ation and of the Prince Publication Society; contributed to the Historical Magazine and other periodicals upon antiquarian subjects, and was the orator before the Genealogical Society Nov. 21, 1870, on the 250th anniversary of the signing of the compacts in the cabin of the Mayflower. Author of Genealogical Memoir of the Gilbert Family (1850), Lives of Isaac Heath, John Bowles, and Rev. John Eliot, Jr. (1850), The Landing at Cape Anne (1854), Ancient Pemaquid (Portland, 1857), Pulpit of the American Revolution (1860), etc.

D. June 6, 1878.

Thornton (MATTHEW), b. in Ireland in 1714; came to Wiscasset, Me., in youth; received an academic education at Worcester, Mass., and studied medicine; accompanied Pepperell's expedition against Louisburg as a surgeon 1745; became a physician at Londonderry, N. H., and a colonel of militia; was president of the convention which in 1775 assumed the government of New Hampshire; took his seat as a delegate to the Continental Congress Nov. 4, 1776; signed the Declaration of Independence, though he had not been a member at the time of its adoption; was afterward chief-justice of Hillsborough county, judge of the New Hampshire supreme court, and member of both branches of the legislature and of the council (1785). D. at Newburyport, Mass., June 24, 1803.

Thornton (ROBERT JOHN), M. D., b. in London, England, about 1758, son of Bonnell (1724-68), an author of some note: was educated at Cambridge; studied medicine at Guy's Hospital, London, and on the Continent; became physician to the Marylebone Dispensary and lecturer on botany at Guy's Hospital. D. at London Jan. 21, 1837. Author of The Philosophy of Medicine (4 vols., 1796; 5th ed., 5 vols., 1807), in favor of the Brunonian system; New Illustrations of the Sexual System of Linnæus (atlas folio, 1799-1807), with 314 colored plates, also known as The Temple of Flora; and many other works, chiefly botanical.

Thornton (THOMAS), b. in England about 1787; became connected with the London Times in 1825; was reporter of the proceedings of the ecclesiastical and maritime courts, having drawn up for forty years the famous lawreports headed "Notes of Cases," and for twenty years prepared the summaries of the debates in the House of Commons; was a high authority on East Indian affairs, and a contributor to the Edinburgh and other reviews. D. in London Mar. 25, 1866. Author of a History of China (1844), a History of the Punjaub and of the Sikhs (3 vols., 1846), and other works.

Thornton (THOMAS C.), D. D., b. in Dumfries, Va., Oct. 12, 1794. His grandfather, Thomas Thornton, was a clergyman of the Church of England, who emigrated to America before the Revolutionary war, and became a firm friend of Washington; he devoted his property to the cause of independence. He graduated in Dumfries, and began to preach when only sixteen years of age. His father, being a High Churchman, at first opposed his preaching, but finally consented, and furnished him a horse and saddlebags, and in 1813 he entered the Baltimore conference of the M. E. Church, and in 1841 was transferred to the Mississippi conference to take charge of Old Centenary College. From some misunderstanding, in 1845 he left the Methodist and joined the Protestant Episcopal Church, continuing to preach, but not submitting to reordination, as he did not believe in the uninterrupted apostolical succession. In 1850 he renewed his connection with the Methodist Church, and in 1853 with the Mississippi conference, in communion with which he died (Mar. 23, 1860). His principal works are Theological Colloquies and Slavery as it is in the United States, in reply to Dr. Channing.

T. O. SUMMERS.

Thornton (Sir WILLIAM), b. in England about 1775; entered the British army as ensign 1796; became major 1806; was appointed military secretary and aide-de-camp to the governor-general of Canada Aug., 1807; returned to England 1811; took part in the Peninsular war and Wellington's campaign in Southern France 1813-14; commanded the light brigade and advance of Gen. Ross's expedition up the Chesapeake May, 1814; was severely wounded and made prisoner at Bladensburg; was exchanged for Commodore Barney; commanded the advance of the British army sent against New Orleans in October, and the detached corps which operated on the right bank of the Mississippi in the battle of New Orleans, Jan. 8, 1815, when he was again severely wounded; and rose to the rank of lieutenantgeneral 1838. D. at Stanhope Lodge, near Hanwell, Eng land, Apr. 6, 1840.

Thornton (WILLIAM THOMAS), b. at Burnham, Buckinghamshire, England. Feb. 14, 1813, son of Thomas Thornton, president of the Levant Company's establishment at Constantinople, by his wife, an Armenian lady: educated in the Moravian settlement at Ockbrook, near Derby; re

sided with a cousin who was auditor-general at Malta 182730; was secretary to the British consul-general at Constantinople 1830-35; was a clerk in the India House, London, from 1836 to 1856, when he was placed in charge of the public works department of that office, and in 1858 became secretary for public works in the India office, a post he held till his death. Author of Over-Population and its Remedy (1845), A Plea for Peasant Proprietors (1848; 2d ed. 1873), Zohrab, and other Poems (1854), Modern Mamichæism, and other Poems (1856), Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics, and On Labor, its Rightful Dues and Wrongful Claims; its Actual Present and Possible Future (2d ed. 1869). D. June 17, 1880.

