Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XV.djvu/789

 TIMROD er the title of Histoire de Timur-Bec, con- sow le nom du grand Tamerlan (4 vols. 2mo, Paris, 1722). The writings attributed > Timour have been preserved in Persian, and of questionable authenticity. The work the " Institutions" of his government, with English translation and a valuable index, as published at Oxford in 1783 (4to) by Ma- jor Davy and White, the professor of Arabic, and has also been translated from the Persian into French by Langles. The autobiographical " Commentaries " of Timour have been trans- lated from a manuscript of Major Davy by Major Stewart, and published by the oriental translation committee of London. These only contain his life from his birth to his 41st year, no version having as yet appeared of the re- maining portions. See also the translation of the narrative of Clavijo, envoy of Henry III. of Castile to Timour, by C. K. Markham (Hak- luyt society, 1860), and Lamartine, Lea grands hommes de P Orient (Paris, 1865). TIMROD, Henry, an American poet, born in arleston, S. 0., Dec. 8, 1829, died in Colum- a, Oct. 6, 1867. He was educated at the university of Georgia, but took no degree, and studied law. During the first years of the civil war he wrote martial lyrics, and early in 1863 joined the confederate army of the west as correspondent of the Charleston "Mercury." In January, 1864, he became editor of the Columbia " South Carolinian," which was discontinued in February, 1865, and revived in Charleston in 1866. He was for a time as- sistant secretary to Gov. Orr. He published "Poems" (Boston, 1860; enlarged ed. with a memoir by Paul H. Hayne, New York, 1873). THIUQUINS, a tribe of Indians in Florida, belonging to the Choctaw family, formerly oc- cupying the coast above St. Augustine. The Franciscans established missions among them in 1592, and though these were checked by the massacre of several of the missionaries by the heathen party in 1597, they were revived and continued till the destruction of the mis- sions and mission Indians by Carolina and Georgia in the border wars. Several works for the use of the Timuquan missions and a grammar, chiefly by Father Francis Pareja, a Mexican, were printed in the 17th century; and petitions signed by the chiefs in 1688 show that they had all been educated to some ex- tent. Near the close of the century Dicken- son found the missions in a thriving condition and acting as post houses on the route to the English colonies. TIN (Ger. Zinn; Fr. etairi), an almost sil- very white, highly lustrous, non-elastic metal ; chemical symbol, Sn (Lat. stannum, tin) ; equiv- alent, 116 ; sp. gr. 7'29. It is softer than gold and harder than lead; malleable at ordinary temperatures into thin laminae (tin foil) ; so ductile at 212 F. that it can be drawn into fine, very flexible wire, which however breaks under a weight of less than one ton per square inch of section ; so brittle at 392 F. as to be TIN 759 broken by a blow or fall ; not appreciably af- fected in density by hammering ; fusible at 442 F. ; burns in air at high temperature, with white light ; volatile at very high temperature ; comparatively indifferent to air or moisture at ordinary temperatures ; a good conductor of heat and electricity. Melted tin has a strong tendency to crystallize on cooling ; and the surface of cast tin, when etched with dilute acid, shows its crystalline texture in figures analogous to the tracery of frost on window panes (moire metallique). The free crystals are monometric, or, when obtained by the electric current, quadratic prisms, showing di- morphism of the metal. A bar of tin crackles when bent (the tin cry, cri detain, Zinnge- schrei), and under rapidly repeated flexures the bent place grows hotter than the hand can bear. Both noise and heat are due to the friction of the interior crystal faces upon each other. The handling of tin communi- cates a peculiar odor to the skin. There are three oxides of tin: the stannous, SnO, stan- noso-stannic, Sn a 3, and stannic, Sn0 2. A certain obscure modification of the last, the hydrate of which is insoluble in nitric or mu- riatic acid, is called metastannic oxide. The stannic and metastannic oxides form salts with alkalies, earths, and metallic oxides. Muriatic acid dissolves tin as stannous chloride, SnCl, which is used by dyers and in laboratories as a reducing agent, by virtue of its strong affin- ity for oxygen and chlorine. Dilute sulphuric acid scarcely attacks tin ; heating with con- centrated sulphuric acid transforms it to stan- nous sulphate, setting free sulphurous acid ; very dilute nitric acid dissolves it cold, with- out any escape of gas, ammonia being formed simultaneously with the stannous nitrate and held as nitrate of ammonia in the solution. Concentrated nitric acid attacks tin violently, forming the insoluble metastannic oxide, which is the "putty powder" used in enamelling and in polishing plate. Aqua regia dissolves tin as stannic chloride, SnCl 2. Alkalies cause oxidation of tin, forming stannic acid, which unites with the alkaline bases. Thus, tin be- ing heated in concentrated caustic soda solu- tion, hydrogen is set free, and sodic stannate is formed. This is extensively used as a mor- dant, the basis of the "tin-prepared liquor" of dyers and calico printers. Sulphuretted hydrogen does not attack massive tin at ordi- nary temperatures. There are three sulphides of tin, of which the stannous or protosulphide may be obtained by heating sulphur and tin together ; the second, sesquisulphide, by heat- ing the first with additional sulphur ; and the third, bisulphide, by a similar process. In the last case, the high temperature, which would otherwise decompose the bisulphide, must be kept down by adding to the ingredients volatile substances (mercury, sal ammoniac), which in escaping will absorb heat. This sulphide, thus produced, presents delicate golden or brownish yellow scales, and is used as a bronze powder