Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/783

is not very clear. Structurally it would seem to have some relation to the Siskins (Clu‘ysomitri's), though the members of the two groups have very different habits, and perhaps its nearest kinship lies with the Hawfinches (C'occot/n'ausles).

See Finch, vol. ix. p. 191.

(a. n.)

GOLDFISH (Ca-rassz'us auratus). In China and the warmer parts of Japan a fish extremely similar to the Crucian carp of Europe is of very common occurrence in ponds and other still waters. In the wild state its colours do not differ from those of a Crucian carp, and like that fish it is tenacious of life and easily domesticated. Albinos seem to be rather common; and as in other fishes (for instance, the tench, carp, eel, flounder), the colour of most of these albinos is a bright orange or golden yellow ; occa- sionally even this shade of colour is lost, the fish being more or less pure white or silvery. The Chinese have domesticated these albinos for a long time, and by careful s:-lection have succeeded in propagating all those strange varieties, and even monstrosities, which appear in every domestic animal. In some individuals the dorsal fin is only half its normal length, in others entirely absent 5 in others the anal fin has a. double spine ; in others all the fins are of nearly double the usual length. The snout is frequently uniformed, giving the head of the fish an appearance similar to that of a bull-dog.

Goldfish (C'arassius auralas).

The variety most highly prized at present has an extremely short snout, eyes which almost wholly project beyond the orbit, no dorsal fin, and a very long three— or four—lobed caudal fin (Telescope—fish). The gold-fish is now distributed over nearly all the civilized parts of the world. It was first brought to England in the year 1691, but was very scarce till 1728, when it was imported in great numbers from Holland, where the fish had already become domesticated. It will not thrive in rivers; in large ponds it readin reverts to the coloration of the original wild stock. It flourishes best in small tanks and ponds, in which the water is constantly changing and does not freeze; in such localities, and with a full supply of food, which consists of crumbs of bread, bran, worms, small crustaceans, and insects, it attains to a. length of from 6 to 12 inches, breeding readily, sometimes at different times of the same year.

GOLD HILL, a town of Storey County, Nevada, United St rtes, is situated at the head of a precipitous ravine of the Nevada mountains, 1 mile S. of Virginia city, and 328 E. from San Francisco by rail. The name was derived from a small hill connected with the famous Comstock lode, and Containing rich golden ore. Some of the most valuable mines of this lode are within the limits of the town, the average yield being about two million dollars monthly in gold and silver. Though there are some quartz mills within the town, the greater part of the ore is Conveyed to the mills on Carson river. There is a fine hall in connexion with the miners’ union, and another has been erected by the Oddfellows and Freemasons. The Methodists, Epis— copalians, and Roman Catholics are the principal denomina- tions of the town. Gold Hill obtains its water supply in conjunction with Virginia from the summit of the Sierra Nevada, ‘25 miles distant. The population in 1860 was 638, and in 1870 4311. Since then it has been rapidly increasing, and must have more than trebled its numbers.

GOLDINGEN, iu Lettish Kuldiga, a district town of the Russian province of Courland, in 500 58' N. lat. and 11° 58' E. long., 85 miles \V.N.W. of Mittau, on the left bank of the Windau, which forms a beautiful waterfall— the Rummel—-in the neighbourhood. On the Schlossberg or Castlehill are a few remains of the foundations of what in the end of the 18th century was the most magnificent ruin in Courland, and in the 17th century had been the palatial residence of the dukes. The town is beautifully built; and it possesses a Lutheran church dating from 1606, and a Catholic church five years older, 3. hospital and two ahnshouses, two benevolent societies, founded respectively in 1836 and 1839, and a society of rural economy. Brush- making is the only local industry of much importance. In 1861 the population was 5475 (2764 males), of whom the greater proportion were Lutherans, 1551 being Jews, 360 Roman Catholics, and 290 members of the Greek Church ; but according to the St Petersbm‘g Calendar for 1878 it has diminished to 4758. The castle of Goldingen was founded in 1249 by Dietrich of Groningen, and in 1347 the town received its first charter of privileges from Goswin ven Gerike, master of the Teutonic order. It has been a district town since 1795.

GOLD LACE. See under Gold, p. 753.

GOLDONI, Carlo (1707–1793), the most illustrious

of the Italian comedy-writers, and the real founder of modern Italian comedy. His life is known to us from his Jlémoires, which, though they do not reveal a great thinker, are of great value as faithfully representing the Italian society, especially the Venetian society of the 18th century. Gold-3111 was born at Venice in 1707, in a fine house near St Thomas’s church. His father Giulio was a native of Modena. The first playthings of the future writer were puppets which he made dance ; the first books he read were plays,-—-among others, the comedies of the Florentine Cicognini. Later he received a still stronger impression from the lilamlragora of Macchiavelli. At eight years old he had tried to sketch a play. His father, meanwhile, had taken his degree in medicine at Rome and fixed himself at Perugia, where he made his son join him ; but, having soon quarrelled with his colleagues in medicine, he departed for Chioggia, leaving his son to the care of a philosopher, Professor Caldini of Bimini. The young Goldoni soon grew tired of his life at Bimini, and ran away with a Venetian company of players. He began to study law at Venice, then went to continue the same pursuit at Pavia, but at that time he was studying the Greek and Latin comic poets much more and much better than books about law. “I have read over again,” he writes in his JIémoires, “ the Greek and Latin poets, and I have told to myself that I should like to imitate them in their style, their plots, their precision ; but I would not be satisfied unless I succeeded in giving more interest to my works, happier issues to my plots, better drawn characters, and more genuine comedy.” For a satire entitled I! C'olosso, which attacked the honour of several families of Pavia, he was driven from that town, and went first to study with the j uris— consult Morelli at Udine, then to take his degree in law at Modena. After having worked some time as clerk in the chanceries of Chioggia and Feltre, his father being dead, he went to Venice, to exercise there his profession as a lawyer.

But the wish to write for the stage was always strong in