Thorntown, on R. R., Boone co., Ind. (see map of Indiana, ref. 6-D, for location of county), 37 miles N. W. of Indianapolis. P. in 1870, 1526; in 1880, 1515.

Thorn'well (JAMES HENLEY), D. D., LL.D., b. in Marlborough district, S. C., Dec. 9, 1812; graduated at South Carolina College, Columbia, 1831; studied and taught till the summer of 1834, when he spent some weeks at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.; was settled over a small Presbyterian church in Lancaster, S. C., June 12, 1835; took the professorship of logic and belles lettres in South Carolina College in Jan., 1838; resigned to take the pastorate of the Presbyterian church in Columbia in 1840; in 1841 went back to the college as chaplain and professor of sacred literature and the evidences of Christianity; from July to Dec., 1851, was pastor of the Glebe street church in Charleston; went back once more to the college, this time to be its president, in Jan., 1852; in 1855 accepted the professorship of didactic and polemic theology in the Theological Seminary at Columbia. D. at Charlotte, N. C., Aug. 1, 1862. He visited Europe for health in 1841, and again in 1830, returning to take a prominent and influential part in the struggle then just beginning between the North and the South. He was a man of fine scholarship, of rare critical acumen, and of great personal magnetism. Besides many review articles he published-Arguments of Romanists Discussed and Refuted (1845), Discourses on Truth (1854), Our Danger and our Duty (1861), and On the State of the Country (1861). The Southern Quarterly Review, founded (1855) and edited by him, lived not quite two years. His Collected Writings were edited by Rev. John B. Adger (2 vols., 1874), and his Life and Letters by Rev. B. M. Palmer, D.D., LL.D. (1875). R. D. HITCHCOCK.

Thor'nycroft (MARY Francis), b. at Thornham, Norfolk, England, in 1814; was a pupil of her father, John Francis, an eminent sculptor of portrait-statues; married, in 1840, Mr. Thornycroft, also a sculptor, and pupil of her father; accompanied him to Rome 1842; attracted the notice and enjoyed the advice of Thorwaldsen, who recommended her to Queen Victoria when the latter was in quest of an artist who should make portrait-statues of the royal children a task which she accomplished with great success, representing them in the character of the Four SeaBon8. Among her best-known works are Penelope, Ulysses and his Dog, The Flower-Girl, Sappho, The Sleeping Child, and a Girl Skipping, the latter having been much admired in the Paris Exposition of 1855.

Thor'old, p.-v., Welland co., Ont.. Canada, on Welland Canal and Great Western and Welland railways, 4 miles S. of St. Catharine's. It is built on a hill, and commands a fine view of Lake Ontario and of a rich and beautiful region. It has important quarries, good water-power, extensive manufactures, an active trade, and a weekly newspaper. P. of v. 2456.

Thor'ough-Bass, in music, the mode or art of expressing chords by means of figures placed over or under a given bass. These figures indicate the harmony through all the other parts, and hence the name. Thorough-bass may be considered as the first department in the study of harmony. The term is sometimes taken in a larger sense, as equivalent to musical science. (See FIGURED BASS, HARMONY, and MUSIC.) WILLIAM STAUNTON,

Thorpe (BENJAMIN), b. in England in 1808; devoted himself at an early age to the study of the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian languages and literatures; made a complete translation of the Edda (unpublished), and received a pension from the British government. D. at Chiswick July 18, 1870. He translated Rask's Grammar of the Anglo-Saxon Tongue (Copenhagen, 1830; new ed. 1865);

published Cadmon's Metrical Paraphrase of Parts of the Holy Scriptures, in Anglo-Saxon, with an English Translation, Notes, and a Verbal Index (1832): The Anglo-Saxon Version of the Story of Apollonius of Tyre, upon which is founded the Play of Pericles, with a Translation and Glossary (1834); Analecta Anglo-Saxonica, a Selection in Prose and Verse from Anglo-Saxon Authors of Various Ages, with a Glossary (Oxford, 1834; 3d ed. 1868); Libri Psalmorum

Thorpe (JOHN), b. in England about 1540; was the chief introduce:, if not the inventor, of what is known as the Elizabethan" style of domestic architecture, having built Kirby House, Northamptonshire, 1570, Burleigh, Holdenby, Audley End, Giddy Hall, Ampthill, the Strand front of Somerset House, Longford Castle, Ireland, Holland House (1607), and many others. The particulars of his life and date of his death are unknown.

