TRENT 



5873 



TRENT CANAL 



many species of which are found in the temper- 

 ate parts of the northern hemisphere. 



Bird's-foot trefoil, so called because it bears 

 clusters of pods somewhat resembling a crow's 

 foot, has prostrate stems, yellow flowers with 

 a honeyLke scent and leaves divided into three 

 leaflets. The plant is sometimes identified with 

 the Irish shamrock. It grows commonly in 

 European meadows and in the United States, 

 especially in the South. Among other species 

 are the winged pea, which southern Europeans 

 use in making salads; and marsh bird's-joot, 

 commonly seen in damp meadow land. In art, 

 trefoil is the name of a three-lobed decorative 

 figure. 



TRENT, next to the Thames and the Severn, 

 the most important river of England. It rises 

 on the northwestern border of Staffordshire, 

 flows southeast to the borders of Derbyshire, 

 then northeasterly through Derby, Nottingham 

 and Lincoln, until it meets the Ouse. These 

 two streams unite to form the Humber. The 

 Trent is 170 miles long and is navigable for 

 barges for 120 miles. 



Through the Nottingham woods, watered by 

 the Trent, Robin Hood used to roam and hunt, 

 and on its banks is Stoke-Upon-Trent, the cen- 

 ter of a group of pottery towns which Arnold 

 Bennett, in his novels of the Five Towns, has 

 made famous. 



TRENT, COUNCIL OF. After the development 

 of the Protestant Reformation, Roman Catho- 

 lic authorities felt the need of a great council 

 for the restatement of the fundamental doc- 

 trines of the Church. Such a council was called 

 at Trent, a city of the Austrian Tyrol, in De- 

 cember, 1545, by Pope Paul III. Wars and 

 religious disturbances interrupted the sittings, 

 and the work of the council was not completed 

 until 1563, when its decrees were confirmed by 

 Pope Pius IV. The council reaffirmed the doc- 

 trine of granting indulgences, but corrected 

 some of the defects in regard to practice, and 

 decided several other important questions. The 

 decrees of the Council of Trent are. at the 

 present time regarded as authoritative state- 

 ments of Roman Catholic creed and practice. 



TRENT AFFAIR, THE, an episode of the 

 War of Secession which is of historic importance 

 chiefly because it involved the old question of 

 the right of search. In the fall of 1861 the Con- 

 federate government commissioned John Slidell 

 and James M. Mason to go to France and Eng- 

 land to secure the aid of those countries for the 

 Southern cause. The British mail steamer 

 Trent took them aboard at Havana. On the 



eighth of November the Trent was halted by 

 the United States ship San Jacinto, under com- 

 mand of Captain Charles Wllkes, and the com- 

 missioners were taken prisoner and carried to 

 Fort Warren, in Boston Harbor. 



Though the people of the North approved of 

 this act, it was recognized as a breach of inter- 

 national law by President Lincoln and Secre- 

 tary of State Seward. The President said, "We 

 fought Great Britain in 1812 for insisting on 

 the right to do precisely what Captain Wilkes 

 has done." Accordingly, in response to Eng- 

 land's demand that the commissioners be given 

 up, the American government ordered them 

 released and made a formal apology. In the 

 course of the diplomatic correspondence Sec- 

 retary Seward congratulated England on having 

 become an advocate of the principle to which 

 America had long ago given assent. The com- 

 missioners proceeded to London, but accom- 

 plished nothing, as the British government re- 

 fused to recognize the Confederate states as a 

 belligerent nation. 



Related Subjects. The reader may consult 

 in this connection the following articles : 

 Mason and Slidell War of Secession 



Search, Right of Wilkes, Charles 



TRENT CANAL, also called the TRENT VAL- 

 LEY CANAL, a Canadian waterway, in Southern 

 Ontario. It is destined to become a through 

 route between Lake Ontario and Lake Huron, 

 but at present is efficient only for local use. It 

 is really a series of water stretches lakes, rivers 

 and canals extending from Trenton, Ont., at 

 the mouth of the Trent River (on the Bay of 

 Quinte, Lake Ontario), to Honey Harbor, on 

 Georgian Bay, about ten miles north of the 

 town of Midland. From Trenton the course 

 ascends the Trent River, then passes through 

 Rice Lake and a chain of smaller lakes to Lake 

 Balsam, the summit ; thence it extends through 

 Lake Simcoe and Lake Couchiching and the 

 Severn River to Georgian Bay. Construction 

 was begun by the British government in 1837, 

 but completion has been postponed from time 

 to time. 



The most noteworthy improvements on the 

 Trent Canal are the two great hydraulic lift 

 locks, one at Peterborough, with a lift of sixty- 

 five feet, and one at Kirkfield, with a lift of 

 fifty feet. The Peterborough lock, which is 

 shown in the illustration on page 1111, is the 

 largest of its kind in the world. There are in 

 all twenty-five locks on the Trent Canal, all 

 except one being east of the summit. The an- 

 nual freight tonnage varies from 60,000 to 



