GEINITZ, Wring, MANS Baum) (1841-1900). A German geologist and paleontologist. He was horn at Altenburg, and was educated at Ber lin and Jena. He was appointed professor of mineralogy and gcognosy at the Polytechnic Institute of Dresden in 1850, and director of the Museum of Mineralogy there in 1857. His works include: Charakteristik der Schichten und Petre fakten des sachsisch-bohmischen Kreidegebirges (1843) ; Die Vcrsteincrungen der Steinkohlen formation in Sachsen. (1855) ; Geologic der Stein kohleri Deutschlands and anderer Lander Europas (1865) ; Carbon formation und Dyes in Nebraska (1866); Geologie von Sumatra (1875); Ueber fossile Pflanzen and Tierarten in den argentin ischen Prorinzen San Juan and Mendoza (1876).
GEISHA, 0'6-shit (Chino-Japanese, person of pleasing accomplishments). One of a class of young women in Japan endowed with more than the ordinary share of personal attractions. ele
gant and accomplished in the arts of gayety, and especially in music and the peculiar rhythmic dances of the country, who form the chief feature at entertainments in the average social life of Japan. It is customary to speak of geishas as `singing girls.' They correspond, in some degree, to the Almech of Egypt and other parts of the Orient. Usually the training of the girl begins when she is seven'years old. The geisha is the imposing theme of a large number of rhapsodical and erotic writers on Japan, but in the new and better social life of Japan and reconstruction in national habits and ideals, the solution of the geisha problem is a serious one.
A capitation tax of one yen per month is levied on each geisha. Consult: Bacon, Japanese Girls and Women (Boston, 1891) ; and Chamberlain, Things Japanese (London, 1891).