Thorpe (THOMAS BANGS), b. at Westfield, Mass., Mar. 1, 1815; educated at the Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn.; studied art; travelled in the South-west, and resided at New Orleans, La., from 1836 to 1853; edited a Whig paper there several years; raised volunteers for the Mexican war, and proceeded to Northern Mexico as bearer of despatches to Gen. Taylor after the capture of Matamoras; was the writer of the first newspaper correspondence narrating military events on the frontier; published Our Army on the Rio Grande (1846) and Our Army at Monterey (1847); was an active political speaker in the campaign of 1848; became known, under the pseudonym of "Tom Owen, the Bee-Hunter," as the writer of a series of tales of Western life, including Mysteries of the Backwoods (1846) and The Hice of the Bee-Hunter (New York, 1843); settled in New York in 1853, devoting himself alternately to literary and artistic pursuits; contributed to Harper's and Blackwood's Magazines; was editor of the Spirit of the Times and other periodicals: published Linda Weiss, an Autobiography (1854), A Voice to America (1855), and other works, and wrote a series of biographical sketches of American artists. His best-known painting, Niagara as it Is, was produced in 1860. He was city surveyor of New Orleans during the administration of Gen. Butler (1862-63). D. in New York Sept. 20, 1878.

Thorpe (WILLIAM), b. in England about 1350; received a good education: became a priest; preached the doctrines of Wycliffe for twenty years from 1386; was imprisoned in Saltwood Castle, Kent, as a "Lollard," 1407, and examined before Archbishop Arundel, then lord chancellor, July 3 of that year. He wrote an account of his Examination, which was widely circulated, and was condemned by an assembly of the clergy so late as 1530. The subsequent history of Thorpe is unknown. His Examination, which may be found in Foxe's Book of Martyrs and in Dr. C. Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biographies, is elegantly written, and is of great value as a picture of English society and manners in the time of Chaucer and Gower, and espeeially as a trustworthy summary of Lollard doctrines.

Thorwald'sen (ALBERT [BERTHEL]), b. at Copenhagen Nov. 19, 1770. His father, Gottschalk Thorwaldsen, a native of Iceland, was a wood-carver and poor, but his aneestry, there is reason to believe, was of the noblest, running back to the old Danish kings. He followed his father's calling, having no taste for any other, though with little enthusiasm for that, and soon excelled him in his humble art. His schooling was short and unprofitable until he was sent to the free school of the Academy of Arts at Copenhagen. There, at the age of seventeen, a basrehef of Cupid reposing gained the silver medal; at twenty a sketch of Heliodorus driven from the Temple gained the small gold medal; two years later he drew the grand prize, which entitled him to receive the royal pension, available for five years, beginning in 1796. In Mar., 1797, he arrived in Rome. The first years there were disappointing. The country was disturbed by war, and his unaided resources were unequal to his support. He was about returning home when his model of Jason, which

connoisseur, Thomas Hope, who gave the artist a commission to execute it in marble. This was the beginning of a great career. Other pieces followed: his fame increased; the crown prince of Denmark held out brilliant inducements to return to his native city, which, but for pressing engagements, he would have yielded to. The Adonis, begun in 1808, was not finished until 1832. It is the only one of Thorwaldsen's statues which was entirely carved by his own hands. It is one of the finest statues of modern times, and a triumphant answer to the charge brought against Thorwaldsen in his lifetime, that he could not work in marble. Not work in marble!" he said. "Tie my hands behind my back, and I will hew out a statue with my teeth!" The famous bas-relief, The Triumphal Entry of Alexander into Babylon, which has been twice executed in marble and engraved in a series of plates, celebrated Napoleon's entry into Rome in 1812. The familiar bas-reliefs Night and Morning were modelled in 1815, it is said in a single day of mental depression, to which the artist was subject. The Venus Victrix (1813-16) and the Mercury (1818) are, with the Adonis just mentioned, his most perfect works. In 1819, Thorwaldsen revisited Copenhagen; was received with demonstrations of wild joy; was lodged in the palace of Charlottenburg, and welcomed in triumph by the chief cities of Prussia, Saxony, and Austria as he visited them on his way back to Rome. The well-known groups of Christ and the Twelve Apostles and John the Baptist preaching were completed in 1838 for the church of Notre Dame at Copenhagen. Another visit to his native city, where he meant to make his home for the rest of his life, delightful and honorable as his position was, was cut short by the uncongenial climate. In 1841 he went back to Italy, stayed a year, then went to Copenhagen, intending to remain for a short time only, but died suddenly of disease of the heart Mar. 24, 1844. He was buried with royal honors in the cathedral church. Funeral honors were paid him in Rome and Berlin; tributes of respect were rendered throughout Europe. Thorwaldsen died rich. He was never married, but by a Roman girl he had one daughter, who was respectably married and handsomely provided for. The chief part of his fortune was left as a perpetual endowment for the museum at Copenhagen, which is raised around his grave, and contains all his works. Thorwaldsen's fame in his own land and abroad, while he lived, was immense. It was aided by attractive private gifts great personal beauty, charm of manner, sweetness, simplicity and heartiness of disposition, accompanied by generosity to the poor. The best and most

accessible works on Thorwaldsen are Thiele, J. M., Thorwaldsens Biographie (4 vols., Copenhagen, 1851-56; Am. ed., translated by Prof. Paul C. Sinding, New York, I. G. Unnevehr, 1869); Thorwaldsen, sa Vie et son Euvre, par Eugène Plon, with two etchings and thirty-five woodcuts (Paris, 1867; Am. ed. Boston, 1874, with the woodcuts of the Paris ed.). Thorwaldsen's works are very numerous-205 as mentioned by Thiele, the chief authority. They are of all dimensions and of every variety of theme, secular and religious, classical and Christian. Nearly every great city from Rome to Copenhagen contains something-statues, single or in groups, bas-reliefs of nearly every description, monuments funereal or commemorative, equestrian statues, pieces for the gallery and the public 0. B. FROTHINGHAM. Thoth. See HERMES TRISMEGISTUS.

square.

