OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Twenty-four Parganas, The

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​TWENTY-FOUR PARGANAS, THE, a district of British India, in the presidency division of Bengal, with an area of 4844 sq. m. It occupies part of the Gangetic delta, east of the Hugli, surrounding (but not including) the city of Calcutta. It also includes the greater part of the almost uninhabited Sundarbans (q.v.). The administrative headquarters are at Alipur, a southern suburb of Calcutta. The country consists for the most part of a vast alluvial plain, and is everywhere watered by numerous branches of the Ganges. In 1901 the population was 2,078,359, showing an increase of 10% in the decade. Rice is the staple crop, followed by jute, pulses and sugar-cane. The district is traversed by three railways, two of which terminate at the ports of Diamond Harbour and Port Canning, but numerous river channels are still the chief means of communication. Apart from the suburbs of Calcutta, there is hardly a single real town. But round Calcutta all the manufactures of a great city are to be found, principally jute mills and jute presses, cotton mills and paper mills, and also government factories for rifles and ammunition.
The Twenty-four Parganas form the tract of which the zamindari or landlord rights were granted to the East India Company after the battle of Plassey, while the revenue arising therefrom was conferred upon Clive, upon whose death it reverted to the company.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Twelve Tables

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​TWELVE TABLES, the tables of wood on which was engraved or painted the earliest codification of the Roman law. Originally ten in number, two others were afterwards added, containing supplemental matter, and the whole code was termed the Lex XII. Tabularum (Law of the Twelve Tables). (See Roman Law and Rome.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Twill

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​TWILL (connected with “two”), a woven cloth in which the passage of the weft is arranged, not in regular succession as in plain weaving, but over one thread and under two or more according to the kind of twill. This gives a succession of diagonal lines to the cloth, and though in the normal type of twill this diagonal traverses from selvage to selvage at an angle of 45°, considerable variations may be made. Twills may be stout and serviceable cloths, though, theoretically, it would seem that the strain of wear on the threads that compose the cloth is necessarily irregular. The twill or diagonal may run either from left to right or vice versa. Twills are made in most kinds of cloths—silk, woollen, cotton, &c.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tweed

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​TWEED, a river in the south of Scotland. It rises in the south-west corner of Peeblesshire, not far from the Devil's Beef Tub (in Dumfriesshire) in the hill country in which the Clyde and Annan also rise. The stream flowing from Tweed's Wall, about 1500 ft. above the sea, is generally regarded as its source, though its origin has been traced to other streams at a still higher elevation. For the first 36 m. of its course the stream intersects the shire of Peebles in a north-easterly direction, and, shortly before the county town is reached, receives Lyne Water on the left and Manor Water on the right. The valley now widens, and the river, bending towards the south-east, passes Innerleithen, where it receives the Leithen (left) and the Quair (right). It then crosses Selkirkshire and, having received the Ettrick (reinforced by the Yarrow) on the right, flows northward past Abbotsford, forming for about 2 m. the boundary between the counties of Selkirk and Roxburgh. After receiving the Gala on the left, the Tweed crosses the north-western corner of Roxburghshire past Melrose and, after being joined by the Leader on the left, winds past Dryburgh Abbey round the south-western corner of Berwickshire. The remainder of its course is in a north-easterly direction through Roxburghshire past Kelso, where it receives the Teviot on the right, and then between the counties of Berwick and Northumberland, past Coldstream, to the town of Berwick, where it enters the North Sea. On the left it receives Eden Water at Edenmouth and Leet Water at Coldstream, and the Till from Northumberland between Coldstream and Norham Castle. The last 2 m. of its course before reaching Berwick are in England. The Tweed is 97 m. long and drains an area of 1870 sq. m. Its bed is pebbly and sandy, and notwithstanding discolorations from manufactures, the stream, owing to its clear and sparkling appearance, still merits the epithet of the "silver Tweed." The river, however, has no estuary, and traffic is chiefly confined to Berwick, though for a short distance above the town some ​navigation is carried on by barges. The Tweed is one of the best salmon streams in Scotland. From the time of Kenneth the Grim (d. 1005) to that of James VI. (1600) the Tweed uplands were the favourite hunting ground of the Scots monarchs, and, at a later date, the Covenanters found refuge in the recesses of the hills and on the banks of Talla Water, an early right-hand affluent. Close to Stobo Castle is Stobo Kirk, the mother-church of the district, founded by St Kentigern and probably the oldest ecclesiastical building in Tweeddale, a mixture of Saxon, Norman and modern Gothic.
See Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Scottish Rivers (1874); Professor John Veitch, The River Tweed (1884); Rev. W. S. Crockett, The Scott Country (1892).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Tweezers

