gray matter: see nervous system.

Otis, Harrison Gray, 1765-1848, American political leader, b. Boston; nephew of James Otis. He practiced law in Boston, and was elected (1795) to the Massachusetts legislature. A staunch Federalist, he served (1797-1801) in Congress and was again a member of the state legislature from 1802 to 1817. In 1814 he was a leader of the Hartford Convention and subsequently defended that meeting. Otis was a U.S. Senator (1817-22) and mayor of Boston (1829-31). He published Letters Developing the Character and Views of the Hartford Convention (1820) and Otis' Letters in Defence of the Hartford Convention (1824).

Otis, Harrison Gray, 1837-1917, American soldier and journalist, b. Marietta, Ohio. He was (1860) a member of the Republican national convention that nominated Abraham Lincoln for President, served with distinction in the Civil War, and, as brigadier general, participated (1898) in the Spanish-American War. In 1886 he acquired control of the Los Angeles Times, a newspaper that under his management became bitterly opposed to organized labor. His newspaper plant was dynamited in 1910, and two union laborers were convicted of the crime.

Gray, Thomas, 1716-71, English poet. He was educated at Eton and Peterhouse, Cambridge. In 1739 he began a grand tour of the Continent with Horace Walpole. They quarreled in Italy, and Gray returned to England in 1741. He continued his studies at Cambridge, and he remained there for most of his life, living in seclusion, studying Greek, and writing. In 1768 he was made professor of history and modern languages, but he did no real teaching. Although he was reconciled with Walpole, and formed other close relationships in his lifetime, his shy and sensitive disposition was ill adapted to the robust century in which he lived. He was offered the laureateship in 1757 but refused it. His first important poems, written in 1742, include "To Spring," "On a Distant Prospect of Eton College," and a sonnet on the death of his close friend Richard West. After years of revision he finished his great "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" (1751), a meditative poem presenting thoughts conjured up by the sight of a rural graveyard; it is perhaps the most quoted poem in English. In 1757, Walpole published Gray's Pindaric odes, "The Progress of Poesy" and "The Bard." Gray's verse illustrates the evolution of English poetry in the 18th cent.—from the classicism of the 1742 poems to the romantic tendencies of "The Fatal Sisters" and "The Descent of Odin" (1768). He did not write a large amount of poetry. Much of his verse is tinged with melancholy, and even more of it reflects his extensive learning. His letters, which contain much humor, are among the finest in the English language.

Gray, Stephen, 1666-1736, English physicist. Gray, a dyer by trade, cultivated science as a hobby. In 1696 he published an account of a magnifying glass that interested the Royal Society and from then on he frequently sent the Society and his patron, English Astronomer Royal John Flamsteed, ideas for simple but revealing experiments and reports of geological and astronomical observations. Gray's most important work, published in 1732, announced the discovery of electrical induction and the distinction between conductors and insulators.

Gray, Robert, 1755-1806, American sea captain, discoverer of the Columbia River, b. Tiverton, R.I. He probably served in the Continental navy in the American Revolution. In 1787 he and Capt. John Kendrick were sent by Boston merchants to the northwest coast of North America with two vessels, the Columbia Rediviva and the sloop Lady Washington. In 1789, Gray was transferred to command of the Columbia, took a rich cargo of sea otter skins to Guangzhou, and in 1790 returned to Boston, the first American to circumnavigate the globe. In 1791 he went back to the Northwest coast and wintered there. On May 11, 1792, he took the Columbia past the dangerous bar and up the river later named after the ship. Though Spanish and English navigators had been familiar with the bar at the Columbia's mouth, Gray was the first to enter the river itself.

Gray, John Chipman, 1839-1915, American lawyer and teacher, b. Brighton, Mass. A graduate of Harvard Law School (1861), he served in the Civil War and then entered law practice in Boston; in 1869 he began teaching at Harvard Law School. He continued both practice and teaching until the last years of his life and was Royall professor at Harvard from 1883 until 1913. A leading advocate of the case system of teaching law, he was a recognized authority in both England and the United States on the law of real property. His best-known work is The Nature and Sources of the Law (1909).

