Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/158

the Schloss at Berlin, and grandson to Joseph Genelli, a Roman embroiderer employed to found a school of gobelins by Frederick the Great. Bnonaventura Gcuelli first took lessons from his father and then became a student of the Berlin Academy. After serving his time in the guards he went with a stipend to Rome, where he lived ten years a friend and assistant to Koch the landscape painter, a colleague of Hiihnel, Reinhard, Overbeck, and Fiihrich, all of whom made a name in art. In 1830 he was connnis- sioned by Dr Hiirtel to adorn a villa at Leipsic with frescos, but quarrelling with this patron he withdrew to Munich, where he earned a scanty livelihood at first, though he succeeded at last in acquiring repute as an illustrative and figure draughtsman. In 1859 he was appointed a professor at Weimar, where he ended his days. Genelli painted few pictures, and it is very rare to find his canvasses in public galleries, but there are six of his compositions in oil in the Schack collection at Munich. These and numerous water- colours, as well as designs for engravings and lithographs, reveal an artist of considerable power whose ideal was the antique, but who was also fascinated by the works of _Iichelangelo. Though a German by birth, his spirit was unlike that of Overbeck or F iihrich, whose art was reminis- cent of the old masters of their own country. He seemed to hark back to the land of his fathers and endeavour to revive the traditions of the Italian Renaissance. Subtle in thought and powerfully conceived, his compositions are usually mythological, but full of matter, energetic and fiery in execution, and marked almost invariably by daring effects of foreshortening. Imperled by straitened means, the artist seems frequently to have drawn from imagination rather than from life, and 1nucl1 of his anatomy of muscle is in consequence conventional and false. But none the less Genelli merits his reputation as a bold and imaginative artist, and his name deserves to be remembered beyond the

narrow limits of the early schools of Munich and Vei1nar.

GENERATION, a term in general biology or physiolog synonymous with the Greek ,8¢oye’:/co-us and the German Zeugung, may comprehend the whole history of the first origin and continued reproduction of living bodies, whether plants or animals ; but it is frequently restricted to the sexual reproduction of animals. The subject, in its most comprehensive aspect, would naturally be divided into the following branches, viz. :—(1) the first origin of life and living beings, non—sexual or agamic reproduction, and (3) gamic or sexual reproduction. The first two of these topics have already been shortly treated of in the articles Abiogenesis and Biology; the third and more extensive division, including (1) the formation and fecundation of the ovum, and the development of the embryo in different animals, it has been deemed expedient to refer to the heading Reproduction.

GENESIS. See Pentateuch.

GENET (Genetla), a genus of carnivorous mammals belonging to the l'ivern':Jaa or family of civets. It contains six species, all of which are found exclusively in Africa, with the exception of the common genet (G'enetta vulgcu-is), which occurs also throughout the south of Europe and in Palestine, where Tristram notes it as occurring on Mount Carmel. The fur of this species is of a dark grey colour, thickly spotted with black, and having a dark streak along the back, while the tail, which is nearly as long as the body, is prettily ringed with black and white. The genet is abundant in the south of France and in Spain, where it fre- quents the banks of streams, and feeds on the smaller mam- mals and on birds. In the vertically slit pupil of its eyes, and in the complete retractility of its claws, it approximates, along with the other species, to the cats, and correspondingly differs from the true civets, while the anal pouch which is so fully developed in the civet exists as a mere depression in the present genus, and contains only a faint trace of the highly characteristic odour of the former. In south-western Europe and in Africa it is sought after for its soft and beautifully spotted fur, while in Constantinople it has been tamed and kept like a cat for destroying mice and other vermin.

Genet.

GENEVA (in French Gevzéve, in German Genf, in classi- cal Latin Genera, and in Low Latin, by metathesis, Gel/emz(.' or G'e-even-am), a city and canton of Switzerland,———the can- ton being, with one exception, the smallest, and the city, without exception, the largest within the limits of the confederation.

The canton of Geneva has an area of 2794 square kilometres, or 1078 square miles, considerably less than that of

Rutland, the smallest of the English counties, and this includes 11:‘; square miles of water—surface belonging to the lake. The greater part of its frontier is conterminous with France, the department of Haute-Savoie lying to thc south, and that of Ain to the west and north ; while it is con- nected with the Swiss canton of V and (Waadt) along a line of not more than miles. The area belongs to the basin of the Rhone, which flows for about 4 miles through the canton, and then for nearly 2 miles forms the boundary towards France. With the exception of the Arve, the Rhone tributaries are mere mountain streams, of which tl1e largest is tl1e London iii the extreme west. Market gardens, orchards, and vineyards occupy a large pro- portion of the soil, whose apparent fertility, however, is due not so much to its natural qualities as to the noble industry of the cultivators. Besides building materials such as sandstone, slate, &c., the only mineral to bc found within the canton is bituminous shale, the products of which can be used for petroleum and asphalte (see Les G'z°sements bit-mnz'2m(.L' du canton dc Genéve, Paris, 1877). While Geneva is, as has been stated, almost the smallest of the Swiss cantons, the size of the city makes the density of its population far greater than that of any other. In 1870 it had, inclusive of strangers, 93,239 inhabitants, or 871 to the square mile; and this had increased by 1876 to 99,352 inhabitants, or 921 to the square mile. At the earlier date, 43,639 were Protestants and 47,868 Roman Catholics,—the remaining fraction comprising 901 Jews, and 771 of various

Christian sects. The prevailing language is French; but