pnugues/EB7 huggingface dataset:
TARN and Gabonne, a department of the south-west of France. In 1808 it was formed out of portions of the several existing departments of Lot, Upper Garonne, Lot-Garonne, Gers, and Aveiron. In times before the revolution it was known as the Agenois, Lomagne, and Basse Marche du Rouergue of Upper Languedoc. According to its present state, it is bounded on the north by the Lot, on the east by the Aveiron and the Tarn, on the south by the Upper Garonne, and on the west by the Gers and the Lot-Garonne. Its area contains 366,976 hectares, equal to 872,440 acres, or 1363 square miles. It is divided into three arrondissements, twenty-four cantons, and 191 communes, with 242,184 inhabitants in 1836, who chiefly adhere to the Roman Catholic church, but among whom are between 30,000 and 40,000 Protestants. The face of the country consists of several extensive plains, about 1000 or 1200 feet above the level of the sea, with valleys of various extent intersecting them, through which their several streams flow. The principal rivers are the Garonne, the Tarn, and the Aveiron. The soil is various in fertility, but on the whole is productive. The plain of the Garonne is peculiarly so, and on both sides is lined with hills, which are covered with fruit trees and vineyards. The banks of the other two streams are rich, and present most picturesque prospects. Many of the farms on the Garonne are sold as high as from L.50 to L.60 the English acre. The climate is temperate, and sometimes the winter passes without snow, and the streams are scarcely ever frozen; but violent storms of hail, collected on the Pyrenees, occasionally descend and destroy the hopes of the cultivators. The business of agriculture is conducted with great care, and on the best of the soil the practice of fallowing is abandoned; but on the inferior land a year’s fallow is succeeded by two corn crops, as in most of the other parts of France. Much good wheat is raised, and the best of it is converted into flour for the West India markets. Other kinds of grain arc raised with success. Fruit is abundant, and forms articles of export when preserved, especially the plums and figs. Almonds, chestnuts, and walnuts, are also collected for trade, with abundance of wine, and wood for fuel and building. The only mineral procured is iron, and of that but little; but there are valuable quarries of marble, and some of mill-stones. Next to wheat, the amount of the value of the wine exceeds that of all the other products. There are manufactories of linen and woollen cloths, of china and earthen ware, of paper, cutlery articles, leather, and some silk goods. The three rivers already mentioned are navigable, and afford the greatest advantage to commerce by the facilities which they offer for the distribution of the heavy productions of the department. The capital is the city of Montauban, and it is also the chief scat of manufacturing industry. Its population in 1836 amounted to 23,865.
TARNOPOL, a circle of the Austrian kingdom of Gallicia, extending over 13l7square miles, comprehending four cities, six market-towns, and 251 villages, with 189,600 inhabitants. The capital is the city of the same name, on the river Sereth. It contains 1080 houses, with 7560 inhabitants, of whom many are Jews, who carry on an active internal trade. It has also some tanneries.
TARNOW, a circle in the Austrian kingdom of Gallicia, extending over 2040 square miles. It contains three cities, eleven market-towns, and 464 villages, with 215,000 inhabitants, of whom 15,000 are Jews. the capita] is the city of the same name, which contains 360 houses, with 4540 inhabitants, employed in making table and other linens, and having extensive tanneries. Long. 20. 55. E. Lat. 49. 59. N.
TARPA, Spurius Mecius, a Latin critic in the time of Julius Caesar and Augustus. He had his tribunal in the temple of Apollo, where, with four assistants, he passed sentence on the works of the poets. Cicero and Horace make honourable mention of this critic.
TARPAULIN, a piece of canvass, well tarred over to keep off the rain from any place. The term is applied in a burlesque sense to a person that has been all his life bred to the sea.
TARPORLEY, a town of the hundred of Eddisbury, in the county of Chichester, 179 miles from London. It has some small manufactories of stockings and leather breeches. The population amounted in 1821 to 800, and in 1831 to 995; but the parish contains 2391.
