Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XV.djvu/602

 574 TARRYTOWN 900 sq. m.; pop. in 1870, 5,788, of whom 705 were colored. The surface is undulating, part- ly timbered and partly prairie, and the soil fertile. The chief productions in 1870 were 29,587 bushels of wheat, 203,595 of Indian corn, 72,635 of oats, 12,995 of sweet potatoes, 41,669 Ibs. of butter, and 728 bales of cotton. There were 6,953 horses, 4,099 milch cows, 14,946 other cattle, 4,205 sheep, and 13,052 swine. Capital, Fort Worth. TARRYTOWN, a village in the town of Green- burgh, Westchester co., New York, on the E. bank of the Hudson river where it widens into the Tappan Zee, and on the Hudson River railroad, 26 m. N. of New York city ; pop. in 1875, 6,500. It is very picturesque, and con- tains a large number of elegant country seats. It is celebrated as the scene of the capture of Major Andr6 in 1780, and contains a monu- ment commemorative of that event. South of the village is Sunnyside, the residence of Washington Irving, whose grave is in the Sleepy Hollow cemetery, near the old Dutch church. The village contains a silk factory, a boot and shoe factory, a steam pump fac- tory, a tool factory, a sash and blind factory, a national bank, a savings bank, several public schools, two female seminaries, two boarding schools for boys, a weekly newspaper, and 11 churches. TARSHISH, the name of an ancient empo- rium, or, according to some critics, more than one, as some of the passages of Scripture in which it is mentioned appear to indicate that it was W. and others E. of Palestine. There are 25 or 30 references to it in the Scriptures. Tartessus in Spain, Tarsus in Cilicia, the island of Thasos in the Grecian archipelago, Car- thage, some seaport of the British isles, and Point de Galle in Ceylon have all been urged as fulfilling certain conditions of the Scrip- tural references. The following facts concern- ing it ar.e gleaned from various passages of Scripture. It was largely engaged in com- merce, and probably in ship building; it is several times spoken of as an island or sea- coast ; it had large traffic with Tyre and Sidon, especially in gold and silver, tin, iron, and lead ; it is usually represented as W. of Pales- tine and of Tyre, and its ships are spoken of as broken by an E. wind. Yet we are told distinctly in 2 Chron. ix. 21, that Solomon's ships went to Tarshish with the servants of Hiram, returning every three years, and bring- ing "gold and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks;" and that Jehoshaphat joined with Ahaziah in building ships at Ezion-geber, a place on the Elanitic gulf of the Red sea, to go to Tarshish (2 Chron. xx. 36), while the corresponding passages in 1 Kings (ix. 26-28, x. 22, xxii. 48) say that Tarshish vessels were built at Ezion-geber and sent to Ophir, whence they brought " gold and silver," &c. This ap- parent discrepancy has been explained in three ways: 1 (which is most plausible), that the name "ships of Tarshish" does not necessarily TARTARIC ACID imply that the ships were built at Tarshish or intended to ply between that and some other port, but designated a peculiar style of ships, and that hence ships intended for a long coast voyage were called "ships of Tarshish" from their resemblance to the Phoenician model ; 2, that the ships built at Ezion-geber were really intended for the trade to Tarshish (Tartessus) in Spain, and were to be transported across the isthmus of Suez to the Mediterranean ; and 3, that there were two and possibly more places called Tarshish. TARSUS, a city of Asiatic Turkey, in the vilayet and 20 m. W. S. W. of the city of Adana, on the right bank of the Cydnus, about 10 m. from the Mediterranean; pop. about 8,000. It stands in a fertile plain, and is well built of stone. It has an ancient church, sev- eral mosques, handsome caravansaries, and public baths. Wheat, barley, cotton, copper, and gall nuts are exported. Tarsus is said by the ancients to have been founded by Sarda- napalus. It was taken by Alexander, and un- der the Romans rivalled Athens, Antioch, and Alexandria. It was the birthplace of the apostle Paul and of several Greek philoso- phers, poets, and grammarians. TARTAR (named from Tartarus, the infernal regions, according to Paracelsus, on account of its fiery heat ; also called argol), the crude bitartrate of potash, precipitated from wines as they ferment, being set free as alcohol is produced, in which it is insoluble. When pu- rified it is known as cream of tartar or bitar- trate of potassium. Salt of tartar is a name often given to pure carbonate of potash. Sol- uble tartar is a name given to the normal or neutral tartrate of potassium, used in medi- cine as a cooling purgative. (See POTASSIUM, vol. xiii., p. 763.) Tartar is also the name of an incrustation upon the teeth, composed, ac- cording to Berzelius, of salivary mucus 13*5, animal matter soluble in muriatic acid 7'5, and phosphate of lime (earthy phosphates) 7'9. TARTAR, Cream of. See CREAM or TARTAR. TARTAR EMETIC, a double tartrate of anti- mony and potassium. (See ANTIMONY.) TARTARIC ACID, an organic tetratomic acid, which is now regarded as belonging to a group derived from corresponding tetratomic alcohols by the substitution of oxygen for hydrogen molecules. Only one of the acids, the erythrio (CiHeOfi), has been actually formed, from ery- thrite (CJIioO 4 ), but the composition and be- havior of tartaric acid favors the theory that it has a similar derivation. The formula of tartaric acid is C 4 H B O 8, and includes four bi- basic acids having different crystalline forms, and different properties in regard to polarized light, viz. : dextrotartaric acid, which turns the plane of polarization to the right ; Isevotartaric acid, which turns it to the left with equal force; paratartaric or racemic acid, which has no rotatory power, but is separable into two equal parts of right-handed and left-handed acids ; and an inactive acid not thus separable.