drum, so that while many more bushels of grain are passed per day through an American machine than is done in Great Britain, only about half the men are required at the work.
Thrashing Work.—The minimum number of hands required in Great Britain are: An engine-driver, a feeder, a sackman, and ten other men to handle the sheaves, straw, chaff, grain, &c, while half as many more may be needed where the grain has to be carted, as when the thrashing is done in the field in harvest time. An 8-h.p. steam engine is the usual motive power, but the development of the oil engine has provided a very satisfactory substitute. The engine is usually of the “traction” type, so that it can move the thrashing machine or “barn work” (as it is sometimes called) and elevator from place to place. The usual quantities thrashed with a “double blast finishing machine,” as described, in the United Kingdom are, with a 5 ft. wide drum, from 60 to 80 bushels per hour of wheat, and one-third to one-half more of oats and barley.
Sometimes the straw is stacked loose, while sometimes it is tied up with twine by a tier exactly like that on a “string binder” and then stacked up. Where all the straw is used at the farm for fodder, &c., the fixed thrashing machine set up in the barn is the most convenient. The sheafed corn has to be carried to it, but, on the other hand, everything is under cover, the work can be done on a wet day, and all the products of thrashing in the shape of grain, straw, cavings, chaff, &c., are kept dry. In the great corn districts, however, the portable thrasher is most convenient; it is set alongside the stack and only the grain and chaff are carried under cover, while the thrashed straw, &c., is restacked up on the spot as the work goes on. The farmer finds the coal and the men and horses to cart water to the engine and corn to the barn and pays the proprietor of the thrashing outfit, who finds all the other men, about the following rates: wheat, 1s. 10d., oats and barley, 1s. 6d. per quarter.
THRASYBULUS, an Athenian general, whose public career
began in 411 B.C., when by his resolute behaviour he frustrated the oligarchic rising in Samos (see Peloponnesian War), and secured the Athenian armament to the cause of democracy. Elected general by the troops, he effected the recall of Alcibiades and assisted him in the ensuing naval campaigns.
By his brave defence at Cynossema (411) he won the battle for Athens, and in 410 contributed towards the brilliant victory of Cyzicus. In 406 he fought at Arginusae as a simple ship's captain, but after the engagement was commissioned with Theramenes (q.v.) to rescue some drowning crews. In the subsequent inquiry Thrasybulus successfully disclaimed responsibility for the failure.
In 404, when exiled by the Thirty Tyrants for his services to the democracy, he retired to Thebes and there prepared for a desperate attempt to recover his country. Late in the year, with seventy men, he seized Phyle, a hill fort on Mt Parnes. A force sent by the Thirty was repulsed and routed by a surprise attack. Thrasybulus now gained the Peiraeus, 1000 strong, and successfully held the steep hill of Munychia against the oligarchs' full force. After this repulse the Thirty gave way to a provisional government of moderate oligarchs. Meanwhile a Spartan fleet, which the latter had summoned, blockaded the Peiraeus, but king Pausanias, commanding the land forces, after some skirmishes effected a general reconciliation by which the democracy was restored (October 403). Thrasybulus was now the hero of the people; but a decree by which he secured the franchise for all his followers, including many slaves, was rescinded as illegal.
In 395 Thrasybulus induced Athens to join the Theban league against Sparta, but did not himself take the field till 389, when he led a new fleet of 40 ships against the Spartans at Rhodes. Sailing first to the Bosporus he effected a democratic revolution at Byzantium and renewed the corn-toll. After a successful descent on Lesbos and the renewal of the 5% import tax at Thasos and Clazomenae he sailed south in quest of further contributions, but met his death in a night surprise by the people of Aspendus. By his exactions he had forfeited the confidence both of the allies and of Athens; but after his death the ill-feeling subsided, and he was ever remembered as one of the saviours of his country.
See Thucydides, viii. 75-105; Xenophon, Hellenica; Lysias. c. Eratosth. 55-61 and c. Ergocl. 5, 8; and Const, ath. xl. Diodorus xiii., xiv., Justin v. 9, 10, and Nepos depend almost wholly on Xenophon. Corpus inscr. att. ii. 11b and 14b.
THRASYMEDES, of Paros, a Greek sculptor. Formerly he was regarded as a pupil of Pheidias, because he set up in the temple of Asclepius at Epidaurus a seated statue of that deity made of ivory and gold, which was evidently a copy of the Zeus of Pheidias. But an inscription recently found at Epidaurus proves that the temple and the statue belong to the fourth century. (See Epidaurus.)
THREAD (O. Eng. þraēd, literally, that which is twisted, þrawan, to twist, to throw, cf. “throwster,” a silk-winder, Ger. drehen, to twist, turn, Du. draad, Ger. Draht, thread, wire), a thin or fine cord of two or more yarns of fibrous substance, such as cotton, silk, wool or flax, tightly twisted together (see Spinning and Cotton and Cotton Manufacture). Thread, whether as silk or cotton thread, is particularly used for sewing, but it is also used in weaving. Lisle thread, a hard twisted linen thread, originally made at Lille in France, is specially used in the manufacture of stockings (see Hosiery). Apart from the figurative sense of that which runs through the course of a subject, narrative or speech, as a connecting thought, idea or purpose, the term is also applied specifically to the spiral part of a screw (q.v.).
THREAT, a menace or intimidation. At common law the employment of threats or other forms of intimidation to induce a person to enter into a contract will give the right to sue for its recision or avoidance, or to plead the special form of intimidation in answer to any action brought, or to sue for damages occasioned by entering into the contract. (See such headings as Coercion; Contract; Extortion, &c.)
In criminal law the sending of threatening letters (or causing them to be received), demanding with menaces and without reasonable cause money or other valuable thing, is a felony. So is the sending a letter threatening to burn or destroy any house, barn or other building or to kill or maim cattle. It is also a felony to threaten to accuse a person of a crime for the purpose of extorting money, or merely to demand money or other property, without having any claim to it, by means of a threat.
THREE BODIES, PROBLEM OF, the problem of determining the motion of three bodies moving under no influence but that of their mutual gravitation. No general solution of this problem is possible. As practically attacked it consists in the problem of determining the perturbations or disturbances in the motion of one of the bodies around the principal or central body, produced by the attraction of the third. Examples are the motion of the moon around the earth as disturbed by the action of the sun, and of one planet around the sun as disturbed by the action of another planet.
THREE RIVERS, or Trois Rivières, a city and port of entry of Quebec, Canada, and capital of St Maurice county, situated at the confluence of the rivers St Maurice and St Lawrence. The St Maurice flows in from the north, and, being divided at its mouth by two islands, the channels give the town its name. It is on the line of the Canadian Pacific railway, 78 m. S.W. of Quebec and 92 m. N.E. of Montreal. Founded in 1634 by Champlain, Three Rivers is one of the oldest towns in Quebec. It is the centre of a large lumber trade, which is carried on along the St Maurice and its tributaries. Some miles from the city are the St Maurice forges, where iron wares were manufactured as early as the 17th century. Other industries are furniture- and cabinet-making, boot and shoe making, and those carried on in the brass and lead foundries, saw-mills, and carriage factories. The city is the seat of a Roman Catholic bishopric. A large trade is carried on in lumber, grain, cattle, &c., which are shipped to South America, the West Indies, Great Britain and the United States, and a great development has been caused by the utilization of the water-power of the St Maurice at Shawanegan, Grand Meré and other falls, for the manufacture of wood pulp. As a result, the population, long
