Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 19.djvu/200

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TEWFIK PASHA.
160
TEXAS.

and the year 1880 witnessed the establishment of the dual control of Egypt by England and France. Tewfik soon had to face the rebellion of the Nationalists under Arabi Pasha (q.v.), and Egypt was rescued from anarchy by the intervention of England, which thereby established a controlling influence in the country. The conquest of the Sudan by the Mahdi occurred during Tewfik's reign and its recovery was not begun till after his death, which took place near Cairo, January 7, 1892. Consult Penfield, Present Day Egypt (New York, 1899).

TEWKESBURY, tūks′bẽr-ĭ. A town and Parliamentary and municipal borough in Gloucestershire, England, on the Avon, 10 miles northeast of Gloucester (Map: England, D 5). The parish church, an ancient and noble edifice in Norman, is a noteworthy architectural feature, and there are interesting remains of a great Benedictine abbey founded in the twelfth century. Tewkesbury is famous as the scene of the battle fought within half a mile of it on May 4, 1471, when the Yorkists under Edward IV. and the Duke of Gloucester inflicted a signal defeat on the Lancastrians. Population, in 1891, 5269; in 1901, 5419. Consult: Blunt, History of Tewkesbury (2d ed., London, 1877); Massé, Tewkesbury Abbey Church (London, 1900).

TEX′ARKAN′A. The name of two adjoining cities situated on each side of the boundary between Arkansas and Texas, 145 miles southwest of Little Rock; on the Texas and Pacific, the Saint Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern, the Saint Louis Southwestern, the Kansas City, Pittsburg and Gulf, and other railroads (Map: Texas, H 3). One of the municipalities is the county seat of Miller County, Ark., and the other is in Bowie County, Texas. They form, however, practically one industrial community. There are a fine post-office building, two city halls, and Saint Agnes Academy, besides several handsome residences and business blocks. Texarkana has considerable importance in commerce and manufactures. It is the centre of large timber interests, and ships also cotton, cottonseed oil, and hides. Foundries and machine shops, various plants connected with the cotton industry, railway shops, lumber mills, and furniture and pottery factories constitute the leading industrial establishments. Population, Texarkana in Texas, in 1890, 2852; in 1900, 5256; Texarkana in Arkansas, in 1890, 3528; in 1900, 4914.

TEX′AS. A South Central State of the United States, popularly called the ‘Lone Star State.’ It is, next to Florida, the southernmost State of the Union, lying between latitudes 25° 51′ and 36° 30′ N., and between longitudes 93° 27′ and 106° 43′ W. It is bounded on the north by Oklahoma and Indian Territory, on the east by Arkansas and Louisiana, on the southeast by the Gulf of Mexico, on the southwest by Mexico, from which it is separated by the Rio Grande, and on the northwest by New Mexico. It is of an irregular triangular shape with the apex pointing south and a square ‘panhandle’ extending northward. Its greatest length from north to south is about 800 miles, and its greatest breadth about 750 miles. It is the largest State in the Union, having an area of 265,780 square miles, of which 3490 square miles constitute water surface. Its area is larger than the combined area of the Atlantic States from Maine to Virginia, inclusive, and nearly one-third greater than that of the whole German Empire.

Topography. In general the land rises gradually toward the western boundary by a succession of broad and more or less terraced slopes running parallel with the Gulf coast. Five or six well-marked topographical regions may be distinguished. The first is the coastal plain, a continuation of the same formation in the other Gulf States. It rises gradually from sea level to an altitude of 500 feet about 150 miles inland, and is very level in its lower portion, becoming somewhat hilly near its inner border. The coast itself is lined almost throughout its length of 375 miles by lagoons cut off from the sea by long, narrow sand islands. The largest and southernmost of these lagoons is the Laguna Madre, whose water is almost stagnant and very salt. The northern lagoons generally extend some distance inland in large, irregular bays and estuaries, lined partly by low marshy shores, partly by high bluffs. The principal bays are those of Galveston, Matagorda, San Antonio, and Corpus Christi. West of the coastal plain extends a belt of rolling country known as the Black Prairie, about 100 miles wide in the north and south, but very narrow in its middle portion. It is succeeded on the northwest by a very broad belt of country called by geologists the Central Denuded Region. This rises from a height of 600 feet in the east to over 2000 feet in the west, being bounded by the escarpment of the Llano Estacado, and is a rugged and much eroded, though not mountainous, region, with ridges, prairie valleys, isolated tablelands, and irregular depressions. It is bounded on the west and southwest by the Plateau Region, a southern continuation of the Great Plains. South of the ‘Panhandle’ this forms a large, flat-topped table-land, the Llano Estacado, which from an altitude of 4000 feet falls on the east into the Denuded Region in a high, steep, and ragged escarpment cut back by several large river valleys. On the southeast it runs out into a lower plateau of different formations known as the Grand Prairie. This sweeps around the southern end of the Denuded Region, and geologically, and according to some also topographically, it runs northward between the latter and the Black Prairie, though it is here much lower than in the south. It extends southward to the Rio Grande Valley, and is bounded on the southeast by an escarpment. The last topographical region is the portion of the State lying beyond the Pecos River in the southwest. This is a rugged mountainous country with a number of high isolated and barren ridges inclosing broad and arid valleys. The highest point is Baldy Peak, with an altitude of 8382 feet.

Hydrography. Practically all the rivers of Texas flow in parallel courses southeastward through the State. With the exception of the Canadian River in the north and the Rio Grande with the Pecos in the south, which rise in the Rocky Mountains, all the larger rivers rise on the eastern edge of the Great Plains, the Llano Estacado, and the Grand Prairie. The extreme northern part of the State belongs to the Mississippi Basin. The Canadian River crosses the Panhandle to join the Arkansas, while the Red River rises on the escarpment of the Llano Estacado and forms for a long distance part of the northern State boundary. The independent rivers