Gray, Horace, 1828-1902, American jurist, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1881-1902), b. Boston. At first a reporter (1854-61) to the Massachusetts supreme court, he later entered into law practice. Originally a member of the Free-Soil party, he became a Republican. After an unsuccessful attempt (1860) to secure the nomination for Massachusetts attorney general, he was appointed (1864) to the state supreme court and later (1873) became chief justice of the court. He was appointed by President Arthur to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he served the last 21 years of his life. As a lawyer and jurist, Gray was noted for using analytical case study as an approach to the historical development of legal principles and for his use of precedent in arguing and deciding cases.

Gray, Hanna Holborn, 1930-, American historian, president of the Univ. of Chicago (1978-93), b. Germany. Her father, the eminent historian Hajo Holborn, fled the Nazis in 1934 and settled in the U.S. A Renaissance and Reformation scholar, Gray became provost of Yale in 1974 and acting president in 1977. Her appointment to Chicago made her the first woman to head a major American university.

Gray, George, 1840-1925, American jurist, b. New Castle, Del. A lawyer, he was (1879-85) attorney general of Delaware and (1885-99) a Democratic senator. Gray often served (1898-1916) on international commissions to arbitrate differences between the United States and other countries. He was instrumental in drawing up the treaty that ended the Spanish-American War, in negotiating a settlement of the dispute over N Atlantic fisheries, and in calming trouble with Mexico (1916). He also served (1900-1920) on the Hague Tribunal. In 1902, as chairman of a presidential arbitration commission, Gray settled the anthracite coal strike.

Gray, Elisha, 1835-1901, American inventor, b. Barnesville, Ohio. He patented many electrical devices, most of them having to do with the telegraph. His telautograph (1888) for transmitting handwriting and line drawing was widely used. While experimenting in 1875 with the idea of sending musical notes by wire, as a means of sending several messages simultaneously over the same wire, he hit upon the idea of transmitting the human voice and early in 1876 filed with the patent office a caveat for such an invention. Alexander Graham Bell's final patent had been registered just a few hours before. The Western Union Telegraph Company, which acquired both Gray's and Edison's patents, was defeated by the Bell Telephone Company in one of the most famous patent cases in American litigation. Gray taught at Oberlin College.

Gray, Asa, 1810-88, one of America's leading botanists and taxonomists, b. Oneida co., N.Y. As professor of natural history at Harvard from 1842, he was the teacher of many eminent botanists. Through his voluminous writings in periodicals and his well-known textbooks, he helped popularize the study of botany. With John Torrey he explored the W United States and helped to revise the taxonomic procedure of Linnaeus on the basis of a more natural classification. Gray's Manual of Botany was edited by M. L. Fernald (8th centennial ed. 1950); it is a standard reference work for the flora of the United States E of the Rocky Mts. He initiated the quarterly Gray Herbarium Card Index, listing all the vascular plants of the Western Hemisphere described since 1873. Among his many other writings, which are still highly valued, are Structural Botany (6th ed. 1879) and The Elements of Botany (1887).

Gray Eminence: see Joseph, Father.

Dwight, Harrison Gray Otis, 1803-62, American Congregational missionary to the Armenians, b. Conway, Mass. He served the Armenian population of Constantinople for 30 years. His travels with Eli Smith were recorded in Researches of Rev. Eli Smith and Rev. H. G. O. Dwight in Armenia (1833).

Davis, Gray (Joseph Graham Davis, Jr.), 1942-, U.S. politician, b. the Bronx, N.Y. A graduate of Stanford Univ. (1964) and Columbia Univ. Law School (1967), he entered the army and served in Vietnam (1968-69). Active in California Democratic politics, he was Gov. Jerry Brown's chief of staff, served in the state assembly (1983-87), and was elected state controller (1987-95) and lieutenant governor (1995-99) before winning the governorship in 1998. In office, he was generally moderate on most issues, but strongly conservative in his attitude toward crime and punishment. He was reelected in 2002, but a troubled economic situation and a well-financed petition drive led to his recall in 2003.

