GESNER, ABRAHAM (1797-1864), Canadian geologist, was born in Nova Scotia in 1797. He qualified as a doctor of medicine in London in 1827. Returning to the Dominion, he published in 1836 _Remarks on the Geology and Mineralogy of Nova Scotia_, and continuing his researches he was enabled in 1843 to bring before the Geological Society of London "A Geological Map of Nova Scotia, with an accompanying Memoir" (_Proc. Geol. Soc._ iv. 186). In 1849 he issued a volume on the industrial resources of the country. He dealt also with the geology and mineralogy of New Brunswick and Prince Edward's Island. Devoting himself to the economic side of geology in various parts of North America, he was enabled to bring out in 1861 _A Practical Treatise on Coal, Petroleum and other Distilled Oils_. He died at Halifax, N.S., on the 29th of April 1864. GESNER, JOHANN MATTHIAS (1691-1761), German classical scholar and schoolmaster, was born at Roth near Ansbach on the 9th of April 1691. He studied at the university of Jena, and in 1714 published a work on the _Philopatris_ ascribed to Lucian. In 1715 he became librarian and conrector (vice-principal) at Weimar, in 1729 rector of the gymnasium at Ansbach, and in 1730 rector of the Thomas school at Leipzig. On the foundation of the university of Göttingen he became professor of rhetoric (1734) and subsequently librarian. He died at Göttingen on the 3rd of August 1761. His special merit lies in the attention he devoted to the explanation and illustration of the subject matter of the classical authors. His principal works are: editions of the _Scriptores rei rusticae_, of Quintilian, Claudian, Pliny the Younger, Horace and the Orphic poems (published after his death); _Primae lineae isagoges in eruditionem universalem_ (1756); an edition of B. Faber's _Thesaurus eruditionis scholasticae_ (1726), afterwards continued under the title _Novus linguae et eruditionis Romanae thesaurus_ (1749); _Opuscula minora varii argumenti_ (1743-1745); _Thesaurus epistolicus Gesnerianus_ (ed. Klotz, 1768-1770); _Index etymologicus latinitatis_ (1749). See J. A. Ernesti, _Opuscula oratoria_ (1762), p. 305; H. Sauppe, _Göttinger Professoren_ (1872); C. H. Pöhnert, _J. M. Gesner und sein Verhältnis zum Philanthropinismus und Neuhumanismus_ (1898), a contribution to the history of pedagogy in the 18th century; articles by F. A. Eckstein in _Allgemeine deutsche Biographie_ ix.; and Sandys, _Hist. of Class. Schol._ iii. (1908), 5-9.