Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 09.djvu/530

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TRANSYLVANIA 468 TBAPHAGEN belonging to the Danube system, are the Aluta, falling into the Danube, Samos, and Maros (tributaries of the Theiss), and the Biatritz, an affluent of the Sereth. Of the whole area, 23 p^r cent, is arable, 25 per cent, meadowland, and 38 per cent, forest. The best wine is produced in the valleys of the Samos, Kotel, and Maros. The mining industries of Transylvania include the production of iron ores and pig iron. Other mineral products are gold, silver, quicksilver, copper, coal, and salt. Tanning and the manufacture of linens, woolens, and glass are also im- portant. Originally a part of Dacia, Transylvania was conquered by King Stephan I. in 1004, and united to Hun- gary. About this period the country was invaded by Germans, probably from the Rhine districts, who named it Sieben- biirgen, after the seven fortified towns built by them. Ever since, this little Saxon colony has retained, unchanged, its peculiar laws and language; here we find cities with names like Kronstadt, Hermanstadt, Klausenburg, Elizabeth- stadt, and Miihlenbach, in a district sur- rounded by places with Slavonic, Magyar and Wallachian names. From 1526 to 1699 Transylvania was an independent kingdom under the Zapolya princes. Com- pletely subdued by Leopold I. in 1687, and united to Hungary in 1713, it be- came a grand-duchy in 1765, In 1848 it was the theater of a bloody struggle be- tween Bem and the Russians, and was for a time united to Hungary. In 1849 it become an independent crown -land of Austria, and in 1867 an integral part of the kingdom of Hungary. TRAP, a term rather loosely and vaguely applied by the earlier geologists to some or all of the multifarious igneous rocks that belong to the palaeozoic and secondary epochs, as distinct from gran- ite on the one hand and the recent vol- canic rocks on the other. Trap rocks often assume a terraced appearance, whence their name from trappa, the Swedish for stair. Their composition may be described as consisting chiefly of felspar and hornblende. Trap rocks of crystalline structure are distinguished as greenstones, basalts, clink stones, com- pact feldspar, and feldspar porphyries, while the softer and more earthy vari- eties are known as claystones, claystone porphyries amygdaloids, trap tuffs, and mackes. Basal i' (q. v.) is the most com- pact, the hardest, and the heaviest of the trap rocks. The hill scenery of trap- pean districts is often picturesque. TRAPANI, a coast town in the W. of Sicily; 23 miles W, of Palermo. The cathedral of St. Lorenzo, a town house, a lyceum and a library are the chief public buildings. The town is well built, i; wrongly fortified, .;nd has a good natural harbor. The manufacture of sea salt is the chief industry, but corn, wine, fish and coral are also exported. Tripani is the ancient Drepanum or Drepana. It was fortified by Hamikar in 260 B. c, and here in 249 Adherbal defeated the Roman fleet. Near it is Mount Eryx, now Monte S. Giuliano. Important dis- coveries of human and other bones in caves were made in 1869. Pop. (1901) commune, 61,000. TRAPEZIUM, as defined by Euclid, any quadrilateral except a square, an ob- long, a rhombus, and a rhomboid. Later Greek geometers seem to have used the word in the more restricted sense of a quadrilateral with one pair of parallel sides; and the word trapezoid was in- troduced to describe a quadrilateral which had no two sides parallel. On the Continent the words are so distinguished to this day. By English geometers and writers on mensuration the words got interchanged as regards their signifi- cance, so that with us a trapezoid is generally defined as a quadrilateral with two parallel sides. Thus English writers have retained trapezium in the broader sense, and have used trapezoid in the restricted sense of a Euclidean trapezium with two sides parallel. The continental custom is historically and etymologically the better. There is, however, hardly a necessity for both words, since the word quadrilateral is now invariably used by modern geometers for a four-sided figure which is not a parallelogram. TRAPEZOID BONE, in anatomy, a bone of the wrist of which the superior sui'face articulates with the scaphoid bone, the external with the trapezium, the internal with the os magnum, and the inferior with the second metacarpal bone. It is smaller than the trapezium, has its largest diameter from before backward, and its posterior surface, which is much larger than the anterior one, pentagonal. TRAPHAGEN, PRANK WEISS, an American chemist; born in Eaton, O., July 20, 1861; was graduated at the School of Mines, Columbia University, in 1882. He then pursued special stud- ies in analytical and applied chemistry. He was Professor of Chemistry in the College of Montana in 1887-1893. In the latter year he accepted the chair of chemistry at the Montana State College and became chemist of the Montana Agri- cultural Experiment Station, and in 1917 was appointed professor of metallurgy in