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TÝR—TYRCONNELL, EARL
  


purpose it is either placed with the type in a heated chamber covered with blankets which absorb the moisture, or is removed from the type and heated separately. Sometimes these two methods are used in combination; processes have also been devised for pressing the flong dry upon the type, when subsequent drying becomes unnecessary. For casting a plate the matrix thus prepared is fastened in a casting mould or box curved to the circumference of the cylinder of the press, and molten stereo-metal (a softer form of type-metal) is poured upon it. During this process the box stands upright, but while the matrix is being placed in position it lies horizontally, a swivel mounting enabling it to be readily turned. After time has been allowed for solidification, the cast is taken out, stripped from the matrix and adjusted on a “finishing saddle,” where a machine cuts off the superfluous metal from its upper end and forms a bevel by which it can be clamped on the press. It is then placed face downwards in another machine which shaves out and smooths its interior surface, and finally it is set face upwards, while men with chisels remove protruding pieces of metal that might take ink and print.

Up to the end of the 19th century the general method of stereotyping was as outlined above, though of course there were variations in different establishments. The time required to produce a plate, as distinct from making the matrix, was about 1 or 11/2 minute, and the process was expensive in labour since it required the employment of half-a-dozen men. This time may seem short enough, but when plates are needed by the score, as may be the case with a paper having a large circulation, the delay entailed by the preparation of the whole number by this method becomes of serious importance. Means were therefore sought to reduce it by the adoption of automatic mechanism. In the Autoplate machine, invented in America by Henry A. Wise Wood, and first used by the New York Herald in 1900, the operation of casting is performed automatically from the time the matrix is put in position until the finished plate is ready to be placed on the printing press, and from a single matrix four plates 1/2 in. thick, or seven or eight 1/4 in. thick, can be produced every minute, by the aid of three men only. The casting is done against a horizontal cylinder or core, the interior of which is cooled by water. Below it is a frame or “back” carrying the matrix. This back has an up and down movement of about six inches, and when it is in its topmost position there is a semicircular space between it and the core equal in length, breadth and thickness to the plate which has to be cast. Molten metal having been injected into this space by a pump, there is a pause of a few seconds to permit of solidification, and then the back falls, bringing away the matrix with it. Immediately afterwards the cylinder makes a half turn, and presents what was previously its upper half to the matrix for another cast. The first cast is taken with it as it turns, and is then pushed along from the top of the core against two rotating saws which trim its edges. Next it comes under a shaving arch, where it pauses while its interior surface is smoothed to proper thickness, and finally water is directed against its back, to cool it without wetting its printing face. The Junior Autoplate is a simpler machine which does not perform so many operations. In it the casting core is vertical, not horizontal, but the matrix is still automatically stripped from the plate, the casts are made alternately on the two halves of the cylinder, and as one plate is being removed another is being cast. The machine also automatically cuts off the sprue which is left on the top of the plate as it stands in the casting box. About three plates a minute are produced, but they are not delivered completely finished, and have to undergo several further operations before they are ready to be placed on the press. The Double Junior consists of two Junior Autoplates served from a common melting-pot, and its capacity is six plates a minute, with two matrices; and another machine, the Autoshaver, has been devised which can shave, cool and deliver that number of plates automatically, no labour being required except to take the plate from the casting machine and place it on the Autoshaver.

See Practical Printing, by John Southward and Arthur Powell (5th ed., London, 1900); Modern Printing, by John Southward (London, 1898); The American Handbook of Printing, by Edmund G. Gress (New York, 1907); History of Composing Machines, by John S. Thompson (Chicago, 1904); Traité de la typographie, by Henri Fournier (4th ed., Paris, 1904); “Type Casting and Composing Machines,” by L. A. Legros, Proc. Inst. Mech. Eng. (London, 1908); “Modern Stereotypy and the Mechanics of the Newspaper,” by Henry A. Wise Wood, Journ. Franklin Inst. (Philadelphia, 1910).  (J. So.; H. M. R.) 