Thou, de (JACQUES AUGUSTE), b. at Paris Oct. 8, 1553; studied law at Orléans, afterward under Cujacius at Valence, where he made the acquaintance of Scaliger; travelled in Italy, Germany, and Holland; returned to Paris in 1574, and was made councillor to the Parliament in 1578, councillor of state in 1588, vice-president of the Parliament and keeper of the Royal Library in 1594. Henry III. and Henry IV. showed him great confidence, and employed him in many difficult diplomatic and political negotiations; but under the regency of Maria de' Medici he was slighted and retired from public life. D. May 7, 1617. Of his great work, Historia sui Temporis, comprising the period from 1543 to 1607, and divided into 138 books, the first part was published in 1604, the second in 1606, the third in 1614, reaching to the 80th book, and the fourth in 1620, edited by Dupuy and Rigault, the latter of whom added a continuation or conclusion after the papers of the author; complete edition in 7 folio vols. (London, 1733), French translation in 16 vols. 4to (1734). He also wrote an autobiography, edited by Masson (1838), and some Latin poems. (See John Collinson, Life of Thuanus, with some Account of his Writings (London, 1807).)—His son, FRANÇOIS AUGUSTE DE THOU, Succeeded him as keeper of the Royal Library; was implicated in the conspiracy of CinqMars, and executed Sept. 12, 1642.

Thouar (PIETRO), b. at Florence in 1809; labored earnestly with Lambruschini to promote popular and elementary instruction in Tuscany, and he was himself a model teacher as well as an attractive writer for children. D. in 1861. Among his works the following are still read in the Italian schools: Il Libro del Fanciulletto, Letture Graduali, La Corsa sul Mare, Saggio di Racconti, Nuovi Racconti per la Gioventù, Racconti Popolari, Letture di Famiglia, and others with similar titles.

Thouars. See DUPETIT-THOUARS. Thousand and One Nights. See ARABIAN NIGHTS, by J. THOMAS, M. D., LL.D.

Thousand Islands, The, are in St. Lawrence River, and are all included in the 40 miles next below Lake Ontario. The islands are partly in Canada and partly in Jefferson and St. Lawrence cos., N. Y. Their number is reported to exceed 1800. The Thousand Islands have become a favorite summer resort, and are remarkable for their great and diversified beauty.

Thread-Worm, the English name for the Nematoids. See NEMATELMIA.

Threatening Letters. See THREATS.

Threats, in law, are oral or written menaces of injury to the property, character, person, or life of one individual, made by another under such circumstances that they become criminal. A threat made with a special evil intent, aggravated in its nature and form, and tending to produce mental disquietude, is an offence, at least a misdemeanor, and sometimes a felony. If, however, the menace be simply an outbreak of anger without a special evil intent, and with no evidence of malice-such as a mere threat to assault or to commit some other breach of the peace-the person making it will be bound over with sureties to keep the peace. A common example of the former class is a threatening letter, message, or other communication sent or made with an intent to extort money, ordinarily known as " black-mailing." The threat itself may be to expose a prior wrong, real or simulated, to sue, and the like. If the

Thra'ce was in ancient geography the name of that part of modern Turkey which lies between the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmora, the Struma, and the Danube. It was inhabited by a race of unknown descent, whose savage and barbarous character was proverbial; one king put out the eyes of his six sons for disobedience, and another transfixed his prisoners of war. The Thracians bought their wives and sold their children. When a man died, his wives contested with one another as to which had been best beloved by him, and she in whose favor the case was decided was with great congratulations slain by her nearest male kinsman on her husband's grave. They lived exclusively by plunder and robbery. Along the coasts the Greeks had planted several colonies-as, for instance, Byzantium, Callipolis, and Abdera-and during the Peloponnesian war the Thracians began to mix in the affairs of Greece, but without exercising any great influence. They were conquered by Philip of Macedon, and Thrace passed from Macedonia into the hands of the Romans. The old myths said that Orpheus and the Muses came from Thrace, and some ingenuity and much stupidity have been at work to solve the question how the originators of the Greek civilization could have come from the most barbarous nation of the ancient world.

Thrale. See Piozzi.

