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106 paintings, notably " Niagara as it Is," display ability. His published works include " Our Army of the Rio Grande" (Philadelphia, 1846); "Mys- teries of the Backwoods " (1846) ; " Our Army at Monterey" (1847); "Lynde Weiss, an Autobi- ography" (1854); "The Hive of the Bee-Hunter" (New York, 1854); "A Voice to America" (1855); "Scenes in Arkansaw" (1858); and "Reminis- cences of Charles L. Elliott."

'''THORVALD. Ericsson''', Scandinavian navigator, d. in Massachusetts in 1004. He was the brother of Leif, the son of Eric the Red, who persuaded him to visit Vinland, giving him the ship that he had bought from Biarn Hermlfson, and many wise directions as to his course. Thorvald selected thirty men, and sailed westward in 1002. He reached what has been thought to be the coast of Rhode Island, and passed the winter in Leifs- budir (Leif's house), some wooden huts which Leif is supposed to have built at the mouth of Pocasset river, near the present site of Providence. In the spring of 1003 he went on a voyage of discovery along the southern coast. His men saw a lovely country covered with forests, which were separated from the shore only by a thin border of white sand. The sea was enaAelled with little islands, in one of which they discovered a wooden barn. The others appeared without any trace of men or animals. After obtaining a glimpse of an island that lay toward the west, supposed to be Long Island, they returned in the autumn to Leifsbudir. In the fol- lowing summer Thorvald determined to explore the northern coast, but a violent storm damaged the keel of his ship. He stopped for some time, refitting in the neighborhood, and when about to put to sea he said to his companions: "Let us raise on this point of land the keel of a ship, and let us call it Kialarnes " (Keel cape). Rafn, Kohl, and other scholars that are interested in the ante- Columbian discovery of the American continent, think that the Kialarnes of Thorvald is Cape Cod. Then Thorvald sailed westward and anchored near a promontory, which has been supposed to be Gurnet point or Cape Alderton. The country ap- peared so beautiful that after landing he said : " This country is very fine ; I would like to build my house here." After returning to the vessel, the Northmen saw three dark points on the beach that looked like hillocks. They were three " carabos " (canoes of wickerwork, covered with skins), each containing three men. The Northmen seized and killed eight of the savages, but the ninth escaped. Thorvald then landed, explored the promontory, and discovered elevations, which he took for hu- man habitations. The Northmen returned to their vessel at nightfall, but they were soon awakened from their sleep by cries of vengeance. The vessel was surrounded by a crowd of canoes that came to exact reparation for the assassinations of the morning. They were manned by the Skrsellings, or Esquimaux, who appear to have dwelt at that time farther south than they did in the 16th cen- tury. These savages discharged a shower of ar- rows on the Northmen, and fled. Thorvald asked his companions if they were wounded, and all re- plied in the negative. " But I am," he said ; " this arrow, after rebounding from my buckler, entered under the armpit. I advise you to depart quickly from this land and leave me on the promontory where I wished to build my house. I have pro- phesied my destiny, for there shall I dwell. You shall bury me in this place, and put two crosses on my tomb, one at my head and the other at my feet, so that henceforward this promontory shall be called Krossarnes " (Promontory of the Crosses). A skeleton was discovered late in the 18th cen- tury on Rainsford island, and with it the hilt of an iron sword. Some antiquarians have conclud- ed that the skeleton was that of an ancient Scan- dinavian, and that the workmanship of the hi!t proved it to be not later than the 15th century. After the burial of Thorvald, the Northmen re- turned to Leifsbudir, and in 1005 sailed for Green- land. See " Decouverte de 1'Amerique par les Nor- mands au X e siecle," by Gabriel Gravier (Paris, 1874) ; " Antiquitates Americana?," by Carl Chris- tian Rafn (Copenhagen,' 1837); " Denkmaler Gron- lands," by the same (3 vols., 1838-'45) ; " Etude sur les rapports de 1'Amerique et de l'ancien continent avant Christophe Colomb," by M. Gaffarel (Paris, 1869) ; " Historia Vinlandiae Antiquae," by Th. Torfaeus (Copenhagen, 1711); " The Heimskringla of Snorre Sturlesons, or Chronicles of the Kings of Norway," translated into English by Samuel Laing (London, 1844) ; and " Discovery of America by Northmen," by Eben N. Horsford (Boston, 1888).

THRASHER, John S., journalist, b. in Port- land, Me,, in 1817; d. in Galveston, Tex., 10 Nov., 1879. While he was a youth his parents removed to Havana, Cuba, where he followed for some time a successful mercantile career, but abandoned it for journalism, purchasing, in 1849, the " Faro In- dustrial," which was then the only Liberal news- paper. In September, 1851, his paper was sup- pressed, and he was condemned by court-martial to ten years' imprisonment with hard labor at Ceuta and perpetual banishment from Cuba. After sev- eral months the U. S. minister at Madrid secured his release. He afterward established in New Or- leans a Sunday journal called the " Beacon of Cuba," and in 1853-'5 was an active member of the junta that organized a filibustering expedition to be led by Gen. John A. Quitman. When the U. S. au- thorities prevented the departure of this expedi- tion, Thrasher went to New York city. For sev- eral years he travelled in Central and South Ameri- ca as a newspaper correspondent, and edited the " Noticioso de Nuevo York," a journal devoted to the interests of Spanish- American countries. Mar- rying a lady whose property was in Texas, he re- moved to the south, and remained there during the civil war, acting as agent for the associated press at Atlanta. After the war he edited for several years Frank Leslie's " Ilustracion Ameri- cana " in New York city, and afterward resided in Galveston. He published a translation of Alexan- der von Humboldt's " Personal Narrative of Trav- els," with notes and an introductory essay (New York, 1856), also many essays on the social, com- mercial, and political conditions of Cuba.

THROCKMORTON, James Webb, governor of Texas, b. in Sparta, Tenn., 1 Feb., 1825. He accompanied his father to Texas in 1841, became a lawyer, and entered the legislature in 1851, serving continuously in one branch or the other till the beginning of the civil war. He was a member of the convention that passed the ordinance of secession, against which he voted, with six others, but he joined the Confederate army in the spring of 1861, and served as a captain, and afterward as a major till November, 1863, when he resigned in order to take his seat again in the state senate. In 1864 he was appointed a brigadier-general of state troops, and in May, 1864, was placed by the state military authorities in command on the north-western border of Texas, where he made treaties with the Comanches, Cheyennes, and other tribes, returning from the plains in June, 1865, after Lee's surrender at Appomattox. He was a member of the Constitutional convention that was called in