Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XV.djvu/853

 TOURAINE die ages it was the seat of numerous councils. The memorable battle of Toulouse, April 10, 1814, resulted in Wellington's signal victory over the French under Soult. The inundation of the Garonne on June 24, 1875, caused the loss of a vast number of lives and immense property. TOURAINE, an ancient province of France, now chiefly comprised in the department of Indre-et-Loire. It was originally inhabited by the Turones, a Gallic tribe. At the end of the 5th century Olovis took it from the Visigoths. rT aving been governed for a time by local rants, it passed in 1044 to the house of An- >u, and with this subsequently under English lomination. In 1202 it was taken by the rench king Philip Augustus. It was a duchy )m 1356 till its final annexation in 1584 to the French crown. Tours was at all times the )ital of Touraine. (See INDRE-ET-LOIEE.) TOURCOING, a town of France, in the depart- lent of Le Nord, 8 m. N. E. of Lille, within few miles of the Belgian frontier ; pop. in 1872, 43,322. It contains hundreds of manu- jtories of woollens, cottons, linens, carpets, id other goods. The aggregate annual value )f trade and industry is estimated at 170,000,- 000 francs. A pyramid commemorates the battle of May 18, 1794, in which the army of Pichegru defeated the English. TOURMALINE, a name applied to a group of rhombohedral double silicates, composed of silica, fluorine, boric acid, alumina, manganic, ferric, and ferrous oxides, magnesia, lime, soda, )otash, lithia, and sometimes phosphoric acid. Sammelsberg divides them into magnesium, magnesium-iron, iron, iron-manganese, and manganese tourmalines, the last two varieties alone containing lithia. The sesquioxides are alumina and ferric and manganic oxides. The color of tourmalines varies with their compo- sition ; the red, called rubellite, are manganese rarmalines, containing lithium and manganese, with little or no iron ; the violet blue (called indicolite) and green are iron-manganese tour- malines ; and the black, which are schorl, are either iron or magnesium-iron tourmalines. "White or colorless tourmalines, which are rare, are called achroite. Sometimes the crystals are red at one extremity and green at the other, or green internally and red externally, or vice versa. Tourmaline is usually found in granite, gneiss, and syenite, in mica, chloritic, and talcose schists, in dolomite, granular lime- stone, and sometimes sandstone near dikes of igneous rocks (Dana). Rubellite and green tourmaline are found at Yekaterinburg in the Ural mountains ; pink crystals in the island of Elba; pale yellowish brown in Carinthia; white in the St. Gothard mountains, the Ural, and Elba. In Massachusetts, at Chesterfield, are red, green, and blue tourmalines, in a granite vein with albite; and at Goshen the blue occurs in great perfection. At Grafton and Orford, N. H., Brattleboro, Yt., and Mon- roe, Conn., specimens of tourmaline of various colors occur in steatite, mica slate, and other TOURNAMENT 823 rocks. Tourmalines are found in New York, at Crown Point, in fine brown crystals, and in St. Lawrence, Jefferson, Essex, and other counties; also in other states, in numerous localities. In California black crystals, 6 to 8 in. in diameter, occur in feldspar veins in the mountains between San Diego and the Colorado desert. In Canada, superb greenish yellow crystals an inch in diameter occur in limestone at Grand Calumet island. In the town of Paris, Maine, in one of the spurs of '^Streaked mountain" called by the mineralo- gists Mt. Mica, several deposits of beautiful green and red tourmalines of perfect forms were found in 1820 by Elijah L. Hamlin and Ezekiel Jones. Many specimens were sent to various parts of Europe ; and some fine ones obtained from Vander Null, an antiquary, are believed to be in the museum at Vienna. Tourmalines are not often used in jewelry, although fine rubellites form beautiful gems, and bear a high price. In the grand duke's collection at Florence there was a specimen 11 in. square, with four erect green tourmalines and one prostrate, 4, 2, and 2J in. long and f in. to 1 in. thick. A magnificent group of pink tourmalines nearly a foot square was given by the king of Burmah to Col. Sykes, while commissioner to his court. The tour- maline appears to have been first brought to Europe from Ceylon by the Dutch about the end of the 17th century, and was exhibited as a curiosity on account of its pyro-electric prop- erties, whence it was called aschentrecker (Ger. Aschemieher). The tourmaline is a double- refracting crystal, but has the peculiar property of polarizing light. It has not the power like Iceland spar of separating and transmitting both the ordinary and the extraordinary ray ; but when the plate is cut with its faces parallel to the optic axis of the crystal, and exposed to a ray of light, the ordinary ray passes through, while the extraordinary ray is absorbed. (See LIGHT, vol. x., pp. 446 and 449, and THERMO- ELECTRICITY.) See "Diamonds and Precious Stones," by Harry Emanuel (London, 1867 ; New York, 1873) ; " The Tourmaline," by A. 0. Hamlin, M. D. (Boston, 1873) ; and Dana's "Mineralogy." TOURNAMENT (It. tornlamento ; Fr. tourner, to turn), a military sport of the middle ages. It took its rise after the establishment of the feudal system, and appears to have been intro- duced into northern Europe as early as the middle of the 9th century, although several centuries elapsed before it came into familiar or reputable use. This was owing perhaps to the costliness as well as the sanguinary charac- ter of the contests in the early tournaments, which often resulted in the death or serious injury of several of the combatants, and were conducted very much in the spirit of the gladi- atorial shows of the ancient Romans. Hence the prohibition of the practice by such princes as Henry II. of England, and the steady op- position of the church down to a late period.