Thrash'er, a name applied in different parts of the U. S. to the species of Turdida or thrush-like birds belonging to the genera Oreoscoptes and Harporhynchus. These have a more or less long and decurved bill, which is scarcely or not at all notched near the tip, rather short and concave wings, and the tarsi scutellate anteriorly. Oreoscoptes is distinguished by its wings, which are decidedly longer than the tail, the nearly even tail, and the slightly-notched moderate bill. Harporhynchus has the wings decidedly shorter than the tail, the tail long and graduated, and the bill not notched and diversiform, but generally quite elongated and decurved. The color is rather plain, generally brownish or ash above, whitish or spotted on the breast. The species are the sage thrasher or mountain mocker (0. montanus), the brown thrasher (H. rufus), Cape St. Lucas thrasher (H. cinereus), gray curve-bill thrasher (H. curvirostris), California thrasher (H. redivivus), and redvented thrasher (H. crissalis).

Thrashing. See THRESHING MACHINERY.

Thrasybu'lus, one of the prominent leaders of the democratic party in Athens during the latter part of the Peloponnesian war, was a celebrated general, but after the surrender of Athens to Lysander and the establishment of the thirty tyrants he was banished, and took up his residence at Thebes. The violent measures, however, instituted in Athens by the oligarchical government provoked him so much that with a small band he invaded Attica and seized the fortress of Phyle, where he was speedily reinforced by other exiles and by the discontented democrats. Four days afterward he descended into the Piræus and took a strong position on the hill of Munychia, whence neither the thirty tyrants, nor the ten who succeeded them, were able to expel him. The oligarchs now called on Lysander to blockade the Piræus and attack it from the sea, but the exiles were saved from this danger by the rivalry between Lysander and Pausanias. The latter brought about a reconciliation between the two parties in Athens. Thrasy bulus and the exiles entered the city, a general amnesty was granted, and a democratic government established again, though in a modified form (403 B. c.). In 390, Thrasybulus was killed by the inhabitants of Aspendus, in Cilicia, who fell upon him in his tent during the night. Thrasymenus Lacus. See PERUGIA, LAKE OF.

victim's head, the offence is committed. This whole subject, including the nature and form of the threat itself, its intent and circumstances, in order that it shall be an indictable offence, is now minutely regulated by statutes both in the U. S. and in England. In all cases, however, the menace must be of a nature calculated to affect a man of ordinary prudence and firmness, but the criterion thus stated has reference to the general character of the wrong menaced, and not to its probable effect upon the particular individual against whom it is directed.

JOHN NORTON POMEROY.

Three Bodies, Problem of. The discovery of the law of universal gravitation by Newton reduced the question of the motion of the planets to one of almost pure mathematics. Newton himself was able to show, by a rigorous but intricate geometrical demonstration, that if two bodies like the sun and a planet attracted each other with a force inversely as the square of their mutual distance, they would each describe a conic section around their common centre of gravity. The planet being very small relatively to the sun, this common centre of gravity would be very near the centre of the sun, and the planet might therefore be said to describe a conic section around the

sun.

It was thus shown that, considering only the attraction of the sun upon the planets, each planet would revolve in an ellipse having the sun in one of its foci, which was Kepler's first law of planetary motion. But since each planet is attracted by all the other planets, as well as by the sun, this motion in an ellipse represents not the mathematical truth, but only an approximation to the real motion. Hence, mathematicians were led to propound the problem, more general than that solved by Newton: Three bodies being projected in space with any velocity and in any direction whatever, and then left to their mutual attraction, to find the motion of each of them during all time. The general and complete solution of this problem was found to be beyond the power of mathematical analysis, for the reason that the curves described by the several bodies would be so irregular, subject to such constant variation, and changing so greatly according to the masses of the bodies, that it would be impossible to express them by any mathematical formula. It was, however, possible to find certain general laws to which the motion would be subject. The centre of gravity of the three bodies would always move in a straight line with a uniform velocity. Certain relations were found to subsist between the masses of the bodies, their distance apart, and their velocities, and certain great principles established relating to secular changes as well as to the real permanence and stability of the solar ɛystem. (See LAGRANGE.)

But all this did not suffice to determine completely the motion of any one body. In consequence of the impossibility of the general solution, the efforts of matheinaticians have generally been directed, not to the general problem, but to two special cases of it which occur in the solar system. The first of these cases is that of the motion of two planets around the sun, in which the masses of the bodies are very small compared with that of the sun, while their motion takes place in nearly circular orbits. The deviations of each planet from the average ellipse in which it would move if not attracted by the other, then admit of being determined with any required degree of accuracy, though not with mathematical rigor. The actual problem of planetary motion is, however, not simply that of three bodies, or two planets, but of nine bodies, there being eight large planets. But the solution of the problem of any number of planets involves no greater mathematical difficulties than are encountered in the case of two, though the labor of the numerical solution is immensely greater. The other special

case is that of the motion of the moon around the earth, un fer the influence of the attraction of the sun as well as of that of the earth. This is a more complicated case than that of planetary motion, because while the moon revolves round the earth, both the earth and moon revolve together around the sun. But by the researches of Hansen and Delaunay this difficult problem of the moon's motion has been solved with the same degree of accuracy as that of planetary motion.

