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 550 TABERNACLE and Slavs. It stands in a marshy plain, and is divided into the town proper and the upper and lower suburbs. The river is crossed by a bridge of boats, and the town is defended by an old fortress built by the Turks in the 16th century, which contains extensive barracks, a house of correction, and a church of its own. There are six Roman Catholic churches, a Catholic gymnasium, and a beautiful Greek church. Cloth, tobacco, soda, and soap are manufactured, and river boats are- built. It is connected by rail with all parts of the coun- try, and carries on an extensive trade. In the summer of 1849 it was the seat of the Hun- garian diet till it was taken by the Austrians early in August. SZEKLERS. See TEANSYLVANIA. SZOLNOK. I. Middle, a county formerly be- longing to Transylvania, and now to Hungary, bounded S. E. by Transylvania ; area, 855 sq. m.; pop. in 1870, 113,639, chiefly Wallachs. It is mountainous, and watered by tributaries of the Szainos. Capital, Szila,gy-Somly6. n. A town of Hungary, in the county of Heves, on the Theiss, 56 rn. E. S. E. of Pesth ; pop. in 1870, 15,847, chiefly Magyars. It is connected with Pesth, Arad, and Debreczin by rail, and has considerable trade and important fisheries. T TTHE 20th letter and 16th consonant of, the English and other alphabets derived from the Roman, the 19th of the Greek (tau), and the 9th of the Hebrew (tetK). It is of the denti-lingual class, and represents the sound produced by a forcible emission of the breath after placing the tongue against the roof of the mouth near the roots of the teeth. This forcible emission of the breath is the principal distinction between the sounds of t and its sonorous counterpart d. In etymol- ogy it is interchangeable with d, and some- times with th, p, s, and I. By itself it has but one sound; but combined with h, it forms a simple sound, hard or soft in quality, distinct from that of either component; as the th in thigh, which the Anglo-Saxons represented by 3, the Greeks by 6 (theta), and the Hebrews by D (tav~) ; or as in thy, which the Anglo-Sax- ons represented by J>. This sound is wanting in all the other European languages except Spanish (d, z, and c before e or i), modern Greek (0 and 6), Danish (d between vowels, very .faint), and Welsh (dd). In French t is dropped in many words from the Latin where it is preceded and followed by a vowel ; as in pere, mere, vie, from pater, mater, vita ; also from the termination of many words. In Eng- lish, before i and another vowel, t has the sound of sh, as in nation ; in French, of s ; in German, of tz. As a Greek numeral T stood for 300, ,r for 300,000. Among the Latins T represented 160, and with a dash above it (f) 160,000. As an abbreviation it stands for ilie- ologia, as in S. T. D., sacra theologiw doctor; and in ancient writings, monuments, or coins, for Titus, Titius, Tullius, and sometimes tri- bunus. (See D.) TABASCO, a S. E. state of Mexico, bounded N. by the gulf of Mexico, E. by Campeachy, S. by Guatemala and Chiapas, and W. by Vera Cruz ; area, 12,716 sq. m. ; pop. in 1871, 83,- 707, chiefly Indians. The coast is indented by several bays and lagoons, and there are islands toward its N. E. extremity, the most important of which are Laguna, Carmen, and Puerto Real. The surface is generally flat and in some places marshy, and there are several small lakes. The rivers, with the exception of the Usumasinta and Tabasco, are generally small, and they all overflow at certain seasons. The climate is hot and unhealthf ul ; and be- tween September and March gales render navi- gation dangerous even on the riverfe. Oak, cedar, ironwood, and mahogany abound. Ca- cao, coffee, pepper, sugar cane, palmetto, to- bacco, maize, and rice are cultivated ; in some places indigo grows spontaneously; and wild bees afford large supplies of wax and honey. Capital, San Juan Bautista. TABERNACLE (Lat. talernaculum, tent ; Heb. ohel), the sanctuary which the Israelites car- ried with them through the desert, and which, after the conquest of Canaan, was set up in various towns of Palestine until the time of Solomon, when it was replaced by the temple of Jerusalem. It was constructed, by order of Moses, by Bezaleel and Aholiab, and set up for the first time on the first day of the first month in the second year after leaving Egypt. Its framework consisted of 48 per- pendicular gilded boards of acacia wood, which were kept together by golden rings and fixed into silver sockets. Over these boards four coverings were spread. The entrance, at the east end, was closed by means of a splen- did curtain, supported by five columns. A curtain divided the interior into two rooms, the sanctuary and the holy of holies. In the sanctuary was placed, on the north, the table with the 12 loaves of shew bread (see SHEW BREAD) ; toward the south the golden candle- stick ; and in the middle the altar of incense. In the holy of holies stood the ark of the cov- enant. The tabernacle was surrounded by a kind of courtyard which was 100 cubits long and 50 cubits wide. The typical significance of the tabernacle has been, ever since the times of Philo and Josephus, a subject of investiga- tion. The most important treatises on the sub- ject in modern times are by Creuzer, Synibo- lik des mosaischen Cultus (2 vols., Heidelberg,