TROPHONIUS, in Greek legend, along with his brother Agamedes, the architect of the temple of Apollo at Delphi; had a famous oracle in a cave in Boeotia, which could only be entered at night.

TROPICS, two parallels of latitude on either side of the equator, which mark the limits N. and S. of the sun’s verticality to the earth’s surface, the distance being in each case 231/2 deg.; the northern tropic is called the Tropic of Cancer, and the southern the Tropic of Capricorn.

TROPPAU (21), capital of Austrian Silesia, 184 m.  E. of Vienna; contains a castle, gymnasium, and an extensive library; manufactures linen and woollen textiles, beetroot sugar, &c.

TROSSACHS, a romantic pass in the Perthshire Highlands, 8 m.  W. of Callander, stretching for about a mile between Lochs Katrine and Achray, is charmingly wooded; is celebrated by Sir Walter Scott in his “Lady of the Lake.”

TROUBADOURS, a class of poets who flourished in Provence, Eastern Spain, and Northern Italy from the 11th to the 13th century, whose songs in the Langue d’Oc were devoted to subjects lyrical and amatory, and who not infrequently were men of noble birth and bore arms as knights, and as such were distinguished from the Jongleurs, who were mere strolling minstrels.

TROUVERES, a class of ancient poets in Northern France, who like the Troubadours of Southern France were of court standing, but whose poems, unlike those of the Troubadours, were narrative or epic.

TROWBRIDGE (12), a market-town of Wiltshire, 25 m.  NW. of Salisbury; has a fine 15th-century Perpendicular church, in which the poet Crabbe is buried; has woollen and fine cloth manufactures.

TROY, a city of Troas, a territory NW. of Mysia, Asia Minor, celebrated as the scene of the world-famous legend immortalised by the “Iliad” of Homer in his account of the war caused by the rape of Helen, and which ended with the destruction of the city at the hands of the avenging Greeks.

TROY (61), capital of Rensselaer County, New York, on the Hudson River, 5 m. above Albany; possesses handsome public buildings, and is a busy centre of textile, heavy iron goods, and other manufactures; has daily steamship service with New York.

TROYES (50), a quaint old town of France, capital of the department of Aube, on the Seine, 100 m.  SE. of Paris; possesses a fine Flamboyant Gothic cathedral, founded in 872, several handsome old churches, a large public library; has flourishing manufactures of textile fabrics, and trades in agricultural produce; here in 1420 was signed the Treaty of Troyes, making good the claims of Henry V. of England to the French crown.

TRUCK-SYSTEM, the paying of workmen’s wages in goods in place of money; found useful where works are far distant from towns, but liable to the serious abuse from inferior goods being supplied; Acts of Parliament have been passed to abolish the system, but evasions of the law are not uncommon.