TARRAGONA, a city of Spain, in the province of Catalonia. In the period when the Romans governed Spain, this city was very celebrated as the capital of that division of the kingdom which is to the east of the Ebro, then denominated Tarraconia. The streets are narrow, and the [7:21:82] houses lofty. It is the see of an archbishop; but the cathedral, though large, is by no means handsome. It is a place of considerable trade, especially in brandies, great quantities of which, made in the plain near it, are shipped from its port. It has considerable manufactories of silk goods of various kinds; and the whole population displays a degree of industrious activity by no means usual in Spain. The best-tasted brandies are those from the hills belonging to the Carthusian convent, on the borders of the Campo; but those of the Campo are stronger. When first made, they are all as white and transparent as water; but by keeping in casks, and by artificial means, they become darker coloured before they arrive at the markets for sale. The city of Tarragona, as well as the country around it, abounds with Roman antiquities, whose investigation has always been a favourite pursuit with the more studious of the inhabitants. The city within the walls contains a population of only ten thousand; but the far greater number of inhabitants reside in the suburbs. Long. 1.46. 37. E. Lat. 4L 7. 6. N.
TARSUS, a large city of Asia Minor, the ancient capital of Cilicia, situated on a fertile plain on the right bank of the Cydnus, about six miles from its mouth. The town is partly surrounded by a wall, supposed to be the remains of that erected by Haroun al Raschid. The houses, which seldom exceed one story in height, are flat-roofed, and mostly constructed of hewn stone derived from the ruins of the ancient edifices. The city contains two public baths, a number of mosques, several handsome caravanserais, and a small ancient church. There is a castle, said to be built by Bajazet. On an eminence to the south-west are the ruins of a spacious edifice, which may probably have been the gymnasium; and about 200 yards farther to the west, an ancient gateway stands almost entire. The city contains about 30,000 inhabitants during the winter, among whom are 200 Armenian and 100 Greek families; while a considerable proportion consists of Toorkomans, who migrate with their families to the mountains. A considerable trade is carried on. The land in the neighbourhood is exceedingly fertile, and yields abundance of wheat, barley, sesame, and cotton, which are exported to Malta, and thence to Spain and Portugal. Copper from Maden, and gall-nuts, are also exported in large quantities. The imports consist chiefly of rice, sugar, and coffee. Tarsus is a city of high antiquity. It is said by Arrian and Strabo to have been built by Sardanapalus, though others consider it to have been a Grecian colony. It was much favoured by the Roman emperors Augustus and Adrian; and, in wealth and grandeur, as well as in literature and science, rivalled the more celebrated cities of antiquity. It was adorned with many magnificent edifices, the monuments of ancient taste; but has been subject to so many vicissitudes, that scarcely any relics of its former splendour are to be seen.
TARTAS, a river of Asiatic Russia, in the government of Tobolsk, falls into the Om near Tartaskoi.
TARTASKOI, a small town of Asiatic Russia, in Tobolsk, situated at the junction of the Om and Tartas. It is forty miles west-south-west of Kainsk.
TARVEN or Tarvin, a town in the hundred of Eddis-bury and county of Chester, four miles from the city of Chester, and 177 from London. The church is a well-built structure. The parish comprehends, besides the town, eleven small townships, whose population amounted in 1821 to 3486, and in 1831 to 3415; but the town contains only 1020.
TASAPAN, a small island in the Eastern Seas, near Junkseylon. Long. 98. 14. E. Lat. 8. 20. N.
TASHKUND, or Ταsηκεντ, formerly a considerable city of Independent Tartary, situated on the Sihon or Jaxartes. It has suffered much from the devastations of war. It is 210 miles north of Samarcand. Long. 64. 48. E. Lat. 42. 40. N.
TASIEVA, a river of Asiatic Russia, in the province of Tobolsk, which falls into the Tchulim about twenty miles north-west of Tasieuskoi. The latter place is situated on this river, 820 miles of Tobolsk.
TASMAN’S Head, the most southern point of Bruny’s Island, on the north-east coast of Van Diemen’s Laud.
Tasman's Island, a great peninsula connected with Van Diemen’s Land by an isthmus 600 feet broad by about 1800 long. At the southern extremity is a small island, called Tasman’s Island.
TASSISUDON, a city of Northern Hindustan, province of Bootan, of which it is the capital. It is the residence of the Deb rajah. It is situated in a highly cultivated valley, about three miles in length by one in breadth, intersected by the Tchintchieu river. The climate is esteemed exceedingly salubrious. The castle or palace is in the centre of the valley, built of stone of a quadrangular form, the walls thirty feet high, pierced with very small windows. The citadel consists of seven stories, each from fifteen to twenty feet high, and is a very lofty building. From the centre rises a square piece of masonry, which supports a canopy of copper richly gilt. The town is of considerable extent, and is populous. Its chief manufactures are brazen images, and paper made from the bark of a tree. Long. 89. 30. E. Lat. 27. 50. N.
