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264

NIEPER....NIGER....NIGHTINGALE.

no person can approach without horror. Down this chasm the water rushes with a most astonishing veloci ty, after it makes the great pitch. The river is about one hundred and thirty-five rods wide at the falls, and the perpendicular pitch one hundred and fifty feet. The fall of this vast body of water produces a sound, which is frequently heard at the distance of twenty miles, and a sensible tremulous notion in the earth for some rods round. A heavy fog, or cloud, is constantly ascending, in which rainbows may always be seen, when the sun shines. What a change would it make in the country below, should the mountains at Niagara, by any convulsion, be cleft asunder, and a passage be suddenly opened to drain off the waters of Erie and the upper lakes.... Am. Museum, Ch. Thompson.

NIEPER, anciently the Boristhenes, a large river of Europe, which in its whole course, above eight hundred miles, flows through the Russian empire, emptying into the Euxine, or Black Sea. On both sides of this river is the Ukraine, in the south of Russia, and bordering on Turkey it is one of the most fertile countries in the world, abounding with cattle and grain. Wheat sells here from one to two shillings sterling a bushel, and other kinds of produce in proportion. Here live the Cossacs, a Tartar race, large and robust, with blue eyes, brown hair and aquiline noses; a people terrible in battle.... Walker, Bordley.

This

NIGER, called the Nile of Negroes; because, like the Egyptian Nile, it annually overflows its banks, and fertilizes the countries through which it passes. is a majestic river of Africa, running nearly eastward. It is calculated that there is about sixteen hundred and seventy miles of water-course, from the head of the Niger, above Manding, to the lakes of Wangara, into which it empties... Rennel.

NIGHTINGALE, a small bird, that sings only in the night, and continues its song, without intermission, from evening till morning: its music is sweet beyond description. It generally keeps in the middle of a thick hedge or bush, so as to be rarely seen; and it constantly re

NIGHTSHADE....NIGUA....NILE.

265

sorts to the same place, night after night, for weeks together. This famous bird visits the south of England in the beginning of April, and leaves it in August. Its music in England (though delicious) is far less sweet than in Italy, where its song has the utmost charms. Pliny relates, that Seius, a Roman, bought a white nightingale as a present for the empress Agrippina, at the price of six thousand sesterii, equal to about fifty pounds sterling....Goldsmith, A. Smith.

NIGHTSHADE, a plant that seems to derive its most congenial nourishment from the effluvia of putrifying human bodies, as it grows amid the mouldering bones and decayed coffins in old and ruinous burial vaults. In times of ignorance when magical arts were held in estimation, this plant was much celebrated in the mysteries of witchcraft, and for its pretended potency to raise the devil.... Darwin.

NIGUA, an insect so extremely minute as scarcely to be visible to the naked eye: it is peculiar to the Spanish dominions in Peru and Carthagena. This insect breeds in the dust, insinuates itself into the soles of the feet and the legs, piercing the skin with such subtilty, that there is no being aware of it before it has made its way to the flesh. If it is perceived in the beginning, it is extracted with but little pain; but having once lodged its head, and pierced the skin, the patient must undergo the pain of an incision, without which a nodus would be formed, and a multitude of insects engendered, which would soon overspread the foot and leg. One species of the nigua is venomous, and when it enters the toe, an inflammatory swelling takes place in the groin.... Winterbotham.

NILE, a celebrated river of Africa, which rises in the mountains of Abyssinia, runs through Egypt, and empties into the Mediterranean Sea, anciently by eleven mouths, but at present only by two that are navigable at all times; and these are at Rosetta and Damietta. Its annual overflowings arise from a very obvious cause, which is almost universal with all the great rivers that take their rise near the line. The rainy season, which Y

266

NINEVEH....NOOTKA SOUND, &c.

is periodical in those climates, floods the rivers; and, as this always happens in our summer, so the Nile is at that time overflowed. It overflows regularly every year, from the 15th of June to the 17th of September, when it begins to decrease. During the inundation of the river, the little towns, standing upon eminences, look like so many islands; and they go trom one to the other by boats. When the river does not rise to its accustomed height, the Egyptians prepare for an indifferent season.... Goldsmith, Walker.

NINEVEH, the capital of the Assyrian empire; a famous city of old, founded by Ashur, son of Shem, and grandson of Noah; situated on the banks of the river Tygris, in Asia. According to Diodorus, a very ancient historian, Nineveh was about twenty miles long, and twelve miles broad; being more than sixty miles in circumference; and by the account of the same author, its walls were an hundred feet high, and so broad that three chariots could go abreast upon them; and on the walls at proper distances, were fifteen hundred towers, each measuring two hundred feet in height. About six hundred years before our Saviour's nativity, this magnificent city was utterly destroyed by the united nations of Babylon and Media, which, from being dependencies of the Assyrian empire, became its masters.

