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of Bristol, canon of Westminster and dean of St Paul's.

See The Nicholas Papers, edited by G. F. Warner (Camden Society, London, 1886-1897), containing Nicholas's correspondence and some Nicholas and Charles I. will be found in the Memoirs of John Evelyn, autobiographical memoranda. Private correspondence between edited by W. Bray (London, 1827); The Edgerton MSS. and the Ormonde Papers contain many references to Nicholas.

interferes, and the two go to the house of Master Nicholas at Por- | brother MATTHEW Nicholas (1594-1661) was successively dean tisham in Dorset. He judges, they say, many right judgments, and composes and writes much wisdom, and it is lamentable that so learned and worthy a man should gain no preferment from his bishop. The poet, whoever he was, wrote the octosyllabic couplet with ease and smoothness. He borrows something from Alexander of Neckham's De naturis rerum, and was certainly familiar with contemporary French poetry. The piece is a general allegory of the contest between asceticism and a more cheerful view of religion, and is capable of a particular application to the differences between the regular orders and the secular clergy. The nightingale defends her singing on the ground that heaven is a place of song and mirth, while the owl maintains that much weeping for his many sins is man's best preparation

for the future.

a relation of Nicholas.

There are two MSS. of the Hule amd the Nightingale, MS. Cotton Caligula A ix. (British Museum), dating from the first half of the 13th century, and MS. Arch. I. 29, Jesus College, Oxford, written about half a century later. In the Jesus College MS. the poem is immediately preceded by a religious poem entitled La Passyun Jhu Christ, which, according to a note on it, once possessed an additional quatrain implying that it was written by John of Guildford, perhaps The Owl and the Nightingale has been edited from the Cotton MS. chiefly for the Roxburghe Club (1838) by Joseph Stevenson, and for the Percy Society (1843) by T. Wright; the best edition is by F. H. Stratmann (Krefeld, 1868), who collated the two MSS. See also B. Ten Brink, Early English Literature (trans. H. M. Kennedy, pp. 214218); Courthope, History of English Poetry; and J. W. H. Atkins in the Cambridge History of Literature, vol. i. For some textual criticism see A.E. Egge in Modern Language Notes (Baltimore,January, 1887).

NICHOLAS, SIR EDWARD (1593-1669), English statesman, eldest son of John Nicholas, a member of an old Wiltshire family, was born on the 4th of April 1593. He was educated at Salisbury grammar school, Winchester College and Queen's College, Oxford. After studying law at the Middle Temple, Nicholas became secretary to Lord Zouch, warden and admiral of the Cinque ports, in 1618, and continued in a similar employment under the duke of Buckingham. In 1625 he became secretary to the admiralty; shortly afterwards he was appointed an extra clerk of the privy council with duties relating to admiralty business, and from 1635 to 1641 he was one of the clerks in ordinary to the council. In this situation Nicholas had much business to transact in connexion with the levy of ship-money; and in 1641, when Charles I. went to Scotland, a heavy responsibility rested on the secretary who remained in London to keep the king informed of the proceedings of the parliament. On the return of Charles to the capital Nicholas was knighted, and appointed a privy councillor and a secretary of state, in which capacity he attended the king while the court was at Oxford, and carried out the business of the treaty of Uxbridge. Through

cut this troubled period he was one of Charles's wisest and most loyal advisers; he it was who arranged the details of the king's surrender to the Scots, though he does not appear to have advised or even to have approved of the step; and to him also fell the duty of treating for the capitulation of Oxford, which included permission for Nicholas himself to retire abroad with his family. He went to France, being recommended by the king to the confidence of the prince of Wales. After the king's death Nicholas remained on the continent concerting measures on behalf of the exiled Charles II. with Hyde and other royalists, but the hostility of Queen Henrietta Maria deprived him of any real influence in the counsels of the young sovereign. He lived at the Hague and elsewhere in a state of poverty which hampered his power to serve Charles, but which the latter did nothing to relieve. He returned to England at the Restoration; but although Charles had formally appointed him secretary of state in 1654, this office was now conferred on another, and Nicholas had to content himself with a grant of money and the offer of a peerage, which his poverty compelled him to decline. He retired to a country seat in Surrey which he purchased from a son of Sir Walter Raleigh, and here he lived till his death in 1669. By his wife Jane, a daughter of Henry Jay, an alderman of London, he had several sons and daughters; his younger

