TOMSK, a trading t. of Siberia, capital of the government of the same name, on the Tom, a tributary of the Ob, 2,809 m. e. of St. Petersburg, in lat. 56° 30' n., and long. 84° 58' east. Situated on the great trading highway of Siberia, it is the seat of an impor tant transit trade, chiefly with the Kalmucks and Mongols; but the goods that pass to and from Irkutsk also go by way of this town. There are upward of 50 manufactories, chiefly for soap, leather, and distilled liquors, and the most important commercial arti cle is furs. It is said to be the richest town in Siberia; and its commercial importance, its extent, and the number of its handsome buildings are increasing annually. Pop. in '67, 24,431.
TON, a suffix of frequent occurrence in the names of Anglo-Saxon settlements. It seems to be from the same root as the Gothic tains, meaning a twig (allied to which are the tine of a fork, the tines of a stag's horns, the tines of a harrow) the Anglo-Saxor iyman, to hedge, and the Ger. mutt, a hedge. " Hence, a tun or ton was a place sur rounded by a hedge, or rudely fortified by a palisade. Originally, it meant only a sin
gle homestead or farm, and this use of it is still common in Scotland. In modern English, in the form of town, it is applied to a collection of houses. Similarly with ton, the terminations worth, fold, gara, burgh, and others also convey the notion of inclos ure, protection."—See I. Taylor's Words and Places.
TON, the same word as tun (q.v.), denotes a weight of 20 hundred-weight (cwt,1, In Britain, the hundred-weight contains 112 lbs., so that the ton contains 2240 lbs. ),:a the United States the hundred-weight is usually reckoned at 100 lbs., and the ton at 2000 lbs. In both countries, 40 cubic ft. of rough or 50 of hewn timber constitute a ton or load of the same. The hundred-weight (centner) in Austria, Prussia, Denmark, Ger many, and Switzerland, contains 100 lbs.; in Hamburg, 112; in Bremen, 116; its repre sentative in France, Spain, and Portugal, is the quintal (q.v.); in Italy, the centinajo; in Turkey, Egypt, n. Africa, and the Balearic isles, the Kantar (124 lbs.).