TÝR, the Scandinavian god of battle. He is not a prominent figure in Northern mythology, for even in this special capacity he is overshadowed by Odin, and there are hardly any traces of worship being paid to him. Among other Teutonic peoples, however, he seems at one time to have been a deity of considerable importance. In Anglo-Saxon he was called Tī (Ti, Tiig, gen. Tīwes, whence “Tuesday”) and equated with the Roman Mars. He is also identified with the German god mentioned more than once by Tacitus, as well as in inscriptions, by the name Mars. His Teutonic name is the same as the word for “god” in several other Indo-European languages (e.g. Lat. dīuus, Lith. dēvas, Skr. devas), and even in Old Norse the plural tīvar was still used in the same sense. (See Teutonic Peoples § Religion, ad fin.)  (H. M. C.) 


TYRANT (Gr. τύραννος, master, ruler), a term applied in modern times to a ruler of a cruel and oppressive character. This use is, however, based on a complete misapprehension of the application of the Greek word, which implied nothing more than unconditional sovereignty. Such rulers are not, as is often supposed, confined to a single period, the 7th and 6th centuries B.C. (the so-called “Age of the Tyrants”) of Greek history, but appear sporadically at all times, and are frequent in the later city-states of the Greek world. The use of the term “tyrant” in the bad sense is due largely to the ultra-constitutionalists of the 4th century in Athens, to whom the democracy of Pericles was the ideal of government. Thus the government which Lysander set up in Athens at the close of the Peloponnesian War is called that of the “Thirty Tyrants” (see Critias). The same term is applied to those Roman generals (really 18) who usurped authority under Gallienus.

TYRAS, a colony of Miletus, probably founded about 600 B.C., situated some 10 m. from the mouth of the Tyras River (Dniester). Of no great importance in early times, in the 2nd century B.C. it fell under the dominion of native kings whose names appear on its coins, and it was destroyed by the Getae about 50 B.C. In A.D. 56 it seems to have been restored by the Romans and henceforth formed part of the province of Lower Moesia. There exists a series of its coins with heads of emperors from Domitian to Alexander Severus. Soon after the time of the latter it was destroyed by the Goths. Its government was in the hands of live archons, a senate, a popular assembly and a registrar. The types of its coins suggest a trade in wheat, wine and fish. The few inscriptions are also mostly concerned with trade. Its remains are scanty, as its site has been covered by the great medieval fortress of Monocastro or Akkerman (q.v.).

See E. H. Minns, Scythians and Greeks (Cambridge, 1909); V. V. Latyshev, Inscriptiones Orae Septentrionalis Ponti Euxini, vol. i.  (E. H. M.) 


TYRCONNELL, RICHARD TALBOT, Earl [Titular Duke] of (1630–1691), Irish Jacobite, came of an ancient Anglo-Norman family, the Talbots of Malahide. His father, Sir William Talbot (d. 1633), was a Roman Catholic lawyer and politician of note. His brother Peter was Roman Catholic archbishop of Dublin. Richard Talbot served as a royalist during the Great Rebellion. He was present in Drogheda (Tredah) when it was stormed by Cromwell on the 3rd of September 1647, and was one of the few members of the garrison who escaped from the massacre; he fled to Spain. He then lived like many other royalist refugees, partly by casual military service, but also by acting as a subordinate agent in plots to upset the Commonwealth and murder Cromwell. He was arrested in London in November 1655 and was examined by Cromwell. Once more he escaped, but it was said by his enemies that he was bribed by the Protector, with whom one of his brothers was certainly in correspondence. After the Restoration he had a place in the household of the duke of York (James II.). He was actively engaged in an infamous intrigue to ruin the character of Anne Hyde, the duke’s wife, but continued in James’s employment and saw some service at sea in the naval wars with the Dutch. He accumulated money by acting as agent for Irish Roman Catholics who sought to recover their confiscated property. He was arrested in connexion with the Popish Plot agitation in 1678, but was allowed to go into exile. He returned just before the death of Charles II., and during the reign of James II. he was the chief agent of the king’s policy in Ireland. He was appointed commander-in-chief and created earl of Tyrconnell in 1685. The duty assigned him was to create a Roman Catholic army which might be used to coerce England. In February 1687 he was appointed lord deputy, and became the civil as well as the military governor of Ireland. Tyrconnell, who foresaw the revolution in England, entered into intrigues for handing Ireland over to the king of France in order to secure the interest of his