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​TWEEZERS, a small instrument like a pair of tongs, used for picking up minute objects, extracting thorns or splinters from the flesh, &c. Etymologically a “tweezer” is an instrument contained in a “tweeze” or a small case containing several instruments, “tweeze” being a plural form of “twee,” an adaptation of French étui, a sheath-case or box to put things in. Why one particular instrument out of the case should be called “tweezers” is not certain; Skeat suggests a possible connexion of ideas with the obsolete “twich,” “twitch” (Ger. zwicken, to nip, fasten, Eng. “tweak”), or reference may be made to the M. Eng. twisel or twissel, a pair of objects (twi-, two).
The derivation of the French étui (O. Fr. estuy) is doubtful. Cognate forms are Span. estuche, Port. estojo, Ital. astuccio, formerly stuccio or stucchio, all with the same meaning of a small case for instruments such as scissors, knife, &c. Skeat supports Diez in his connexion with the modern German dialect Stauche, cuff, that part of the sleeve where such small objects were carried. Others connect the word with Lat. stadium, a place Where one studies, hence a place where objects of study are carried, a somewhat far-fetched sense development.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Twining, Thomas

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​TWINING, THOMAS (1735–1804), English classical scholar, was born at Twickenham on the 8th of January 1734–1735. The son of Daniel Twining, tea merchant of London, he was originally intended for a commercial life, but his distaste for it and his fondness for study decided his father to send him to the university. He entered Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (fellow, 1760), took orders, and after his marriage in 1764 spent the remainder of his life at Fordham (Essex) and Colchester, where he died on the 6th of August 1804. His reputation as a classical scholar was established by his translation, with notes, of Aristotle’s Poetics (1789). Twining was also an accomplished musician, and assisted Charles Burney in his History of Music.
Selections from his correspondence will be found in Recreations and Studies of a Country Clergyman of the Eighteenth Century (1882) and Selections from Papers of the Twining Family (1887)) edited by his grand-nephew (Richard Twining); see also Gentleman’s Magazine, lxxiv. 490, and J. E. Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship, vol. iii. (1908).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Port

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​PORT. (1) (From the Lat. portus, harbour), a place to which ships may resort for the unloading or taking in of cargo, or for shelter, a harbour, also a town possessing such a harbour, a “seaport,” or “seaport town,” especially one where customhouse officers are stationed. As the name of a dark red Portuguese wine, the word is a shortened form of Oporto, i.e. the port, the chief centre of the wine-shipping trade of Portugal (see Wine). (2) (Through the Fr. porte, from Lat. porta, gate), an entrance or opening, not often used in the sense of gate, except in such compounds as “sally port,” cf. “portcullis,” and in the derivative “porter,” a keeper of a door or gate, especially of a public building, hotel, college, &c. The most general use of the word is for an opening for the admission of light and air in a ship's side, and formerly in ships of war for an embrasure for cannon, a “port-hole.” For the application of the word to the left side of a ship, taking the place of the earlier “larboard,” and its disputed origin, see Starboard and Larboard. (3) (Through the Fr. porter, from Lat. portare, to carry, bear), properly outward bearing or deportment, whence “portly,” originally of dignified or majestic bearing, now chiefly used in the sense of stout or corpulent. The verb “to port” is only used as a military term “to port arms,” i.e. to hold the rifle across and close to the body, the barrel being placed opposite to the left shoulder. Derivatives are “port-fire” (Fr. parte-feu), a fuse for firing rockets, &c., and formerly for the discharge of artillery, and “porter,” i.e. one who carries a burden, particularly a servant of a railway company, hotel, &c., who carries passengers' luggage to and from a station, &c. The term “porter” has been applied, since the 18th century, to a particular form of beer, dark brown or almost black in colour (see Beer and Brewing). The finer kinds of this beer are generally now known as “stout.” The name is almost certainly due to the fact that it was from the first a favourite drink among the London “porters,” the street carriers of goods, luggage, &c., and in early uses the drink is called porter's ale, porter's beer, or porter-beer.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Porridge

