Goulburn Vgol-bamX River River, central Victoria, Australia. Rising on Mount Singleton in Fraser National Park, it flows north for 280 mi (450 km) through the Eildon, Goulburn, and Waranga reservoirs and Lake Nagambie to join the Murray River. Goulburn River National Park lies along its banks.
Gould VgiildV, Chester (b. Nov. 20, 1900, Pawnee, Okla., U.S.—d. May 11, 1985, Woodstock, Ill.) U.S. cartoonist. He studied cartooning through a correspondence school. His “Dick Tracy” action comic strip, first distributed in 1931 by the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndi¬ cate, became the first popular cops-and-robbers series. Drawn with hard outlines and accurate in the details of crime and criminal investigation, the widely syndicated strip featured a clean-cut detective with a jutting jaw, whose methods made him the nemesis of a gallery of grotesquely caricatured criminals. Gould retired from the strip in 1977.
Gould VgiildV Glenn (Herbert) (b. Sept. 25, 1932, Toronto, Ont., Can.—d. Oct. 4,1982, Toronto) Canadian pianist. The acclaim that greeted
Gould’s first recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations (1955) led him to abandon his interest in composition and to instead develop an international career as a pianist. His interpretations of Bach (and occasionally of other composers) set a new standard with their technical brilliance and subtle intelligence. Famously eccentric, he often wore gloves while playing and was intensely hypochondriac. Never happy performing, in 1964 he left the concert stage forever for the recording studio. He later composed radio “documentaries” (including The Idea of North) that fall somewhere between typical examples of the genre and musique concrete.
Gould \'giild. Jay orig. Jason Gould (b. May 27, 1836, Roxbury, N.Y., U.S.—d. Dec. 2, 1892, New York, N.Y.) U.S. railroad executive, speculator, and robber baron. Educated in local schools, he worked as a surveyor and then operated a tannery. By 1859 he was speculating in the stocks of small railways. In 1867 he became a director of the Erie Rail¬ road; in the following year he joined with Daniel Drew and James Fisk to prevent Cornelius Vanderbilt from buying control of the company. To this end he engaged in outrageous financial manipulations, including the issue of fraudulent stock and the payment of lavish bribes to New York state legislators to legalize the stock’s sale. He and Fisk then joined forces with William Marcy Tweed to profit from further stock manipulations. In 1869 they attempted to comer the gold market, causing the Black Friday panic. In 1872 public outcry forced Gould to cede control of the Erie Railroad. With a fortune of $25 million, he began buying large blocks of stock in Union Pacific Railroad Company and acquired control of that company by 1874. By 1881 he owned 15% of all U.S. rail mileage. Having made large profits by manipulating the company’s stock, he pulled out of the com¬ pany in 1882 and began building a new rail system southwest of St. Louis that by 1890 included half the region’s rail mileage. In 1881 he gained control of Western Union Corp., and he owned the New York World news¬ paper from 1879 to 1883. He remained ruthless, unscrupulous, and friend¬ less to the end.
Gould, Shane (b. Nov. 23, 1956, Sydney, Austl.) Australian swimmer. In the 1972 Olympic Games, at age 15, she dominated women’s swim¬ ming, winning five medals (three gold, one silver, and one bronze). She set world records in all five freestyle distances (100, 200, 400, 800, and 1,500 m). In 1973 she became the first woman to break the 17-minute barrier in the 1500-m freestyle (16 min 59.6 sec).
Gould, Stephen Jay (b. Sept. 10, 1941, New York, N.Y., U.S.—d. May 20, 2002, New York, N.Y.) U.S. paleontologist and evolutionary biologist. He received a Ph.D. in paleontology from Columbia University and joined the faculty of Harvard University in 1967. With Niles Eldredge (b. 1943), he developed the controversial theory of punctuated equilib¬ rium (1972), a revision of Darwinism that proposed that the evolutionary creation of new species occurs in rapid bursts over periods as short as thousands of years, which are followed by long periods of stability. He was widely known as a popularizing writer on biological and evolution¬ ary topics, especially in Natural History magazine; his numerous books include The Panda’s Thumb (1980), The Mismeasure of Man (1981), and The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (2002).
Gounod \gu-'no\, Charles (Francois) (b. June 17, 1818, Paris, Fr.—d. Oct. 18, 1893, Saint-Cloud, near Paris) French composer. He stud¬ ied music at the Paris Conservatory and in Rome. He also studied for the priesthood and worked as an organist, and he remained tom between the theatre and the church. His reputation largely rests on his hugely popular opera Faust (1859). His 15 other operas include Romeo and Juliet (1867), The Mock Doctor (1858), Philemon and Baucis (1860), and Mireille
(1864); other works include 17 masses, more than 150 songs, and 2 symphonies.
gourami \gu-'ra-me\ Any of sev¬ eral of the freshwater, tropical laby¬ rinth fishes (order Perciformes), especially Osphronemus goramy, an East Indian fish caught or raised for food. A compact, oval fish with a long, filamentous ray extending from each pelvic fin, it weighs up to 20 lbs (9 kg). Adults are brown or gray with a paler belly. Other gourami s, several of them popular in home aquariums, are Asian members of different gen-
Dwarf gourami (Colisa lalia).
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© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
gourd ► GPS I 785
era and families. Generally deep-bodied and small-mouthed, they include the giant gourami (Colisa fasciata), a blue-green and reddish brown fish 5 in. (12 cm) long; the dwarf gourami (C. lalia ), 2.5 in. (6 cm) long, brightly striped in red and blue; and the kissing gourami ( Helostoma tem- mincki), a greenish or pinkish white fish noted for its “kissing” activities.
gourd Any of certain hard-shelled food and ornamental plants of the family Cucurbitaceae (order Violales), including SQUASHes and pumpkins. Most species are prostrate or climb by tendrils. They are annual herba¬ ceous plants native to temperate and tropical areas. Gourds are generally low in nutrients; one exception is winter squash (certain cultivars of Cucurbita maxima, C. moschata, C. pepo, etc.). The shells of many gourds have made them useful as containers and utensils. Colourful and oddly shaped gourds are picked for ornamental use.
Gourmont \gur-'mo n \, Remy de (b. April 4, 1858, Bazoches-en- Houlmes, France—d. Sept. 27, 1915, Paris) French novelist, poet, play¬ wright, and philosopher. He worked 10 years at the national library; his dismissal resulted from an allegedly unpatriotic article in the Mercure de France, a journal he had cofounded. A painful skin disease later kept him a semirecluse. One of the most intelligent critics from the Symbolist move¬ ment, he had a major role in disseminating its aesthetic doctrines. His 50 published volumes are mainly collections of essays.
gout Hereditary metabolic disorder in which excess uric-acid salts, nor¬ mally excreted in urine, are deposited as needle-sharp crystals in joints, causing attacks of severe inflammation. The most common site is the base of the big toe. One of the oldest diseases in medical literature, gout is far more common in men. Attacks usually do not begin until middle age. They cause heat, redness, and extreme tenderness and pain and often subside in a week or two. Colchicine is used to treat acute attacks. Drugs such as allopurinol inhibit uric-acid synthesis.