Page:EB1911 - Volume 27.djvu/66

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
52
TORENO—TORONTO

and Revolution of Spain, which he began between 1823 and 1832 and published in 1836–1838 in Paris. As a work of military criticism it is not of high value, and Toreno was prejudiced in favour of his colleagues of the Cortes, whose errors and excesses he shared in and excused. The book is, however, written in excellent Castilian, and was compiled with industry. It is worth consulting as an illustration of the time in which the author lived, as a patriotic Spanish view of the war, and for the prominence it gives to the political side of the Peninsular War, which he justly treated as a revolution.

A biography by Don Antonio de Cueto is prefixed to the reprint of the Levantamiento guerra y revolución de España, in vol. lxiv. of the Biblioteca de autores españoles of Rivadeneyra (Madrid 1846–1880).


TORENO, QUEIPO DE LLANO Y GAYOSO DE, Count (1840–1890), Spanish politician, son of the preceding, was born in Madrid in 1840. He was educated at the Madrid Institute and University, entered parliament in 1864 as a Moderado, and sat in all the Cortes of Queen Isabella's reign as a deputy for his ancestral province, Asturias. Loyal to the Bourbons all through the revolution, he nevertheless became a deputy in the Cortes of 1871–1873, and founded an Alphonsist paper, El Tiempo, in 1873. When the Restoration took place, its first cabinet made Count de Toreno mayor of the capital, and in 1875 minister of public works, in which capacity he improved the public libraries, museums, academies and archives, and caused many important works to be published, including the Cartas de Indias. In 1879 he became minister for foreign affairs, in 1880 president of the House of Deputies, in 1884 again governor of Madrid, and in 1885 again president of the House of Deputies. During the reign of Alphonso XII. and the first years of the regency of Queen Christina Count de Toreno was one of the most prominent Conservative leaders, and was often consulted by the Crown. He died on the 31st of January 1890. He was a patron of the turf, and established a race-course in Madrid, where the first races took place in the reign of Alphonso XII.


TORGAU, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Saxony, situated on the left bank of the Elbe, 30 m. N.E. of Leipzig and 26 m. S.E. of Wittenberg by rail. Pop. (1905), 12,299. Its most conspicuous building is the Schloss Hartenfels, on an island in the Elbe, which was built, or at least was finished, by the elector of Saxony, John Frederick the Magnanimous. This castle, which is now used as a barracks, is one of the largest Renaissance buildings in Germany. It was for some time the residence of the electors of Saxony and contains a chapel consecrated by Martin Luther. The town hall, a 16th-century building, houses a collection of Saxon antiquities. Torgau has two Evangelical churches and a Roman Catholic church. One of the former, the Stadt Kirche, contains paintings by Lucas Cranach and the tomb of Catherine von Bora, the wife of Luther. The chief industries of the town are the manufacture of gloves, carriages, agricultural machinery, beer and bricks; there is a trade in grain both on the Elbe and by rail. The fortifications, begun in 1807 by order of Napoleon, were dismantled in 1889–1891. In the vicinity is the royal stud farm of Graditz.

Torgau is said to have existed as the capital of a distinct principality in the time of the German king Henry I., but early in the 14th century it was in the possession of the margraves of Meissen and later of the electors of Saxony, who frequently resided here. The town came into prominence at the time of the Reformation. In 1526 John, elector of Saxony, Philip, landgrave of Hesse, and other Protestant princes formed a league against the Roman Catholics, and the Torgau articles, drawn up here by Luther and his friends in 1530, were the basis of the confession of Augsburg. Torgau is particularly celebrated as the scene of a battle fought on the 3rd of November 1760, when Frederick the Great defeated the Austrians (see Seven Years' War). In January 1814 Torgau was taken by the Germans after a siege of three months and it was formally ceded to Prussia in 1815.

See Grulich and Bürger, Denkwürdigkeiten der altszichsischen Residenz Torgau aus der Zeit der Reformation (Torgau, 1855); Knabe, Geschichte der Stadt Torgau bis zur Reformation (Torgau, 1880); and the publications of the Alterturnvereiri zu Torgau (Torgau, 1884 sqq.).


TORNADO (Span, tornado, a turning about, cf. “turn”), a local whirlwind of extreme violence, usually formed within a. thunderstorm. In appearance it consists of a funnel-shaped cloud, depending from the mass of storm-cloud above, and when fully developed tapering downwards to the earth. Besides its whirling motion, a tornado has an advancing movement of from 20 to 40 m. an hour—and along its own narrow path it carries destruction. Its duration is usually from half an hour to an hour. Tornadoes are most common in America, especially in the Mississippi Valley and the Southern states; in Europe and elsewhere they are comparatively rare. Owing to their association with thunderstorms they generally occur in warm weather. A tornado is the result of a condition of local instability in the atmosphere, originating high above the earth. A current of air is induced to ascend with a rapid spiral motion round a central core of low pressure. The moisture in the ascending air is condensed by cooling both as it ascends and as it expands into the low-pressure core. The cloud-funnel appears to grow downwards because the moisture in the air is condensed more rapidly than the air itself, following a spiral course, ascends.


TORO, a town of Spain, in the province of Zamora, on the right bank of the river Duero (Douro), and on the Zamora-Medina del Campo railway. Pop. (1900), 8379. Toro is an ancient fortified town, with picturesque narrow streets, among which are many medieval churches, convents and palaces, besides modern schools and public buildings. A fine bridge of twenty-two arches spans the river. The cathedral church is Romanesque; it dates from the 12th century but has been partially restored. The palace of the marquesses of Santa. Cruz was the meeting place of the Cortes of 1371, 1442 and 1505, which made Toro and its code of laws celebrated. Toro is first mentioned in documents of the 10th century. It played an important, part in the development of the kingdoms of Leon and Castile and in the reconquest of Spain from the Moors.


TORONTO, the capital of the province of Ontario, and the second largest city in the Dominion of Canada, situated on the northern shore of Lake Ontario, almost due north from the mouth of the Niagara river. It lies on a plateau gradually ascending from the lake shore to an altitude of 220 ft., and covers an area of nearly 20 sq. m. The river Don flows through the eastern part of the city, and the river Humber forms its western limit. The fine bay in front of the city, affording a safe and commodious harbour, is formed by an island stretching along the south of it. The city is well laid out for the most part, the streets crossing each other at right angles; Yonge Street, the chief artery, running north from the bay, was constructed as a military road in 1796, and extends under the same name for upwards of 30 m. to Lake Simcoe. It constitutes the dividing line of the city, the cross streets being called east or west according to the side of it they are on.

Toronto is the seat of government for the province, and contains the parliament buildings, the lieutenant-governor's residence, the courts of law and the educational departmental buildings. The parliament buildings are, situated in Queen's Park, almost in the centre of the city, and are an imposing structure of red sandstone in the neo-Greek style built at great cost. They are shortly to be enlarged, as the needs of the province have outgrown them. A little distance to the west stand the university buildings, the central one being a splendid piece of architecture in the Norman style. Stretching in a semicircle round the broad campus are the library, the medical building, the biology building and museum, the school of practical science, the geology and chemistry buildings and the convocation hall, their architecture varying very greatly, beauty having been sacrificed to more practical considerations; the magnetic observatory is also in the grounds, but is overshadowed by some of the more recent erections. It is one of the meteorological