TOMSK  , a

town of Western Siberia, capital of the government of the same name, on the Tom, 27 M. above its confluence with the Ob . Pop . (1900), 63,533 . Tomsk is an episcopal see and the largest city of Siberia, exceeding even Irkutsk in population and commercial importance . The great Siberian highway from Tyumen to Irkutsk passes within 54 M . (by branch railway to Taiga) of Tomsk, which is the terminus of the navigation by steamer from the Urals to Siberia . It has, moreover, communication by steamer with Barnaul and Biysk in the Altai . The town is not an administrative centre, like so many Russian cities, but an entrep6t of wares . Before 1824 it was a mere village; but after the discovery of gold in the district it grew rapidly . It is built on two terraces on the right bank of the Tom, and is divided into two parts by the Ushaika . The best building is the university . The industries are almost entirely confined to tanning and the manufacture of carriages .

Tomsk has a university (founded in 1888, with 600 students), and archaeological, ethnological, zoological, botanical and mineralogical museums, a technological

institute, a cathedral (finished in 'goo), public libraries and scientific societies (naturalist, geographical, medical, musical, &c.) . The city was founded in 1604 . TOM-TOM, or Tam-TAM, a native Indian and Asiatic word, reduplicated and onomatopoeic in form, for a drum, h°nce often loosely applied to the various types of primitive drum used for purposes of religious excitement, war, signalling, &c.. by savage tribes throughout the world . The term is applied strictly to the metal gongs of the Far East, which are flat disks with a shallow rim .