TASSONI, Alessandro, who was born at Modena in 1565, and died in 1635, ranks as the best of those Italian writers who, in the seventeenth century, made the burlesque epic a remarkable branch of literature for their nation. His work of this class, “La Secchia Rapita,” or the Rape of the Bucket, commemorates an incursion which, in the middle of the thirteenth century, the Modenese made into the town of Bologna, carrying oft’ as a trophy the bucket of a public well. Much of the wit has perished with the remembrance of the persons satirized, and much more is too local to be relished or understood except in Italy; while the alternation of serious and lofty feeling with broad buffoonery, necessarily disgusts those who take their poetical creed from the hands of the French. But, in spite of Voltaire’s contempt for the poem, it is one which must not be neglected by any systematic student of Italian literature. Another work equally characteristic is Tassoni’s “Pensieri Diversi,” a collection of ingenious and outrageous paradoxes, founded on a complete scepticism, real or pretended, as to the merits, not only of the great names in literature, but as to the uses of literature itself. A similar production, the “Considera-zioni sopra il Petrarca,” was an attack made, in the same spirit, upon the poetical idol of the author’s countrymen.^[1. Walker’s Memoirs of Alessandro Tassoni. Lond. 1815, 8vo. ] '
TASTE, a certain sensation excited in the mind by certain bodies, which are called sapid, applied to the tongue and palate, and moistened with saliva. This is the original and proper meaning of the word taste; but as the qualities of bodies which produce these sensations are unknown, they have obtained the names of the sensations themselves, by substituting the cause for the effect. Tastes have been divided into simple and compound, and philosophers have endeavoured to ascertain the number of each species. Attempts have likewise been made to determine from their tastes the effects of different substances on the human body, taken into the stomach as food or physic; but by stating the result of such inquiries, we should be more likely to mislead than to communicate useful information.
TATE, Nahum, a poet and dramatist, the son of Dr Faithful Tate, was born in Dublin in the year 1652. He was educated in Trinity College, but did not betake himself to any profession. Upon the death of Shadwell in 1692, Tate succeeded him as poet laureat, and held that place until the reign of George I. whose first birth-day ode he lived to write, and executed it with unusual spirit. He died in the Mint in 1716. He was the author of ten dramatic performances, a great number of poems, and a version of the Psalms in conjunction with Dr Brady. A list of his plays may be found in the Biographia Dramatica, vol. i. p. 703.
TATIANUS, a Greek writer of the primitive church, was a native of Syria, and by profession a rhetorician. He was educated in paganism, but became a convert to Christianity, and a disciple of Justin Martyr, whom he attended at Rome. After the death of Justin, in the year 165, he adopted some very unsound opinions, and appeared as the author of a new sect, condemning marriage, enjoining abstinence from wine and animal food, and suffering only water to be used in the holy mysteries; whence his followers were called Encraritae and Hydroparastatae. From Rome he returned to the east, and opened a school in Mesopotamia; but when or where he died, we do not find recorded. His only work, “Oratio ad Graecos,” was first printed at Zürich in 1546. An elaborate edition was published by William Worth, A. M. Oxon. 1700, 8vo.
TATIUS, Achilles, a Greek writer, is supposed by Fabricius to have flourished in the third or fourth century. His age seems however to be very uncertain. Suidas, who gives him the name of Achilles Statius, informs us that having originally been a Pagan, he was converted to Christianity, and at length became a bishop. He is best known as the author of a romance, in eight books, “De Leucip-pes et Clitophontis Amoribus.” From the strain of the work, it may perhaps be supposed to have been written before his conversion. It first appeared in a Latin translation, executed by Annibal Crucceius; a portion of which was printed at Lyon in 1544, and a complete edition at Basel in 1554. The Greek text was first committed to the press by Commelin [Heidelbergae], 1601, 8vo. Another edition was published by Salmasius, Lugd. Bat. 1640, 12mo. This most learned individual, who was so eminently qualified for the task, is allowed to have executed it too hastily. After several intervening editions, followed that of Mitscherlich, which occupies the first volume of his Scriptores Erotici Groeci. Biponti, 1792-4,3 tom. 8vo. But the most elaborate and valuable edition that has yet appeared, was published by Jacobs, Lipsiae, 1821, 8vo. This romance has been translated into English, and other modern languages. A composition of a very different nature has likewise been ascribed to Achilles Tatius; but it may perhaps be considered as doubtful whether they were both written by the same individual. This is a fragment of a treatise on the sphere, ∏εgὶ ∑φaίgaς, and comprises an introduction to the Phaenomena of Aratus. It was first published by Victorius, with his edition of Hipparchus, Florent. 1567, fol. The Greek text, accompanied with a Latin version, was inserted by Petavius in his Uranologion, Paris. 1630, fol.