NOOTKA SOUND, situated on the Pacific Ocean, in the north-west coast of America, due west of the northern parts of Canada. The natives were found in possession of iron and beads; which probably were conveyed to them across the continent from Hudson's Bay. They offered to Captain Cooke, as articles of traffic, human skulls, and hands, with some of the flesh remaining on them, which they acknowledged they had been feeding on !....Cooke's Voyage.

NORTH AMERICA, a great division of the western continent, which was discovered, in 1495, by John Cabot, a Venetian. It extends from the isthmus of Darien, at about the 10th degree of north latitude, to the north pole, or near it; and from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean: most of it is a wilderness inhabited by va

NORTH-CAROLINA... NORTH-EASTERS, &c. 267

rious tribes of savages. The provinces in North America, claimed by European nations, are West Greenland, belonging to Denmark, New Britain, Upper and Lower Canadas, New Brunswick and Nova-Scotia, together with the islands of Newfoundland, Cape Breton and St. John's, belonging to Great Britain; and East and West Floridas, and the Mexicos, or New-Spain, belonging to the crown of Spain. There is probably no kind of fruit or vegetable but may be cultivated and made to flourish in some part of North America.

NORTH-CAROLINA, one of the United States of America; bounded north by Virginia, east by the Atlantic Ocean, south by South Carolina, and west by the state of Tennessee; situated between 33° 50′ and 36° 30' north latitude; extending about four hundred miles in length, and one hundred and eighty in breadth. Its first permanent settlement is said to have commenced, about the year 17 10, by a number of Palatines from Germany, who had been reduced to circumstances of great indigence, by a calamitous war. The coasts are dangerous, by reason of three formidable capes, namely, Look-Out, Hatteras, and Fear. Much of the country is fertile, the winter is mild, and it is said there is no part of the United States where so little labor is requisite for a livelihood: the county of Cabarrus, in this state, yields pure virgin gold, which has been coined in a considerable quantity at the mint of the United States.....Morse.

NORTH-EASTERS, stormy winds common in the Atlantic seas, on the coasts and near the seaboard.

NORWAY, a country in the north of Europe, the most westerly part of the ancient Scandinavia; it was formerly an independent kingdom, but is now united to Denmark. The Norwegian peasants are frank, open, and undaunted, yet not insolent; never fawning, yet paying proper respect: they are extremely attached to their country, which is cold, barren, rocky, and mountainous. We are informed by Pont Oppidam, a bishop of that country, that the coast of Norway, which is nearly three hundred leagues in length, is, for the most part, steep, angular, and pendant; so that the sea in many

268 NOVA-SCOTIA...NYMPHALA NILUMBO...OAK.

places, presents a depth of no less than three hundred fathoms close in shore. This has not prevented nature from still further protecting these coasts, by a multitude of isles, great and small. By such a rampart, (says the same author) consisting of, perhaps, a million, or more of massy stone pillars, founded in the very depth of the sea, the chapiters of which rise only a few fathoms above the surface, all Norway is defended to the west, equally against the enemy and against the ocean.... Coxe, St. Pierre. See NATURE'S DIKES.

NOVA-SCOTIA, or New Scotland, including the province of New-Brunswick, is four hundred miles in length, and three hundred in breadth; situated between 43° 30′ and 49° north latitude; bounded by the river and gulf of St. Lawrence, by the Atlantic Ocean, aud by a part of Lower Canada and the district of Maine: it has a sea-coast of ninety leagues. The winter is longer and the soil not so good, as in the states of New- England. In the Bay of Fundy, which extends fifty leagues into this country, the ebb and flow of the tide is from forty-five to sixty feet.... Winterbotham.

NYMPHALA NILUMBO, an aquatic plant. The surface of the water in some of the southern states, and in the Floridas, is sometimes covered with the round floating leaves of this plant, whilst these are shadowed by a forest of higher leaves with gay flowers, waving to and fro on flexible stems, three or four feet high. These fine flowers are double as a rose, and when expanded are seven or eight inches in diameter, of a lively lemon yellow colour. The stems bear a nut, which, when full grown, is sweet and pleasant, tasting like chesnuts.... Bartram.

O.

OAK, a valuable and majestic tree, common in Eu

rope and the United States of America. This tree, which is eminently useful in building, and particularly

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