The efforts of several generations of mathematicians since the middle of the last century have resulted in the general problems of planetary and lunar motion being rendered comparatively simple from a purely mathematical point of view. But the problem of actually calculating the formulæ necessary to determine the motion of any one planet is one of immense labor, the increased accuracy demanded by modern astronomy having more than made up for the greater simplicity of the methods now used. The reader may form an idea of the labor involved from the simple statement that the algebraic formula by which Delaunay represents the position of the moon occupy 120 4to pages. S. NEWCOMB.

5

grain with straight straw, such as oats, wheat, barley, etc., the sheaves are laid in double rows with their heads turned inward and slightly overlapping. The thresher first threshes down the middle, beating out the heads. The bands upon the sheaves are then broken, and the whole is uniformly again threshed over. It is then turned or inverted and flailed again. If the weather is damp, the straw is tougher and holds the grain more firmly; and in such cases the straw is shaken up with a pitchfork once or more as may be required, and repeatedly gone over with the flail. With buckwheat, in which the sheaves or stooks are of conical form, the stooks are placed upright, and the whole mass is beaten down upon the floor by first striking upon the tops of the stooks, the straw being turned and shaken up as often as may be required, and repeatedly threshed until the grain is completely separated. Clover, beans, peas, etc., are flung promiscuously on the threshingfloor and turned and beaten until the threshing is complete. These last, however, are readily threshed by horses trampling upon them, an attendant turning the straw at one part of the floor while the horses are trampling at another.

These primitive methods, from the very earliest times until a very recent period, were the only ones by which grain was separated from the straw, unless we except the rude method sometimes used by warlike Celtic tribes of

Three Kings. See EPIPHANY.

Three Rivers [Fr. Trois Rivières], city and port of entry, cap. of St. Maurice co. and of the district of Three Rivers, province of Quebec, Canada, on the N. W. bank of the river St. Lawrence, 90 miles above Quebec and 90 miles below Montreal, at the mouth of the river St. Maurice, from which vast amounts of lumber are afforded to the commerce of Three Rivers. It is the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop, has a splendid cathedral, a college, an academy, 2 convents, a hospital, a tri-weekly, a semiweekly, and 3 weekly newspapers, 5 churches, a courthouse, jail, gasworks, and 5 fire companies. Lumber, iron, and brick are largely manufactured and exported. A branch of Grand Trunk Railway terminates at Doucett's, on the opposite side of the St. Lawrence, with which point ferryboats ply regularly. P. 9296.

Three Rivers, R. R. junction, St. Joseph co., Mich. (see map of Michigan, ref. 8-H, for location of county), is situated on the Michigan Central and Lake Shore and Michigan Southern R. Rs., 28 miles S. of Kalamazoo, on St. Joseph River, and has several flouring-mills, pumpfactories, foundries, threshing-machine factory, paper-mill, planing-mills and lumber-factories, etc. Its buildings are mainly of brick, and it deals largely in peppermint oil and wheat, the products of the surrounding country. The town and its environments are beautiful, and population and business are increasing. P. in 1870, 1189; in 1880, 2525; in 1884, 3362.

Thresher, a name frequently given to the Alopias tulpes, otherwise called Fox SHARK (which see).

Thresh'ing Machinery. Threshing is the separation of grain from the straw, as winnowing is the separation of threshed grain from the chaff. There are two methods of threshing-one by blows which beat out the grain; the other by a kind of trituration which breaks its hold on the straw. The former appears to have been developed from the latter. The earliest method of threshing was doubtless that of treading the grain to and fro by horses or oxen-a method still in common use on the small farms in our own country and elsewhere, especially for buckwheat, and notably for clover. Another ancient method still in use in the Orient, but probably nowhere else, is that of drawing a sled back and forth over the unthreshed straw. The primitive method of beating out the grain was by means of a flail, an implement comprising a staff wielded by the thresher, and having at one end a swingle shorter, thicker, and heavier than the staff, to which it is connected by a flexible thong. The flail is uniformly used to this day where only small quantities of grain are to be threshed. The best flails have stares made of ash and swingles of hickory; the staff in each case being provided with a wooden bow swivelled at its upper end in order that the swingle may be free to swing around the line of the staff, the swingle being attached to the bow by a looped thong made preferably of eel skin, which best resists the great and continual strain and friction brought upon it. In threshing

use.

