Golden Bull
in German history, an edict issued by Emperor Charles IV in 1356 with the consent of his Diet. The bull was so called from the golden bulla or seal with which it was sealed. The bull was designed to correct certain irregularities in the working of a self-constituted college that took upon itself the election of emperors. The chief content of the bull was a decree that: 1. Formally sanctioned an electoral college . 2. Defined the powers and procedure of the college. 3. Defined the membership of the college, namely: the three archbishops of Mainz, Cologne, and Trier, the King of Bohemia, the Duke of Saxony, the Margrave of Brandenburg and Count Palatine of the Rhine. See Electors
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Golden Chersonese
THE, the Malay Peninsula; so called by Ptolemy and Milton. GOLDEN-CRESTED WREN or
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Golden Eagle
or RING-TAILED EAGLE, a North American bird, Aquila chrysaëtus, sub-family Aquilnæ. It is 32 to 40 inches long, and the wing 35. The head and neck behind are lightbrownish fulvous, the tail at base white, terminal portion glossy black, and all GOLD DREDGE other parts purplish-brown. It has great power of flight, but not the speed of many of the falcons and hawks, but its keen sight enables it to spy an object of prey at a great distance, and with meteor-like swiftness and unerring aim it falls on its victim. The nest of the golden eagle is placed on a shelf of a rugged and generally inaccessible precipice. It is flat and very large, and con- The eggs are two in sists of dry sticks. number and dull white with undefined patches of brown. The golden eagle and preys on fawns, hares, wild turkeys, other large birds. It does not attain its full beauty of plumage till the 4th year. The so-called ring-tailed eagle is the golden eagle before it has reached maturity. The European golden eagle is so nearly like the American one that there is a question whether it is not the same species.
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Golden Fleece
the subject of a celebrated Grecian myth. A mother, whose boy and girl were in danger, appealed to Mercury for assistance. He gave her a ram with a golden fleece, on which she placed her two children to be conveyed to a place of safety. The ram sprang into the air and took his course toward the east. The girl, whose name was Helle, fell from her seat into the sea, in that part now called the Hellespont. The boy kept his hold and he reached the land of Colchis on the eastern shore of the Black Sea . Here he sacrificed the ram and gave its fleece to the king of that country, who had received him hospitably. The fleece was hung up in a sacred grove and guarded night and day by a dragon that never slept. Later, Jason, with his ship, Argo, and his crew, known as the Argonauts, set out to obtain the Golden Fleece. The cruise of the Argo has been supposed by some to be another version of Noah's deluge; by others the Golden Fleece is held to typify the wealthbringing caravan commerce of the East, the land of Colchis being the point at which this traffic reached the Black Sea. See Argonauts
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Golden Fleece (Classical mythology the fleece)
in classical mythology, the fleece of gold in quest of which Jason undertook the Argonautic expedition to Colchis. The fleece was suspended in an oak-tree in the grove of Ares (Mars), and was guarded by a dragon. When the Argonauts came to Colchis for the fleece, Medea put the dragon to sleep, and Jason carried the fleece away. See ARGONAUT; JASON; MEDEA.
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Golden Fleece (ORDER OF THE the Toison d'or)
ORDER OF THE, the Toison d'or, a military order instituted by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, in 1429, on the occasion of his marriage with the Portuguese princess, Isabella. The order now belongs to both Austria and Spain. The knights carry suspended from their collars the figure of a sheep or fleece in gold. GOLDEN GATE. a channel two miles wide, forming the entrance to the Bay of San Francisco, and washing the N. shore of the peninsula on which San Francisco is built. It is defended by Fort Point, at the N. W. extremity of the peninsula, and by a fort on Alcatraz Island, inside the entrance.
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Golden Horde
originally the name of a powerful Mongol tribe, but afterward extended to all the followers of Genghis Khan, and of Batu, the grandson of Genghis Khan, who invaded Europe in the 13th century. Under Batu the Golden Horde advanced W. as far as the plain of Mosi in Hungary, and Liegnitz in Silesia, at both of which bloody battles were fought in 1241. They founded the empire of the Kiptshaks, or the Golden Horde, which extended from the banks of the Dniester to the Ural, and from the Black Sea and the Caspian to the mouth of the Kama and the sources of the Khoper. This empire lasted till toward the close of the 15th century, when it was overthrown by Ivan III.
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Golden Horn
the harbor of Constantinople, an inlet of the Bosporus, so called from its shape and beauty.
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Golden Key
Under this title have been published many volumes purporting to reveal an infallible method of attaining success in a lottery. La Clef d'or, or La Véritable trésor de la fortune, reprinted from time to time at Lille, is based on the doctrine of sympathetic numbers, which the author claims to have discovered. Each number drawn, he declares, has five sympathetic numbers which directly follow it. Thus the number 4 has for its sympathetic numbers 30, 40, 50, 20, and 76. Knowing this, of course, it is an easy matter to win fortune at a lottery.
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Golden Saxifrage
the popular name for plants of the genus Chrysosplenium, a small genus of Saxifragaceæ, consisting of annual or perennial rather succulent herbs, with alternate or opposite crenate leaves, and inconspicuous greenish axillary and terminal flowers. They are natives of central and northern Europe, the Himalayas, and parts of America.
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Golden Trumpeter
South a American bird, the agami, which emits a deep, rough sound, suggesting that of a trumpet.
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