gnome doesn't use ~/.Xdefaults?

[Nicolas F Rouquette <nicolas rouquette jpl nasa gov>]

I'm a new gnome 1.2 user on solaris 8.

Under CDE, the ~/.Xdefaults properties are loaded in the X resource
database.
I can see them with: xrdb -query

Under gnome, it appears that the ~/.Xdefaults properties aren't loaded
unless
I merge them into the database with: xrdb -merge ~/.Xdefaults

1) Is there some setting somewhere that will load my ~/.Xdefaults for
me?
2) Is there something else that supersedes the Xdefault concept in
gnome?

-- Nicolas.