hind; also that other method in which we may detect the faintest glimmer of the principle of modern inventionsthe hurdles made of planks or wide beams, stuck over with flints or hard pegs, to rub the grain-ears between them; for we have simply to curve one of these planks to the are of a circle, and bend the other to a complete cylinder revolving within the concave, to have an imperfect representation of the two essential parts of a modern threshing-machine. It is to such germs that the principles of improved machinery may be frequently traced; and the threshing-machine of to-day finds its inception in the pegged hurdles of the ancient Romans, just as the harvester had its beginning in the comb-like reaping-blade mounted on wheels mentioned by Pliny as in use among the Gauls. When or where the first modern threshingmachines were attempted is not known, but tradition ascribes their first suggestion in Britain as coming from Holland. The first threshing-machine that could in any sense be considered a practical success, and which was the prototype of those that led to the displacement of the hand-flail, was that invented by Michael Menzies of East Lothian in Scotland, who used a number of flails attached to a revolving shaft driven by a water-wheel. This machine succeeded in threshing very rapidly, but the high velocity required soon broke and destroyed the flails, and the mechanical resources of that time were not equal to the task of constructing an apparatus on this principle which would successfully stand the wear and tear of actual Afterward, in the year 1758, another Scotchman, Michael Sterling in Perthshire, constructed another thresher, which appears to have been merely an experiment. This had a vertical shaft with radial arms working within a cylinder, the shaft being turned by a water-wheel. The sheaves were thrown in at the top of the cylinder and were beaten by the radial arms. This appears to have been of little utility, and was followed twenty years later by another machine, in which a number of rollers were arranged around an indented drum, the drum being revolved and the rollers rubbing out the grain. This was manifestly impracticable, as were also several modifications. At a still later date still another Scotchman, Andrew Meikle, devised a machine in which rollers and drum were retained, but in which beating was substituted for rubbing. The first machine of this kind was made in 1786, and appears to have been the earliest threshing-machine that was practically adapted to extended and successful use. In this, scutches were attached to the drum, and arranged to strike the grain from the straw. At first, this invention was adapted merely to detach the grain from the straw, and threw grain, chaff, and straw in a heap together. But early in the introduction of these machines screens were added, and the grain, separated from the straw, was passed to a winnower. This was really a most notable invention, and the threshing of grain by a machine turned by horse or steam power, which had been before at most an experiment, became now an accomplished fact. But this machine, as well as those that followed it, were expensive. A large one with suitable rakes and fanners for separating straw from the grain and chaff, and the grain from the chaff, cost £150 sterling at that time, when the purchasing power of money was at least three times what it is now. But such machines enabled one man to do the work of six, and secured 5 per cent. more of winnowed grain from a given weight of straw than was possible with hand-threshing. And as a writer remarked: “If 5 per cent. is added to the national produce,

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In this country threshing-machines were early invented, but for the reason that most of the farms were those newly cleared from the wilderness, divided into small fields and almost necessitating hand-labor in all the different departments of agriculture, it is only within a comparatively recent period-say, thirty-five or forty years-that this class of machinery has been brought to any perfection. Among those earlier invented, the plan of rotary beaters or flails attached to a revolving shaft was the subject of much experiment. But a revolving cylinder provided with radial teeth or spikes, and working with a concave or section of a cylinder provided with similar but inwardly-projecting teeth, comprised the beating mechanism first found uniformly successful, and which continues in use to this day. The changes and improvements have related for the most part to the mode of giving motion to this cylinder, and to accessories for securing safety and convenience in the operation of the machine. Those which first came into common and satisfactory use had the cylinder actuated by intermediate gearing from a vertical driving-shaft, from the upper end of which extended radial arms. To the outer end of these arms was attached a whippletree, on which draught was exerted by a single horse. The four horses walked in a circular path, and thus gave rotatory movement to the vertical driving-shaft and rapid rotation to the cylinder. The sheaves, unbound, were fed with the heads first into the space between the cylinder and its concave. In some of the first of these machines shaking screens were so applied as to sift the grain and chaff from the straw, the latter being carried and deposited by itself, while the former passed to the hopper of a fanning-mill, which cleaned or separated the grain from the chaff, while a graduated system of sieves separated the small seeds, pigeon-weed, devil's-gut, etc. Many attempts were made to supersede this clumsy mode of driving the cylinder by an inclined endless belt constructed with transverse wooden lugs, and driven after the manner of a treadwheel by horses. plan has been adopted with success for small dog-power machines for churning. Many experiments were made to apply the same principle in various forms to the heavier work of driving a thresher. The writer has had from the lips of the late Charles II. Metcalf an account of the first attempts of this kind made at a foundry in the village of Fly Creek, N. Y. A gentleman of that place had succeeded in making a horse-power on the plan just mentioned, which theoretically appeared to be perfect, but with which no steadiness of motion could be given to the cylinder. When the sheaves were not passing to the machine, the apparatus ran too fast for the horses; when the sheaves were applied, the apparatus choked. This, it appears, was about forty years ago; the apparatus was laid aside; and shortly after, a projector from the State of Maine came to the same foundry and had constructed a far ruder apparatus, which on trial gave a perfectly satisfactory motion to the cylinder. The constructor of the first-named device was not long in discovering that this was due to a balance-wheel placed on the main shaft of the horse-power. He added this useful appliance to the shaft of the previous machine, and from this was developed the Badger railroad horse-power, which for many years held its own as the most efficient power for driving threshing-machines. It is difficult to explain the construction of this apparatus without elaborate diagrams. It consisted, in brief, of a framework carrying at each side two endless cast-iron tracks situate in vertical planes. The endless belt was composed of two systems of iron links arranged around the two tracks, and connected by the transverse lags or wooden bars which composed the travelling floor of the apparatus. Each link carried a broad-faced wheel resting upon the upper part of the adjacent endless track. The endless belt thus constructed and arranged was of course in an inclined position, the weight of the horse walking thereon as upon a treadmill giving a motion to the endless belt, the wheels of which travelled upon and around the endless tracks, from which operation the designation "railroad" was derived. A large broad-faced wheel constituted at once the balance-wheel to give steadiness of motion and the driving-wheel from which, by means of a belt, power was transmitted to the threshing-cylinder. At a later date the construction was much simplified, and what are now termed railroad horse-powers differ materially in construction from the first representatives of the class. In the use of this class of machinery much difficulty was at first experienced from the breaking or slipping of the driving-belt, which by relieving the horse-power from the re

