THOMSON 



5796 



THORACIC DUCT 



eries Treaty with the United States, and in 

 1893, while Premier, he was one of the arbitra- 

 tors of the Bering Sea Controversy. Sir John 

 died at Windsor Castle, where he had just taken 

 the oath as a member of the Privy Council. 

 Queen Victoria in 1887 conferred on him the 

 honor of Knight Commander of the Order of 

 Saint Michael and Saint George (K. C. M.G.). 



THOMSON, JAMES (1700-1748), a Scottish 

 poet, born at Ednam, Roxburghshire. He 

 studied at the University of Edinburgh, where 

 he was to prepare himself for the ministry. 

 This purpose he gave up, however, and after 

 moving to London, began at once to produce 

 poetry. During the next four years appeared 

 successively the poems that compose his Sea- 

 sons, a work that became immediately popular 

 and was revised and expanded in 1744. In 1730 

 he started on a two years' tour of Europe as 

 tutor of Sir Charles Talbot's son and upon his 

 return was given by his patron, then Lord Chan- 

 cellor, a position which made practically no 

 demands on him but brought him 300 a year. 



This income ceased with the death of Talbot 

 in 1737, but in the following year Thomson 

 was granted a pension and in 1744 was made 

 surveyor-general of the Leeward Islands. In 

 the year of his death appeared The Castle of 

 Indolence, in which he attempted, with much 

 success, to reproduce not only the form but the 

 spirit of Spenser's Faerie Queene. Among his 

 other writings are the tragedy Tancred and Sigis- 

 munda and The Masque oj Alfred, in which 

 occurs the famous Rule Britannia. Some crit- 

 ics declare that the honor of the latter compo- 

 sition should be shared with other writers of 

 the day, and that it was not entirely his own. 

 The poems of Thomson have a peculiar inter- 

 est because they were the first to show the 

 change from devotion to mere form, as in the 

 classical age, to a free and natural treatment of 

 the beauties of nature. 



THOR, thawr, the thunderer, in Northern 

 mythology, the eldest son of Odin and the 

 strongest of the gods, their champion in the 

 almost incessant wars against the giants. As a 

 child Thor was noted for his size and great 

 strength. Ordinarily he was a good-natured boy, 

 but sometimes he fell into such terrible pas- 

 sions that his mother was unable to control him, 

 so she gave him into the charge of foster par- 

 ents, who brought him up very wisely. When 

 he had grown to maturity he built in Asgard a 

 wonderful palace which he named Bilskirnir 

 (lightning). Thor was especially the god of 

 peasants and the laboring classes, and in the 



540 halls of his great palace he met his favorite 

 dead and feasted with them, as Odin did with 

 their masters. 



Thor's wife was Sif, whose chief attraction was 

 her long, golden hair, which covered her from 

 head to foot like a veil. One morning Sif 

 awoke and found her beautiful hair all gone. 

 Thor, who admired it excessively, vowed that 

 he would punish the thief most severely. He 

 suspected Loki as the culprit, and having fol- 

 lowed him through numerous changing forms, 

 at last captured him and compelled him to ad- 

 mit that he had taken Sif s golden hair. Thor, 

 however, consented to let the traitor go if he 

 would procure a new head of hair as beautiful 

 as the first. 



At once Loki proceeded to the realm of the 

 dwarfs, where he begged Dvalin to make the 

 hair, and at the same time prepare presents 

 for both Odin and Frey, whose anger he wished 

 to disarm. For Odin the dwarf made the fa- 

 mous spear which never failed in its aim, and 

 for Frey the ship which sailed over land as well 

 as water, and then he spun from the finest 

 gold thread the long tresses which were war- 

 ranted to grow luxuriantly again as soon as 

 they touched the head of Sif. The skill with 

 which this was done led to wagers being laid 

 among the dwarfs, and as a result of their com- 

 petition they made many other magic things 

 which the gods afterwards possessed. They 

 made the enormous boar with its golden bris- 

 tles for Frey, the magic ring of gold from which, 

 every ninth night, eight similar rings dropped; 

 and a magic hammer which came back to the 

 hand that threw it. This last gift was for Thor. 

 The hammer was always red hot, and even the 

 handle was so heated that the god was obliged 

 to wear an iron gauntlet in order to use it. 

 Besides this, Thor possessed a magic girdle 

 which doubled his strength whenever he drew 

 it around his body. 



As Thor rode about the heavens in his brazen 

 chariot drawn by two goats, from whose teeth 

 and hoofs sparks were constantly flying, the 

 lightnings flashed from his hammer, and as he 

 threw it through the air the thunder roared. 

 In art Thor is represented as a man in the 

 prime of life, tall, well formed, with bristling 

 red hair and beard and strong, muscular limbs. 

 Thursday is Thor's day. A.MC c. 



THORACIC DUCT, thoras'ik dukt, one of 

 the main tubes of the lymphatic system, or the 

 network of vessels carrying the fluid (lymph) 

 from which the body cells obtain nourishment. 

 It is the great trunk which receives the lymph 