NICHOLAS (or NICLAES), HENRY (or HENDRIK) (c. 1501-c. 1580), founder of the sect called" the Family of Love," was born in 1501 or 1502, at Münster, where he was married and carried on the business of a mercer. As a boy he was subject to visions, and at the age of twenty-seven charges of heresy led to his imprisonment. About 1530 he removed with his family to Amsterdam, where he was again imprisoned on a charge of complicity in the Münster revolution of 1534-1535. About 1539 he experienced a call to found his " Familia Caritatis." Removing to Embden, he lived there and prospered in business for twenty years, though he travelled with commercial as well as missionary objects into the Netherlands, England and elsewhere. The date of his sojourn in England has been placed as early as 1552 and as late as 1569. In 1579 he was living at Cologne, where probably he died a year or two later. His doctrines seem to have been derived largely from the Dutch Anabaptist David Jöris or George, who died in 1556; but they have mainly to be inferred from the jaundiced accounts of hostile writers. Th outward trappings of his system were merely Anabaptist; but he anticipated a good many later speculations, and his followers were accused of asserting that all things were ruled by nature and not directly by God, of denying the dogma of the Trinity, and repudiating infant baptism. They held that no man should be put to death for his opinions, and apparently, like the later Quakers, they objected to the carrying of arms and to anything like an oath; and they were quite impartial in their repudiation of all other churches and sects, including Brownists and Barrowists.

Vitel, and towards 1579 the progress of the sect especially in the
Nicholas's principal disciple in England was one Christopher
eastern counties provoked literary attacks, proclamations and
gallows and the stake, for they combined with some success the
But Nicholas's followers escaped the
parliamentary bills.
wisdom of the serpent and the harmlessness of the dove. They
would only discuss their doctrines with sympathizers; they
showed every respect for authority, and considered outward con-
formity a duty. This quietist attitude, while it saved them from
molestation, hampered propaganda; and though the "Family
existed until the middle of the 17th century, it was then swallowed
up by the Quakers, Baptists and Unitarians, all of which de-
nominations may have derived some of their ideas through the
Family " from the Anabaptists.

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The list of Nicholas's works occupies nearly six columns in the Dict. Nat. Biogr. See also Belfort Bax, Rise and Fall of the Anabaptists, pp. 327-380 (1903); and Strype's Works, General (A. F: P.)

Index.

NICHOLS, JOHN (1745-1826), English printer and author, was born at Islington on the 2nd of February 1745. He edited the Gentleman's Magazine from 1788 till his death, and in the pages of that periodical, and in his numerous volumes of Anecdotes and Illustrations, he made invaluable contributions to the personal history of English men of letters in the 18th century. He was apprenticed in 1757 to "the learned printer," William Bowyer, whom he eventually succeeded. On the death of his friend and master in 1777 he published a brief memoir, which afterwards grew into the Anecdotes of William Bowyer and his Literary Friends (1782). As his materials accumulated he compiled a sort of anecdotical literary history of the century, based on a large collection of important letters. The Literary Anecdotes of the 18th Century (1812-1815), into which the original work was expanded, forms only a small part of Nichols's production. It was followed by the Illustrations of the Literary History of the 18th Century, consisting of Authentic Memoirs and Original Lellers of Eminent Persons, which was begun in 1817 and com pleted by his son John Bowyer Nichols (1779-1863) in 1858,

The Anecdotes and the Illustrations are mines of valuable in- | hero, and many tales are told of his stern justice, his tireless formation on the authors, printers and booksellers of the time.

Nichols's other works include: A Collection of Royal and Noble Wills (1780); Select Collection of Miscellaneous Poems (1782), with subsequent additions, in which he was helped by Joseph Warton and by Bishops Percy and Lowth; Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica (1780-1790); with Richard Gough, The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth (1788); | and the important History and Antiquities of the Town and County of Leicester (1795-1815). Nichols was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, a trustee of many city institutions, and in 1804 he was master of the Stationers' Company. He died on the 26th of November 1826. JOHN BOWYER NICHOLS Continued his father's various undertakings, and wrote, with other works, A Brief Account of the Guildhall of the City of London (1819). His eldest son, JOHN GOUGH NICHOLS (1806-1873), was also a printer and a distinguished antiquary, who edited the Gentleman's Magazine from 1851 to 1856, and the Herald and Genealogist from 1863 to 1874, and was one of the founders of the Camden Society.