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PORRIDGE (an altered form of "pottage," Fr. potage, soup, that which is cooked in a pot), a food made by stirring meal, especially oatmeal, in boiling water and cooking it slowly until the whole becomes soft. The dish and its name are particularly identified with Scotland; in Ireland it is commonly known as "stir-about." The former application to a broth made of vegetables or of meat and vegetables thickened with barley or other meal is obsolete, and the earlier "pottage" is the usual word employed. The form "porridge" apparently dates from the 16th century. In "porringer," a porridge-bowl, the n is inserted as in "passenger," "messenger."
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Porpora, Niccola Antonio

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​PORPORA, NICCOLA [or Niccolò] ANTONIO (1686-1767), Italian operatic composer and teacher of singing, was born in Naples on the 19th of August 1686. He was educated at the Conservatorio di Santa Maria di Loreto. His first opera, Basilio, was produced at Naples; his second, Berenice, at Rome. Both were successful, and he followed them up by innumerable compositions of like character; but his fame rests chiefly upon his unequalled power of teaching singing. At the Conservatorio di' Sant' Onofrio and the Poveri di Gesu Cristo he trained Farinelli, Caffarelli, Mingotti, Salimbeni, and other celebrated vocalists. Still his numerous engagements did not tempt him to forsake composition. In 1725 he visited Vienna, but the Emperor Charles VI. disliked his florid style, especially his constant use of the trillo, and refused to patronize him. After this rebuff he settled in Venice, teaching regularly in the schools of La Pietà and the Incurabili. In 1729 he was invited to London as a rival to Handel; but his visit was unfortunate. Little less disastrous was his second visit to England in 1734, when even the presence of his pupil, the great Farinelli, failed to save the dramatic company of Lincoln's Inn Fields theatre, known as the “Opera of the Nobility,” from ruin. The sequence of dates and visits in Porpora's life are variously stated by different biographers. The electoral prince of Saxony and king of Poland had invited him to Dresden to become the singing master of the electoral princess, Maria Antonia, and in 1748 he is supposed to have been made Kapellmeister to the prince. Difficult relations, however, with Hasse and his wife resulted in his departure, of which the date is not known. From Dresden he is said to have gone to Vienna, where he gave lessons to Joseph Haydn (q.v.), and then to have returned in 1759 to Naples. From this time Porpora's career was a series of misfortunes. His last opera, Camilla, failed; and he became so poor that the expenses of his funeral were paid by subscription. Yet at the moment of his death in 1767 Farinelli and Caffarelli were living in splendour on fortunes for which they were largely indebted to the excellence of the old maestro's teaching. In George Sand's Consuelo much use is made of a romantic version of the life of young Haydn and his relations with the heroine, Porpora's pupil, and with Porpora himself. A good linguist and a man of considerable literary culture, Porpora was also celebrated for his power of repartee. His operas are, on the whole, tedious and conventional; but he produced some good work in the form of instrumental music and chamber-cantatas. A series of six Latin duets on the Passion (accessible in a modern edition published by Breitkopf and Haertel) is remarkable for dignity and beauty.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Port-Vendres