TATISCHEVA, a fortress of Asiatic Russia, in the government of Oufa, on the Oural, twenty-eight miles west of Orenburg.
TATTA, a district of Hindustan, formerly contained within the great soubah of Moultan, but now comprehending nearly the delta of the Indus, which has been already described under the article SINDE. The country is intersected by the overflowing waters of the Indus, and where these do not reach, it is mostly sandy and barren. It is noted for a fine breed of camels, which are pastured on the barren plains. It produces a quantity of rice and salt, and the rivers abound with fish, which articles constitute the chief food of the inhabitants. It is now part of the dominions of the Ameers of Sinde, who have impoverished the country by their extortions.
TATTERSHALL, an English market-town, in the hundred of Gartree and division of Lindsey, in the county of Lincoln, 127 miles from London and fourteen to the north-west of Boston. It is on the Bain, a river that is navigable to the Withan, into which it flows in its way to the sea. The church, which was formerly collegiate, is a very beautiful and spacious edifice, in the form of a cross; but has suffered from time, and from the outrages of the civil wars. The population amounted in 1831 to 599.
TATTOOING, or Tattowing, an operation in use among the islanders in the South Sea, for marking their bodies with figures of various kinds, which they consider as ornamental. It is performed by puncturing the skin, and rubbing a black colour into the wounds. The instrument used somewhat resembles a comb, the teeth of which are repeatedly struck into the skin by means of a small mallet. It is very painful; but the children are forced by their relations to submit to it.
TAUDA, a river of Asiatic Russia, formed by the junction[7:21:93] of the Sosva and the Losva, and which falls into the Tobol, four miles south of Tobolsk.
TAUJEPOOR, a town of Hindustan, in the province of Bengal, district of Purneah, thirty-six miles east by north from the town of Pumeah. Long. 88.15. E. Lat. 25. 45. N.
TAULLAH Mhokee, a small village of Hindustan, in the province of Lahore, nine miles north of Nadone, the principal town of the Kaungrah country. It contains a temple highly esteemed by the credulous Hindus, who believe that a volcanic flame which issues from the side of a mountain in the neighbourhood is an emanation from the divinity. Long. 75. 45. E. Lat. 32. 5. N.
TAUMAGO, an island in the Pacific Ocean, discovered by Quiros in 1606, about twenty-four or twenty-five miles in circumference. Long. 169. 25. E. Lat. 10. S.
TAUNDA, a town of Hindustan, in the nabob of Oude’s territories, situated on the south side of the Goggrah river, thirty-five miles south-east from Fyzabad. Long. 82. 38. E. Lat. 26. 33. N. It is celebrated for its manufacture of cotton cloths. This is the name of another town of Hindustan, in the province of Gujerat. Long. 74. 29. E. Lat. 22. 55. N.
TAUNTON, a large town of the hundred of its name, in the county of Somerset, 144 miles from Bristol. It is finely situated in the rich and fertile valley of Taunton-Dean, which is watered by the river Tone. It has also water communication by a canal with the river Parrett and the sea at Bridgewater. It is a very well built town, with a fine market-place, in which stand both the county and the town hall. There are two churches, and that of St James is a fine and large building, with a magnificent tower. It has numerous places of worship for the several sects of Protestant dissenters, and a chapel for the Catholics, who have also lately established a female convent. This is an ancient borough, but it lost its corporate rights by suffering the numbers to become so low, and not to have a quorum left to fill up the vacancies. It is now under the jurisdiction of the county magistrates, and returns two members to parliament. It was formerly a place for manufacturing cloth goods, but that trade has greatly declined. In the mean time the trade of throwing silk has been introduced, and gives employment to some of the population. Taunton is chiefly inhabited by families of moderate incomes, who are induced to settle there from its being pleasant, cheap, and healthy. There are markets on Wednesday and on Saturday, well supplied. The inhabitants amounted in 1801 to 5794, in 1811 to 6997, in 1821 to 8534, and in 1831 to 11,139.
