|
Thom'son, James, a British poet, was born in Roxburghshire, Scotland, Sept. 11, 1700. He studied six years at Edinburgh. His fame rests upon his poem, The Seasons. Winter appeared in 1726, followed by Summer (1727), Spring (1728) and Autumn. He wrote several dramas, Agamemnon, Edward and Eleonora, and Tancred and Sigismunda. The Castle of Indolence, next to The Seasons his best-known work, was written in 1748. The song Rule! Britannia is found in a masque, Alfred, written by Thomson in connection with Mallet. He died near Richmond, England, Aug. 27, 1748. Thomson, Joseph John, a brilliant young English physicist, who has since 1884 occupied the most important chair of physics in Great Britain, that of Experimental Physics at Cambridge University. He was born near Manchester, Dec. 18, 1856; was educated at Owens College and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated as second wrangler and second Smith's prizeman in 1880. His work has been of profound character. Aside from numerous contributions to periodical literature, the following works give some idea of his activity: Treatise on Vortex Motion; Application of Dynamics to Physics and Chemistry; and Recent Researches in Electricity and Magnetism. In 1899 he achieved the division of the hydrogen atom. By a clear and logically connected series of experiments he split a small part from the hydrogen atom, which he calls a corpuscle. It has a mass of only one-thousandth of that of the hydrogen atom. For a popular account of this work consult The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. XI., pp. 170-4 (1900). See Atom and Hydrogen. Thomson, Sir William. See Kelvin, Lord. Thor (thôr or tôr), in Scandinavian myth, was the oldest son of Odin and Frigga and was the god of thunder. He ruled winds, seasons and agriculture. The Eddas speak of him as the champion of gods and men, hurling his thunderbolts at his enemies, — the monsters and giants. His weapon was an enormous hammer, which, after it was thrown, came back into his hand. He never grew weary. No matter how much strength he spent, it was renewed by a magic belt which he wore around his waist. Thursday is named from Thor. Thoreau (thō'rṓ), Henry David, was born at Concord, Mass., July 12, 1817. He graduated at Harvard College in 1837, and became a surveyor. He lived the simplest of lives, spending most of his time in long tramps through the woods, in the study of nature and in writing. Emerson says of him: “He was bred to no profession; he never married; he lived alone; he never went to church; he never voted; he refused to pay a tax to the state; he ate no flesh; |
he drank no wine; he never knew the use of tobacco; and, though a naturalist, he used neither trap nor gun.” This poet-naturalist built with his own hands a small cabin on the banks of Walden Pond near Concord, and lived there by himself for two years. His expenses during these years were nine cents a day, and he gave an account of his experiences in perhaps his finest book, Walden, published in 1854. Others were Cape Cod, The Maine Woods and A Yankee in Canada. No one else has lived so close to nature or so written of it. He died at Concord, May 6, 1862. See Thoreau the Poet-Naturalist by Channing and Sanborn's Thoreau in The American Men of Letters Series. Thorn, a conspicuous rigid and sharp structure of plants. Thorns may be transformed leaves or branches, and are most extensively developed by plants of the arid regions. Thorwaldsen (tôr'wa̤ld-sĕn), Albert Bertel, one of the greatest of modern sculptors, was born probably at Copenhagen, Nov. 15, 1770. When, asked where he was born he said: “I don't know; but I arrived at Rome on March 8, 1797,” thus dating his birth, as it were, from the beginning of his career as an artist. He was a son of a poor ship-carpenter, and first carved figureheads in the shipyard where his father worked. He had little schooling, and always was a poor writer and speller, but by 1793 he had gained a gold medal for a design and with it a chance to study abroad for three years. Only after long and hard study did he at last (1803) gain recognition by his Jason, but from this time he prospered. His return to Denmark in 1819 was triumphal and his reception almost royal. But a year later found him back at Rome, which he made his home. Thorwaldsen died on March 24, 1844, leaving to his country most of his great works and the bulk of his fortune, with which to build a museum where they should be kept. Of his many busts that of Byron is one of the finest. His famous Christ and the Twelve Apostles is in the cathedral of Copenhagen. See his Life by Plon. Thrace (thrās), in ancient times the name of a country bounded by the Danube, the Euxine and Ægean Seas, Macedonia and Illyria. Roughly speaking, ancient Thrace, before the rise of the Macedonian power, embraced the territory now divided into Rumelia and Bulgaria. Under the Romans it included only the part south of the Hæmus or Balkan Mountains, while the northern part was called Mœsia. It was a mountainous country, the chief range being the Hæmus or, as it is now called, the Balkans, the highest peaks of which are over 8,000 feet above the sea. It was marshy and undrained, covered with deep |
