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 as to the public generally. These by-laws are carried into effect by officers of the conservators, assisted by the river-keepers of the various fishing associations. The principal associations are those at Oxford, Reading, Henley, Maidenhead and Windsor, and the Thames Angling Preservation Society, whose district is from Staines to Brentford.

 THAMES, a seaport and gold-mining centre in North Island, New Zealand, in the county and at the mouth of the river of its name, on the Firth of Thames, a deep inlet of the Hauraki Gulf of the east coast. Pop. (1906) 3750. It comprises under one municipality the settlement formerly called Grahamstown, with its suburbs Shortland and Tararu. It lies 42 m. S.E. of Auckland by the steamer-route, a pleasant journey among the islands of the Gulf. There is also railway communication with Auckland (but by a circuitous route of 120 m.), and with the neighbouring districts by branch lines. The harbour is good; the industries include foundries, shipbuilding yards and sawmills. The sea fisheries are valuable, a large part of the yield being exported to Auckland. The inland district watered by the Thames river is auriferous; Waitekuri (40 m.) and Karangahake (28 m. S. of Thames) are centres of operations. The small town of Te Aroha (32 m. by rail), on the river, besides being the centre of mining and agricultural industries, is a favourite health resort on account of its hot medicinal springs. The river is navigable for steamers of light draught. The scenery along its course is pleasant, and at Ohinemuri (20 m. from Thames) it flows through a fine gorge.

THANA, or (=a fort, or police-station), a town and district of British India, in the Northern division of Bombay. The town is on the west of the Salsette creek or Thana river, just where the Great Indian Peninsula railway crosses to the mainland, 21 m. from Bombay city. Pop. (1901) 16,011.

The has an area of 3573 sq. m. It extends along the coast for 105 m., with a breadth of 50 m., and is confined between the Western Ghats on the E. and the sea on the W., while on the N. it is bounded by the Portuguese territory of Damaun and by Surat district, and on the S. by Kolaba district. The district is well watered and wooded, and, except in the nort-east, is a low-lying rice tract broken by hills. Most of the hills were once fortified, but the forts built on them are now dilapidated and useless. (q.v.) is a favourite summer resort for the citizens of Bombay. The only rivers of any importance are the Vaitarna and the Ulhas, the former being navigable for a distance of about 20 m. from its mouth; the latter is also navigable in parts for small craft. There are no lakes; but the Vehar and the Tulsi, formed artificially, supply Bombay city with water. In 1901 the population was 811,433, showing a decrease of 1 per cent. in the decade. The staple crop is rice. Fishing supports many of the people, and the forests yield timber and other produce. Salt is largely manufactured by evaporation along the coast. At Kurla, in Salsette island, there are cotton mills and rice mills. The district is traversed throughout its length by the Bombay and Baroda railway, and also crossed by the two branches of the Great Indian Peninsula line.

The territory comprised in the district of Thana (apart from Salsette island, which was acquired in 1782) formed part of the dominions of the peshwa, and was annexed by the British in 1818 on the overthrow of Baji Rao. Since then the operations to put down the Koli robbers, which extended over several years, have been the only cause of serious trouble.

THANESAR (=“place of the god”), an ancient town of British India, in Karnal district of the Punjab, on the river Saraswati, 100 m. by rail N. of Delhi: pop. (1901) 5066. As the centre of the tract called Kurukshetra in the Mahabharata, it has always been a holy place, and was in the seventh century the capital of King Harshavardhana, who ruled over all northern India. The bathing-fair held here on the occasion of a solar eclipse is said to be attended by half a million pilgrims.

THANET, ISLE OF, the extreme north-eastern corner of Kent, England, insulated by the two branches of the river Stour, and forming one of the eight parliamentary divisions of the county. Its name is said to be derived from Saxon tene, a beacon or fire (probably from the number of watch-fires existing on this easily ravaged coast), and numerous remains of Saxon occupation have been found, as at Osengal near Ramsgate. Thanet is roughly oblong in form, its extreme measurements being about 8 m. from E. to W., and 5 m. from N. to S. The branches of the Stour dividing near Sarre take the place of the former Wantsume, a sea-passage which had diminished in breadth to half a mile in the time of Augustine. The Wantsume was guarded by the Roman strongholds of Regulbium (Reculver) in the north and Rutupiae (Richborough) in the south, and was crossed by ferries at Sarre and Wade. With the drying up of this channel and the closing of Sandwich harbour in the 16th century, the present marshlands or level to the south and west of the isle were left. The sea-face of Thanet consists mainly of bold slopes or sheer cliffs, and the eastern extremity is the fine headland of the North Foreland. Containing the popular seaside resorts of Ramsgate, Broadstairs, Margate and Westgate, Thanet is served by the South-Eastern & Chatham railway, and Minster is a junction station of the lines to Ramsgate and Sandwich respectively.

 THANKSGIVING DAY, in the United States, the fourth Thursday in November, annually set apart for thanksgiving by proclamation of the president and of the governors of the various states. The day is observed with religious services in the churches, and, especially in New England, as an occasion for family reunion. The Pilgrims set apart a day for thanksgiving at Plymouth immediately after their first harvest, in 1621; the Massachusetts Bay Colony for the first time in 1630, and frequently thereafter until about 1680, when it became an annual festival in that colony; and Connecticut as early as 1639 and annually after 1647, except in 1675. The Dutch in New Netherland appointed a day for giving thanks in 1644 and occasionally thereafter. During the War of Independence the Continental Congress appointed one or more thanksgiving days each year, except in 1777, each time recommending to the executives of the various states the observance of these days in their states. President Washington appointed a day of thanksgiving (Thursday, the 26th of November) in 1789, and appointed another in 1795. President Madison, in response to resolutions of Congress, set apart a day for thanksgiving at the close of the War of 1812. One was annually appointed by the governor of New York from 1817. In some of the Southern States there was opposition to the observance of such a day on the ground that it was a relic of Puritanic bigotry, but by 1858 proclamations appointing a day of thanksgiving were issued by the governors of twenty-five states and two Territories. President Lincoln appointed the fourth Thursday of November 1864, and since that time each president has annually followed his example.

See F. B. Hough, Proclamations for Thanksgiving (Albany, 1858); W. D. Love, The Fast and Thanksgiving Days of New England (Boston, 1395); May Lowe, “Thanksgiving Day” in New England Magazine (Nov. 1904); C. L. Norton, “Thanksgiving Day, Past and Present,” in the Magazine of American History (Dec. 1885); R. M. Schauffler (ed.), Thanksgiving (New York, 1907).

THANN, a town of Germany, in Upper Alsace, 16 m. by rail N.W. of Mülhausen. Pop. (1905) 7901. It is the seat of cotton, calico, silk, machinery and other industries, and excellent wine is grown there. The (Roman Catholic) church of St Theobald (1351) is an elegant specimen of Gothic, and has a remarkably fine tower (1450–1516), 266 ft. high. Above the town are the ruins of the castle of Engelburg, destroyed by Turenne in 1675.

THAPSACUS, the “large and prosperous city” on the Arabian side of the Euphrates where Cyrus the Younger revealed to the Greeks the object of his expedition (Xen. Anab. i. 4, 11). No such place has yet been found mentioned in cuneiform texts. We may have a Semitic form of the name in the Hebrew Tiphsah; but it is impossible to determine whether the one phrase “from Tiphsah to Gaza” (1 Kings v. 4—iv. 24 in the English version), where the name seems to occur, is as early