THORN (Polish Torùn ), an interesting old town in the province of West Prussia, is situated on the right bank of the Vistula, near the point where the river enters Prussian territory, 26 miles south-east of Bromberg and 92 miles south of Dantzic. Its position near the frontier of Russian Poland makes it a strategic point of importance; and, strongly fortified since 1818, in 1878 it was converted into a fortress of the first class. The “old town,” founded in 1231, and the “new town,” founded thirty-three years later, were united in 1454, and both retain a number of quaint buildings dating from the 15th and 16th centuries, when Thorn was a flourishing member of the Hanseatic League. The town-house, of the 14th and 16th centuries, the churches of St John and the Virgin, with aisles as lofty as the nave, the ruined castle of the Teutonic order, and the gates, leaning tower, and fragments of the walls, all of the 13th century, are among the most interesting edifices. The ancient wooden bridge, now burned down, at one time the only permanent bridge across the lower Vistula, has been succeeded by a massive iron railway viaduct, half a mile long. Thorn carries on an active trade in grain, timber, wine, colonial wares, and iron, and has manufactures of leather, hats, starch, candles, and numerous other articles. It is famous for its “Pfefferkuchen,” a kind of gingerbread. Part of the trade is carried on by vessels on the Vistula. In 1885 the population was 23,914 (in 1816 7909), about three-fifths being Protestants and two-fifths (chiefly Poles) Roman Catholics....

A general name for several kinds of prickly plants. 1. In the curse denounced against the earth, Gen. iii, 18, its produce is threatened to be “thorns and thistles,” קוץ ודרדר, in the Septuagint ἀκάνθας καὶ τριϐόλους. St. Paul uses the same words, Heb. vi, 8, where the last is rendered “briers;” they are also found Hos. x, 8. The word _kutz_ is put for “thorns,” in other places, as Exod. xxii, 6; Judges viii, 7; Ezek. ii, 6; xxviii, 24; but we are uncertain whether it means a specific kind of thorn, or may be a generic name for all plants of a thorny kind. In the present instance it seems to be general for all those obnoxious plants, shrubs, &c, by which the labours of the husbandman are impeded, and which are only fit for burning. If the word denotes a particular plant, it maybe the “rest-harrow,” a pernicious prickly weed, which grows promiscuously with the large thistles in the uncultivated grounds, and covers entire fields and plains, in Egypt and Palestine. From the resemblance of the Hebrew _dardar_, to the Arabic word _dardargi_, Scheuchzer supposes the _cnicus_ to be intended. 2. תות, from its etymology, must be a kind of thorn, with incurvated spines, like fish hooks, similar to those of the North American “witch hazel.” Celsius says that the same word, and of the same original in Arabic, is the “black thorn,” or “sloe tree,” the _prunus spinosa_ of Linnæus. 3. סירים. It is impossible to determine what plants are intended by this word. Meninski says that _serbin_, in the Persic language, is the name of a tree bearing thorns. In Eccles. vii, 6, and Nahum i, 10, they are mentioned as fuel which quickly burns up; and in Hosea ii, 6, as obstructions or hedges; it may be the _lycium Afrum_. 4. ...

THORNBACK is the name given to a species of ray {Raja clavata) which is found all round the coasts of Europe, and locally abundant; it derives its name from the peculiar armature of the skin of its body, the upper and lower surfaces of the body of the female being armed with scattered, more or less numerous, large round osseous bucklers, each with a spine in the centre; the tail also is armed with rows of similar bucklers. In the male fish these bucklers are absent, or nearly so. The thornback does not grow to the same large size as the skates, a specimen three feet across being considered large. It is more valued as food than the other rays, and consumed in large quantities, fresh as well as salted.

THORNHILL, Sir James (1676-1734), historical painter, was born at Melcombe Regis, Dorset, in 1676, coming of an ancient but impoverished county family. His father died while he was young, but he was befriended by his maternal uncle, the celebrated Dr Sydenham, and apprenticed to Thomas Highmore, sergeant-painter to King William III., a connexion of the Thornhill family. Little is known regarding his early career. About 1715 he visited Holland, Flanders, and France; and, having obtained the patronage of Queen Anne, he was in 1719-20 appointed her serjeant-painter in succession to Highmore, and was ordered to decorate the interior of the dome of St Paul’s with a series of eight designs, in chiaroscuro heightened with gold, illustrative of the life of that apostle,—a commission for which Louis Laguerre had previously been selected by the commissioners for the repair of the cathedral. He also designed and decorated the saloon and hall of Moor Park, Herts, and painted the great hall at Blenheim, the princesses? apartments at Hampton Court, the hall and staircase of the Southsea Company, the chapel at Wimpole, the staircase at Easton-Neston, Northamptonshire, and the hall at Greenwich Hospital, usually considered his most important and successful work, upon which he was engaged from 1708 to 1727. Among his easel pictures are the altar-pieces of All Souls and Queen’s College chapels, Oxford, and that in Melcombe Regis church; and he executed such portrait subjects as that of Sir Isaac Newton, in Trinity College, Cambridge, and the picture of the House of Commons in 1730, now in the possession of the earl of Hardwicke, in which he was assisted by Hogarth, who married Jane, his only daughter. He also produced a few etchings in a slight and sketchy but effective manner, and ...