GIEN, a town of France, at the head of an arrondissement in the department of Loiret, is situated on the right bank of the Loire, 39 miles E.S.E. of Orleans. The Loire is crossed at Gien by a stone bridge of twelve arches, built about the end of the 15th century. The town is the seat of a tribunal of the first instance and of a justice of peace court. The principal buildings are the prison, the hospital, the old castle, originally built by Charlemagne, and reconstructed in 1494 by· Anne de Beaujeu, daughter of Louis XL, and the church of Saint Pierre, a modern structure of no particular merit, but possessing an old square tower dating from the end of the 15th century. There are manufactures of serge, leather, and earthenware, and some trade in corn and wine. The population in 1876 was 6493.

EAGLE, רחם, Lev. xi, 18; Deut. xiv, 17. As the root of this word signifies _tenderness_ and _affection_, it is supposed to refer to some bird remarkable for its attachment to its young; hence some have thought that the pelican is to be understood; and Bochart endeavours to prove that the golden vulture is meant; but there can be no doubt that it is the _percnopterus_ of the ancients, the _ach-bobba_ of the Arabians, particularly described by Bruce under the name of _rachamah_. He says, “We know from Horus Apollo, that the _rachma_, or she vulture, was sacred to Isis, and adorned the statue of the goddess; that it was the emblem of parental affection; and that it was the hieroglyphic for an affectionate mother.” He farther says, that “this female vulture, having hatched her young ones, continues with them one hundred and twenty days, providing them with all necessaries; and, when the stock of food fails them, she tears off the fleshy part of her thigh, and feeds them with that and the blood which flows from the wound.” Hasselquist thus describes the Egyptian vulture: “The appearance of the bird is as horrid as can well be imagined. The face is naked and wrinkled, the eyes are large and black, the beak black and crooked, the talons large, and extended ready for prey, and the whole body polluted with filth. These are qualities enough to make the beholder shudder with horror. Notwithstanding this, the inhabitants of Egypt cannot be enough thankful to Providence for this bird. All the places round Cairo are filled with the dead bodies of asses and camels; and thousands of these birds fly about and devour the carcasses, before they putrify and fill the air with noxious exhalations.” No wonder that such an animal should be deemed unclean.

GIESELER, Johann Karl Ludwig (1792-1854), one of the most distinguished of the modern school of scientific writers on church history, was born at Petershagen, near Minden, where his father, a man of considerable vigour and independence of character, was minister, on the 3d of March 1792. In his tenth year he entered the orphanage at Halle, whence he duly passed to the university, his studies being interrupted, however, from October 1813 till the peace of 1815 by a period of military service, during which he was enrolled as a volunteer in a regiment of chasseurs. Having in 1817 taken his degree in philosophy, he in the same year became assistant head master in the Minden gymnasium, and in 1818 was appointed conrector of the gymnasium at Cleves. Here he published his earliest work {Historischkritischer Versuch über die Entstehung u. die frühesten Schicksale der schriftlichen Evangelien'), a treatise which has had considerable influence on all subsequent investigations and discussions of the question as to the origin of the gospels, in so far as it may be considered to have finally disposed of that theory of a “primitive” written gospel to which most critics in the earlier part of the century had inclined. In 1819 Gieseler was appointed a professor ordinarius in theology in the newly-founded university of Bonn, where, besides lecturing on church history, he made important contributions to the literature of that subject in Rosenmuller’s Repertorium, Stäudlin u. Tschirner’s Archiv, and in various university “programs.” The first part of the first volume of his well-known Church History appeared in 1824. In 1833 he accepted a call to Göttingen, where the remainder of his life was spent, marked by few noteworthy events beyond the steady publication of volume ...

GIESSEN, a town of Germany, capital of the province of Upper Hesse, in the grand-duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt, is situated in a beautiful and fruitful valley at the confluence of the Wieseck with the Lahn, 33 miles N.N.W. of Frankfort. It is the seat of a bailiwick, a high court, and a district penal court. The old streets are narrow and irregular, but iu the suburbs outside the old walls there are many elegant houses. Besides the university, the principal buildings are the provincial Government offices, comprising a portion of the old castle dating from the 12th century, the arsenal, the town-hall, the new gymnasium, and the town church. The university, founded in 1G07 by the landgrave Louis V., has a large and valuable library, a botanic garden, an observatory, an anatomical theatre, an infirmary, a maternity hospital, a museum of natural history, and a chemical laboratory which was directed by Professor Liebig. The number of professors and teachers of the university in 1875 was 52, and of students 340. There is also a gymnasium and a real school. The industries include the manufacture of woollen and cotton cloth of various kinds, leather, candles, tobacco, and beer.

Giessen was formed in the 12th century out of the villages Selters, Aster, and Kroppach, for whose protection Count William of Gleiberg built the castle of Giessen. Through marriage the town came into the possession of the palgrave of Tübingen, who sold it in 1265 to the landgrave Henry of Hesse. It was surrounded with fortifications in 1530, which were demolished in 1547 by the emperor Charles V., but rebuilt in 1560. From 1807 they were gradually pulled down, and their site converted into promenades. The population of Giessen in 1875 was 13,980.