24 vols., 1843-51, with an atlas in 2 vols.) . Gay spent 1856-58 in travel in Rus sia and the Orient, and in 1858 was commis sioned by the Academy of Sciences, of which he had been elected a member, to study mining in the United States, the results of his investiga tions being incorporated in an interesting work entitled Rapport d l'Academie des Sciences sur les mines des Etats-Unis (1861). Among his other publications were: Considerations sobre las minas de mercuric' de Andacolla 6 Illapel con su position geolegica (1837) ; Origine de /a pornme de terre (1851); Triple variation de aimantee dans les parties ouest de l'Amerique (1854); Carte generale du Chile (1855).