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PORT-VENDRES, a seaport of south-western France, in the department of Pyrénées-Orientales, in an inlet of the Mediterranean Sea, 19½ m. S.S.E. of Perpignan by rail. Pop. (1906), 2525. Port-Vendres, the ancient Portus Veneris, is fourth in importance of the French Mediterranean ports, and forms a good harbour of refuge. Its trade, which is with Spain, Greece and Algeria, is in cork, carobs, grain and wine, &c.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Port Adelaide

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​PORT ADELAIDE, a port of Adelaide county, South Australia, 71/2 m. by rail N.W. of Adelaide. Pop. of the town and suburbs (1901), 20,089. It is situated on an estuary 9 m. from St Vincent Gulf and is the principal shipping port of South Australia. Its wharves, equipped with steam and travelling cranes, and tramways, are 21/2 m. in extent; it has docks and a number of patent slips capable of taking up vessels of 300 to 1500 tons. There are also piers at Semaphore and Larg’s Bay, on the other side of Lefevre’s Peninsula some 2 m. distant, which are connected with Port Adelaide by rail. The industries comprise silver and copper smelting, brewing, sawmilling, rope making, flourmilling, sugar-refining and yacht-building. The harbour is protected by two forts known as the Fort Glanville batteries. The suburbs, which are connected with the town by tramways, are Alberton, Queenstown, Yatala, Rosewater and Kingston-on-the-Hill.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Porsena, Lars

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​PORSENA (or Porsenna), LARS, king of Clusium in Etruria. He is said to have undertaken an expedition against Rome in order to restore the banished Tarquinius Superbus to the throne. He gained possession of the Janiculum, and was prevented from entering Rome only by the bravery of Horatius Cocles (q.v.). Porsena then laid siege to the city, but was so struck by the courage of Mucius Scaevola that he made peace on condition that the Romans restored the land they had taken from Veii and gave him twenty hostages. He subsequently returned both the land and the hostages (Livy, ii. 9-15; Dion. Halic., v. 21-34; Plutarch, Poplicola, p. 16-19). This story is probably an attempt to conceal a great disaster and to soothe the vanity of the Romans by accounts of legendary exploits. According to other authorities, the Romans were obliged to surrender the city, to acknowledge Porsena's supremacy by sending him a sceptre, a royal robe, and an ivory chair, to abandon their territory north of the Tiber, to give up their arms, and in future to use iron for agricultural purposes only. It is curious that, in spite of his military success, Porsena made no attempt to restore the Tarquinian dynasty. Hence it is suggested that the attack on Rome was merely an incident of the march of the Etruscans, driven southward by the invasion of upper Italy by the Celts, through Latium on their way to Campania. This would account for its transitory effects, and the speedy recovery of the Romans from the blow. With the departure of Porsena all traces of Etruscan sovereignty disappear and Rome is soon vigorously engaged in the prosecution of various wars (see Tacitus, Hist. iii. 72; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxiv. 39 [14]; Dion. Halic. v. 35, 36, vii. 5). The tomb at Chiusi described by Pliny (Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 19) as that of Porsena cannot have been his burial-place (see Clusium).
For a critical examination of the story, see Schwegler, Römische Geschichte, bk. xxi. 18; Sir G. Cornewall Lewis, Credibility of Early Roman History, ch. xii. 5; W. Ihne, Hist. of Rome, vol. i.; E. Pais, Storia di Roma, i. ch. iv. (1898). Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome gives a dramatic version of the story.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Port Arthur (Canada)

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​PORT ARTHUR (formerly Prince Arthur's Landing), a town and harbour in Thunder Bay District, Ontario, Canada, on Lake Superior, and the Canadian Pacific, Grand Trunk Pacific, and Canadian Northern railways, and the lake terminus of the two latter. Pop. (1901), 3214. The lake terminus of the Canadian Pacific, originally here, has been moved to Fort William, 4 m. distant. Lumber and minerals are shipped from the surrounding district, and vast quantities of grain from the farther west.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Wace, Robert