out of the machine, with consequent injury and loss. This was remedied a number of years ago by an ingenious application of a lever arranged in such relation with the belt that the breaking of the belt lets fall the lever, and this in its turn actuates a brake that, coming in contact with the driving-wheel, stops the motion of the endless platform.

The ordinary threshing-machine in use in the Eastern States comprises a railroad horse-power, commonly for two horses, and a thresher composed essentially of the toothed cylinder acting in conjunction with the toothed concave. An endless shaker formed with transverse wires, and operated like an endless belt, conveys the straw some distance in the rear of the thresher, a vibrating motion given to the belt shaking out the chaff and grain, these latter being passed to a fanning-mill which separates the chaff, small seeds, etc., from the winnowed grain. These machines are commonly owned by some enterprising farmer, who, aside from the threshing of his own farm, journeys from farm to farm by appointment, and threshes either for a stated cash price per bushel or for a percentage of the grain itself, commonly one-tenth. The large farms of the West and the immense quantities of grain produced have called into existence far more elaborate apparatus, in which, however, the principle of operation is substantially unchanged. The following is a sketch, made some time since by the writer, of a thresher in use during the past few years in the Western States, and which may be taken as a type of the improved threshing-machine in use in the Prairie States. In this the threshing-cylinder "is made of skeleton form, having cast-iron heads, and the central annular brace of the same material; wrought-iron bars are arranged on these parts, and form the circumferential parts of the cylinder, being held in position by the external wrought-iron rings. The bars carry the teeth, the shanks of which pass through holes in the bars, and are held by nuts firmly screwed upon their inner ends; the uniformity in shape and size of the teeth arises from their being made by machinery properly shaped in dies under a drop-hammer. The concave is of cast iron, with slots in it which allow the grain to pass through to separate from the straw at the earliest possible stage of the threshing operation. The straw as it leaves the cylinder is flung back over several transverse series of inclined rods, which permit whatever grain may yet remain in the straw to drop upon a laterally vibrating shaker, arranged below at a slight angle to the horizontal, and serving to conduct the grain to the fan-mill, the rotating fan of the latter being placed under the centre of the threshingcylinder, and securing far greater compactness of structure than was formerly obtained."

In the Pacific States the peculiar dryness of the atmosphere greatly facilitates not only the threshing, but the reaping, of grain; the standing grain, instead of crinkling down when ripe, as is the case in the Eastern States, stands straight for many weeks; and this without the shaking out of the kernels incident to ripe grain in other portions of the country. It is, however, dry enough to thresh immediately; the threshers are driven by portable steam-engines, and the threshing is carried on in the open field. One of the latest attempted improvements upon the ordinary thresher in California lies in the utilization of the straw for fuel in the portable engines. And there is no reason why the immense piles of straw which ordinarily are wasted should not be made useful to this end. Straw-burning furnaces have been used in Hungary during a long period, and for many years the straw of the Southern rice-fields in this country has been utilized in the same manner. The most advanced step, however, is found in the combined reaper and thresher, an example of which was examined by the writer in San Francisco some ten years since. This was calculated for threshing and sacking grain in the field. My memorandum at the time describes it as follows: A large grain frame is supported on two heavy driving-wheels, and has two lighter ones in front arranged as guiding-wheels. Projecting from the side of this frame is a platform like that of an ordinary reaper, but about 12 feet long. This runs at such height that the reciprocating sickle at the front will cut off the heads from the standing grain; the heads fall on an endless apron running longitudinally upon the platform, and are carried by this to a hopper that conducts them to a threshing-cylinder having a fanning-mill and straw-separator arranged behind it. The threshed and winnowed grain is thrown out from the fan-mill through a spout at the side directly into the mouth of a sack suspended under the spout. An attendant riding upon the platform ties the sacks when full, and throws them off upon the ground to be collected at leisure. The driving parts receive their motion from the large or driving-wheel by means of suitable bands and gearing. This apparatus was designed to be drawn by ten horses, the management of which would constitute the greatest difficulty in the operation of the