TAUNUS Mountains, a district of Germany, in the dominion of the prince of Nassau. In Germany this range of mountains was long denominated the Heights of Homburg, and belonged to the duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt before it came to the house of Nassau, as a portion of the duchy of Katzerellenbogen. It lies between the Rhine and the Maine, the former being its western, and the latter its southern boundary. The face of the country is very irregular; it consists almost wholly of hills and valleys, especially in the eastern part, where streams and wood present themselves to the traveller in great variety. The most lofty points of these hills are the Gros-feld-berg, 2605 feet, and the Altkonigberge, 2450 feet, in height. In these mountains are the mineral springs which form the great source of the wealth of the duchy. The chief of them are at Ems, Schwalbach, Schlangenbad, and Soden. There is another spring at Selzers, whose water is not drunk at the well, but put into stone bottles, of which about 1,500,000 are annually distributed over Europe. These mountains contain abundance of iron ore, which is worked extensively by the charcoal made from the neighbouring hills. There are also some mines of lead and of silver, but not productive to any great extent. Except the making of stone bottles and ironware, the chief occupation is agriculture, and even on the table-land, lofty as it is, good crops of rye are produced. The only river among these mountains is the Lahn, a romantic stream falling into the Rhine below the town of Ems, and navigable by boats in wet weather as high up the valley as Weilbourg. Over this stream, at Nassau, an iron suspension bridge has been constructed, being the first erection of that kind in Germany.
TAUREE, a town of the province of Bengal, district of Monghir, ninety-two miles north-north-west from Moorshedabad. Long. 86. 50. E. Lat. 24. 31. N.
TAURIA, a province of Russia in Europe, the most southern part of that empire. The peninsula known to the ancients as Chersonesus Taurica, and now known by the Tartar name of Crem, or Crimea, forms the better portion of the province. The northern portion is the Steppes of the Nogay Tartars. The whole extent is 44,903 square miles. The southern part is a beautiful country, with lofty hills and delightful valleys between, which, when cultivated, are extremely fertile; and the climate resembles that of the best part of Greece. The northern part, or Steppes, is fertile, but during a portion of the year is burnt up, and exhibits a bare sandy plain. After rain the grass springs up with intense rapidity, and the wheat that is sown yields very abundant crops. The breeding of cattle is, however, the chief pursuit, and especially that of horses, which are very numerous; and those crossed by the Arab race are of great value. The cows and sheep are numerous, but the wool of the latter is very coarse. When the Russians obtained possession of this country, it was much more populous than it has been since, many of the Mahommedan inhabitants having forsaken it. At present it contains about 370,000 inhabitants. They are of various religions, as well as races, some fixed, but more migratory. It comprehends a climate from 44° 30' to 47° 41' north latitude, and consequently is adapted to produce the fruits and other vegetables of the warm regions, and when well peopled will become a most important portion of the Russian empire.
TAURIS. See Tabriz.
TAURUS, a celebrated range of mountains, so called by the ancients, and which were said to extend from the Grecian Archipelago to the extremities of Asia. By some they were thought to take their rise in Caria and Pamphylia; and by others among the more modern geographers, on the coast of Cilicia, not far from Scanderoon. The range intersects Asia Minor from east to west, and advancing in a north-east direction, interrupts the course of the Euphrates, and spreads itself over the kingdom of Armenia, where it unites itself with Mount Caucasus. It then diverges into Persia with a variety of branches, of which the most conspicuous is that named Mount Zagros by the ancients. This long and lofty range formerly divided Media from Assyria, and now forms the boundary of the Persian and Turkish empires. It runs parallel with the river Tigris and the Persian Gulf, and almost entirely disappears in the vicinity of Gombroon; seems once more to rise in the southern districts of Kerman, and following an easterly course through the centre of Mekran and Beloochistan, is entirely lost in the deserts of Sinde.