Grizzled, gray-furred New World fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) found in forested, rocky, and brush-covered country from Canada to northern South America. Distinguished by the reddish color on its neck, ears, and legs, it grows to a length of about 20–30 in. (50–75 cm), excluding its 12–16-in. (30–40-cm) tail, and a weight of about 7–13 lbs (3–6 kg). Unlike other foxes, it commonly climbs trees. Primarily nocturnal, it takes a variety of foods, including small birds and mammals, insects, and fruits.

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(born Dec. 26, 1716, London, Eng.—died July 30, 1771, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire) British poet. He studied and later settled at Cambridge, where he wrote poems of wistful melancholy filled with truisms phrased in striking, quotable lines. Though his output was small, he became the dominant poetic figure in his day. He is remembered especially for “An Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard” (1751), one of the best known of English lyric poems and the greatest work of the English “graveyard school.” After its overwhelming success, his next two poems met a disappointing response, and he virtually ceased writing.

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(born Oct. 8, 1765, Boston, Mass.—died Oct. 28, 1848, Boston, Mass., U.S.) U.S. politician. A nephew of James Otis, he practiced law and served in the Massachusetts legislature (1796–97, 1802–05), the U.S. House of Representatives (1797–1801), the state senate (1805–13, 1814–17), and the U.S. Senate (1817–22). He was later mayor of Boston (1829–32). A Federalist, he opposed the War of 1812 and was a leader of the Hartford Convention.

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(born Oct. 8, 1765, Boston, Mass.—died Oct. 28, 1848, Boston, Mass., U.S.) U.S. politician. A nephew of James Otis, he practiced law and served in the Massachusetts legislature (1796–97, 1802–05), the U.S. House of Representatives (1797–1801), the state senate (1805–13, 1814–17), and the U.S. Senate (1817–22). He was later mayor of Boston (1829–32). A Federalist, he opposed the War of 1812 and was a leader of the Hartford Convention.

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(born Dec. 26, 1716, London, Eng.—died July 30, 1771, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire) British poet. He studied and later settled at Cambridge, where he wrote poems of wistful melancholy filled with truisms phrased in striking, quotable lines. Though his output was small, he became the dominant poetic figure in his day. He is remembered especially for “An Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard” (1751), one of the best known of English lyric poems and the greatest work of the English “graveyard school.” After its overwhelming success, his next two poems met a disappointing response, and he virtually ceased writing.

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(born Nov. 18, 1810, Sauquoit, N.Y., U.S.—died Jan. 30, 1888, Cambridge, Mass.) U.S. botanist. He received a medical degree from Fairfield Medical School, where he spent his spare time studying plant specimens. He collaborated with John Torrey (1796–1873) on Flora of North America (1838–43) and in 1842 joined the faculty at Harvard University, where he would teach until 1873. His donation of his thousands of books and plant specimens established Harvard's botany department. Gray was largely responsible for the unification of the taxonomic knowledge of the North American flora; his most widely used book, commonly called Gray's Manual (1848), remains a standard work. He was the chief early American supporter of the theories of Charles Darwin.

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(born Nov. 18, 1810, Sauquoit, N.Y., U.S.—died Jan. 30, 1888, Cambridge, Mass.) U.S. botanist. He received a medical degree from Fairfield Medical School, where he spent his spare time studying plant specimens. He collaborated with John Torrey (1796–1873) on Flora of North America (1838–43) and in 1842 joined the faculty at Harvard University, where he would teach until 1873. His donation of his thousands of books and plant specimens established Harvard's botany department. Gray was largely responsible for the unification of the taxonomic knowledge of the North American flora; his most widely used book, commonly called Gray's Manual (1848), remains a standard work. He was the chief early American supporter of the theories of Charles Darwin.

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