Gall
Gall names 4 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below. 1 of them is described by more than one encyclopedia.
Gall an unnatural vegetable scale
Described by 2 of the 6 encyclopedias.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
an unnatural vegetable scale, swelling, or tubercle. Galls occur on the leaves, stems, twigs, bark, and roots of many plants. They are caused by the sting of various gnats, gall-flies, gallwasps, and moths. Each species of gallproducing insect frequents some particular species of plants, and lays its eggs in the same kind of a place. One insect produces galls on a pine; another species visits the stalk of a goldenrod. The galls of ten different insects are found on willows. The gall is, of course, a diseased condition of the plant. It is caused either by the injection of poison by the parent insect, by the presence of the egg deposited by an insect, or else by the irritation of the larva as it hatches and eats. Some galls are inhabited by a single larva; others are infested by a colony. A careful examination of most rosebushes shows that the tender parts are covered with minute tubercles, each of which contains an egg or larva. An examination of the flower and vegetable garden, meadows, and woods will reveal a great number of plants selected by insects to serve as hosts for their young. Galls differ greatly in their interior structure, being resinous, corky, cobwebby, or leathery in texture. The galls of commerce, known also as gall-nuts and nutgalls, are produced on various oaks of the Mediterranean region. They are spherical, varying from a pea to a nutmeg in size, and are of different colors, as black, blue, and green. They contain a large amount of concentrated tannic acid and gallic acid, the latter in the form of minute white crystals. They are used extensively for tanning the finest kinds of leather, and in dyeing expensive goods. Gallic acid is used also in medicine. Oak galls make black ink of the best quality. Chinese galls are produced on a kind of sumach. Various other galls are known to the druggist. Many galls found in the United States are of excellent quality, but the expense of gathering them is too great to permit of their collection for commercial purposes. See Insects ; Dye Galls on elm leaf. Oak galls. Rose-gall. Galls
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a morbid excrescence on the leaf or leaf-bud of any plant, arising probably from the puncture of a cynips. These small hymenopterous insects deposit their eggs on the leaves, eaves, of various plants, plants, each species being limited to a single plant, or even a single part of one; thus there is a Cynips ficus caricæ on the common fig, a C. fagi on the beech, and a C. quercus foli on the leaves of the common oak. The so-called aves apples are not fruits but morbid excrescences produced by C. terminalis, called because it deposits its eggs at the extremity of the shoots of the tree. The galls of commerce are produced by the puncture by C. gallæ tinctoria of the leaf-bud of Quercus infectoria, or more rarely of some other species of oak. In the hole made by the insect, an egg is deposited, in due time to be developed into a larva, which eats its way out when it comes to the perfect state. One variety is white or yellow, another green, gray, or black. The best galls come from Smyrna and Aleppo. With the salts of iron they should yield a fine black color, and therefore are used in the manufacture of ink.
Gall ST., a canton in the E
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ST., a canton in the E. part of Switzerland, occupying the 14th place in the Swiss Confederation. It has E. the Vorarlberg and Lichtenstein, from which it is separated by the Rhine, S. E. and S. the Grisons; W. the cantons Glarus, Schwyz, and Zurich, with its lake; and N. Thurgau and the Lake of Constance. Length, N. to S., about 40 miles; breadth varying from 11 to nearly 35 miles. Area, 779 square miles. Surface, greatly diversified. In the N. there is an inconsiderable portion of plain country; but the central and S. parts are almost wholly covered with Alpine ranges, the summits of some of which rise above the snow limits. Mt. Scheibe, at the S. W. extremity, is estimated to be 10,188 feet above sea-level. There are, however, several extensive and fertile valleys, as that of Toggenburg (watered by the Thur, 36 miles in length), those of the Rhine, and others noted for their wild and picturesque character. Next to the Rhine, the chief rivers are the Thur, Sitter, Serz, etc.ste Wallenesis Extensive forests principal lake. cover the S. portion of the canton. Soil, moderately fertile. Products, corn, maize, hemp, and flax, fruit, etc. Cattle and hog feeding is extensively carried on. Minerals, iron and coal. Mineral springs are numerous. St. Gall is one of the principal Swiss manufacturing cantons; its inhabitants are mostly employed in its manufactures of cotton fabrics, Chief thread, linens, glass, wax, etc. town St. Gall, the capital. Pop. 304,000.
Gall ST., an Irish monk of the 6th and 7th centuries
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ST., an Irish monk of the 6th and 7th centuries; born in Ireland, about 550. He was educated at the monastery of Bangor, accompanied St. Columba to France about 585, and took part with him in all his missionary labors. Banished from France, they went together into the wilder regions of Swit zerland, and near the Lake of Constance they founded the monastery which bore the name of St. Gall and gave name to the town and canton of St. Gall. After a few years Columba retired to Italy, leaving his companion abbot of the new house. The monastery was burnt by Hungarians in the 10th century. He died in St. Gall, Switzerland, about 645.
Gall ST., capital of the above canton
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ST., capital of the above canton, situated on the Steinach, in a narrow and elevated valley, 7 miles S. W. of the Lake of Constance. It possesses a famous Benedictine abbey, which became the asylum of learning during the Dark and was one of the most celebrated schools in Europe between the 8th and 10th centuries; it now serves as the cathedral of the diocese. St. Gall is one of the chief manufacturing towns in the confederation; it has extensive manufactures of muslin, is the center of the Swiss trade in that fabric, and of gold and silver embroidery, besides cotton fabrics and yarn. Pop. about 75,000.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The natural history holds up: galls are still traced to cynipid wasps, midges and other insects, though modern work has shown the mechanism is chemical rather than mere "irritation" — the larva's secretions hijack the plant's own growth hormones to build a custom-made nursery, and the gall's shape is dictated by the insect, not the plant. The commercial trade Aiton's described in 1910 has largely gone: nutgalls from Aleppo and Smyrna were displaced by synthetic dyes, chrome tanning and modern inks, and iron-gall ink is now best known to archivists as a conservation headache, since its acid eats through the paper of old manuscripts. On the Swiss side, Collier's 1921 figure of 304,000 for the canton of St Gallen has grown to well over half a million, and the abbey library in the capital — with its plan of St Gall and some 2,000 medieval manuscripts — was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983, the abbey itself having been dissolved in 1805. One correction: the saint's companion was Columbanus, the Irish missionary to Gaul, not the Columba who founded Iona, and some scholars now doubt whether Gall was Irish at all.
Written for this edition, 2026.