TORREY 444 TORTOISE "Birds in the Bush" (1885) ; "The Foot- path Way"; "A Rambler's Lease"; "A Florida Sketch-Book" ; "Spring Notes from Tennessee" (1896); "A World of Green Hills" (1898); "Friends on the Shelf" (1906); "Field Days in Califor- nia" (1913). He died in 1912. TORRINGTON, a town in Litchfield CO., Conn. ; on the Naugatuck river ; about 28 miles W. by N. of Hartford. It con- tains many churches, a high school, waterworks, electric lights, banks, and daily and weekly newspapers. Torring- ton has manufactories of woolen goods, hardware, plated goods, machinery, needles, etc., and an assessed valuation of nearly $6,000,000. It was the birth- place of John Brown. Pop. (1910) 15,483; (1920) 20,623. TORSION, in mechanics, the force with which a body, as a thread, wire, or slender rod, resists a twist, or the force with which it tends to return to its orig- inal state on being twisted. Such ma- chines as capstans and windlasses, also axles, which revolve with their wheels, are, when in action, subjected to be twisted, or undergo the strain or torsion. If a slender rod of metal be suspended vertically, so as to be rigidly fixed at the point of suspension, and then twisted, through a certain angle, it will, when the twisting force ceases to act, untwist it- self or return in the opposite direction with a greater or less force or velocity, till it comes to rest in its original posi- tion. The limits of torsion within which the body will return to its original state depend on its elasticity, and the force with which it tends to recover its natural state is termed elasticity of torsion. This force is always proportional to the angle through which the body has been twisted. If a body is twisted so as to exceed the limit of its elasticity, its particles will either be wrenched asunder or it will take a set, and will not return to its original position on the withdrawal of the twisting force. In surgery, the twisting of the cut end of a small artery in a wound or after an operation, for the purpose of checking hemorrhage. The bleeding vessel is seized by an instrument called a torsion forceps, drawn out for about a quarter of an inch, and then twisted round sev- eral times, till it cannot untwist itself. TORSTENSSON, LENNART, a Swedish general in the Thirty Years' War; born in Torstena, Sweden, Aug. 17, 1603; became in his 15th year page to Gustavus Adolphus; and in 1630, as cap- tain of the bodyguard, accompanied the king to Germany, where he highly dis- tinguished himself in the battle on tha Lech, April 5, 1632. He was taken pris- oner before Nuremberg, Aug. 12, 1632, and six months in a subterranean dun- geon shattered his health and obliged him to return to Sweden. In 1641 he became commander-in-chief of the Swedish army. He entered Schlesien through Sachsen, took Glogau and Schweidnitz, turned into Moravia and captured Olmtitz. Obliged to retreat into Sachsen before the Arch- duke Leopold and Piccolomini, he turned on his pursuers and inflicted a severe de- feat at Breitenfeld, Nov. 2, 1642. In con- sequence of Denmark's declaration of war against Sweden, in December ha burst into Denmark, and in six weeks subjugated the whole peninsula, with the exception of the fortresses Rendsburg and Gliickstadt. After defeating the Aus- trian general Gallas at Jiiterbok, Nov. 23, 1644, he returned into Bohemia, de- feated Katzfield at Jankau, March 6, 1645, overran Moravia, and demolished the fortifications before Vienna. He then laid siege to Briinn, but was forced to retreat into Bohemia. He was made Count of Ortala by Christina in 1647, and died in Stockholm, April 7, 1651. TORT, in law, denotes injustice or in- jury. Actions on torts or wrongs are all personal actions for trespasses, nui- sances, assaults, defamatory words, and the like. TORTOISE, in zoology, a name for- merly taken to include all the Chelonians, but now, unless qualified by an adjective, confined to the individuals of the family GIANT TORTOISiS Testudinidse. Tortoises, in the wider sense, are sluggish reptiles, long-lived, and extremely tenacious of life under ad- verse surroundings, and have survived from remote antiquity, while higher ani- mal types, formerly contemporaneous with them, have become extinct, and have been succeeded by very different forms. They have an osseous exoskeleton, which is combined with the endoskeleton to form a kind of bony case or box in which the body of the animal is inclosed, and which is covered by a coriaceous skin.