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​WACE, (?) ROBERT (1100?–1175?), Anglo-Norman chronicler, was born in Jersey. He studied at Caen; he became personally known to Henry I., Henry II., and the latter's eldest son, Prince Henry; from Henry II. he received a prebend at Bayeux and other gifts. Except for these facts he is known to us only as the author of two metrical chronicles in the Norman-French language. Of these the earlier in date is the Roman de Brut, completed in 1155, which is said to have been dedicated to Eleanor of Aquitaine (ed. A. J. V. Le Roux de Lincy, 2 vols., Rouen, 1836-1838). This is a free version of the Latin Historia Britonum by Geoffrey of Monmouth, in rhyming octosyllables; it was rendered into English, shortly after 1200, by Layamon, a mass-priest of Worcestershire, and is also largely used in the rhymed English chronicle of Robert Marmyng. Wace's second work, the Roman de Rou, written between 1160 and 1174, has a less fabulous character than the Brut, being a chronicle of the Norman dukes from Rollo to Robert Curthose. It has been ably dissected by Gustav Körting (Über die Quellen des Roman de Rou, Leipzig, 1867), who shows that it is mainly based upon Dudo and Wilham of Jumièges. There is also reason for thinking that Wace used the Gesta regum of William of Malmesbury. Where Wace follows no ascertainable source he must be used with caution. Undoubtedly he used oral tradition; but he also seems to have given free play to his imagination.
The Roman de Rou is written in rhyming octosyllables, varied by assonanced alexandrines. It has been edited by F. Pluquet (2 vols. and supplement, Rouen, 1827-1829) and more completely by H. Andresen (2 vols., Heilbronn, 1877-1879).  (H. W. C. D.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Wachsmuth, Charles

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​WACHSMUTH, CHARLES (1829-1896), American palaeontologist, was born in Hanover, Germany, on the 13th of September 1829. Educated as a lawyer in his native city, he abandoned the profession on account of ill-health, and in 1852 went to New York as agent for a Hamburg shipping house. Two years later, for reasons of health, he removed to Burlington, Iowa, U.S.A., where he settled. Here he was attracted by the fossils, and especially the crinoids, of the Burlington Limestone, and in a few years possessed a fine collection. In 1864 he made acquaintance with L. Agassiz, and in the following year paid a visit to Europe, where he studied the crinoids in the British Museum and other famous collections. He now decide to devote all his energies to the elucidation of the crinoidea, and with signal success. He made further extensive collections, and supplied specimens to the Agassiz museum at Cambridge, U.S.A., and the British Museum. Becoming acquainted with Frank Springer (1848-), a lawyer at Burlington, he stirred up his enthusiasm in the subject, and together they continued the study of crinoids and published a series of important papers. These include “Discovery of the Ventral Structure of Taxocrinus and Haplocrinus, and Consequent Modifications in the Classification of the Crinoidea” (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., Philadelphia, 1889); “The Perisomic Plates of the Crinoids” (Ibid., 1891); and a monograph on “The North American Crinoidea Camerata,” published, after the death of Wachsmuth, in the Memoirs of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard (1897). Of this last-named work a detailed ​review and analysis was published by F. A. Bather, of the British Museum, in the Geol. Mag. for 1898–1899. Wachsmuth died on the 7th of February 1896.
Obituary (with portrait) by F. A. Bather, Geol. Mag. (April 1896).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Wad Medani

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​WAD MEDANI, a town of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, capital of the Blue Nile mudiria, in 14° 24′ N., 33° 31′ E., on the left bank of the Blue Nile, 110 m. by rail and 147 m. by river, S.E. of Khartum. Pop. about 20,000. It is the chief depot for grain raised in the Gezira, has oil and soap works, and is a thriving commercial centre, being on the main trade route between Khartum and Abyssinia. The town, which is of considerable antiquity, contains some fine buildings, the chief mosque having a conspicuous tower. Wad Medani was almost destroyed during the Mahdia, but its return to prosperity under Anglo-Egyptian rule was rapid. In 1900 it was connected by railway with Khartum, and thus the hindrance to trade through the Blue Nile being scarcely navigable between January and June was overcome. In 1910 railway communication between the town and Kordofan was established. (See Sudan, § Anglo-Egyptian.)