A full Memoir of John Nichols by Alexander Chalmers is contained in the Illustrations, and a bibliography in the Anecdotes (vol. vi.) is supplemented in the later work. See also R. C. Nichols, Memoirs of J.G. Nichols (1874). NICHOLSON, HENRY ALLEYNE (1844-1800), British palaeontologist and zoologist, son of Dr John Nicholson, a biblical scholar, was born at Penrith on the 11th of September 1844. He was educated at Appleby Grammar School and at the universities of Göttingen (Ph.D., 1866) and Edinburgh (D.Sc., 1867; M.D., 1869). Geology had early attracted his attention, and his first publication was a thesis for his D.Sc. degree On the Geology of Cumberland and Westmoreland (1868). In 1871 he was appointed professor of natural history in the university of Toronto, in 1874 professor of biology in the Durham College of Science and in 1875 professor of natural history in the university of St Andrews. This last post he held until 1882, when he became regius professor of natural history in the university of Aberdeen. He was elected F.R.S. in 1897. His original work was mainly on fossil invertebrata (graptolites, stromatoporoids and corals); but he did much field work, especially in the Lake district, where he laboured in company with Professor R. Harkness and afterwards with Dr J. E. Marr. He was awarded the Lyell Medal by the Geological Society in 1888. He died at Aberdeen on the 19th of January 1899.

PUBLICATIONS.-Ancient Life-History of the Earth (1877); Manual of Zoology (of which there were 7 editions) and other text-books of Zoology; Manual of Palaeontology (1872, 3rd ed., 2 vols., with R. Lydekker, 1889); Monograph of the Silurian Fossils of the Girvan District in Ayrshire (with R. Etheridge, jun.) (1878-1880); Monograph of the British Stromatoporoids in Palacontograph. Soc. (1886Obituary, with portrait, by Dr G. J. Hinde, in Geol. Mag. (March 1899).

1892).

activity and his commanding personality. In the course of five years he reduced the most turbulent district on the frontier to such a state of quietude that no crime was committed or even attempted during his last year of office, a condition of things never known before or since. On one occasion, being attacked by a ghazi, he snatched the musket from the hand of a sentry and shot the man dead; on another occasion he put a price on the head of a notorious outlaw, and finding every one afraid to earn it, rode single-handed to the man's village, met him in the street and cut him down. But besides being a severe ruler, Nicholson was eminently just. A criminal had no chance of escaping him, so able and determined was his investigation; and a corrupt official could not long evade his vigilance; but he was deliberate in his punishments, and gave offenders a chance to redeem their character. He would go personally to the scene of a crime or a legal dispute and decide the question on the spot. Every man in his district, whether mountain tribesman or policeman, felt that he was controlled by a master hand, and the natives said of him that "the tramp of his war-horse could be heard from Attock to the Khyber." Lord Roberts says of him in Forty-One Years in India: "Nicholson impressed me more profoundly than any man I had ever met before, or have ever met since. I have never seen any one like him. He was the beau ideal of a soldier and a gentleman." It is little wonder that the natives worshipped him as a god under the title of Nikalsain. Nicholson, however, had a fiery temper and a contempt for red tape, which made him a somewhat intractable subordinate. He had a serious quarrel with Sir Neville Chamberlain, and was continually falling out with Sir John Lawrence, who succeeded his brother Henry as ruler of the Punjab.

It was when the Mutiny broke out in May 1857 that Nicholson was able to show the metal that was in him, and he did more than any other single man to keep the Punjab loyal and to bring about the fall of Delhi. When the news of the rising at Meerut arrived, Nicholson was with Edwardes at Peshawar, and they took immediate steps to disarm the doubtful regiments in that cantonment.

Together they opposed Sir John Lawrence's proposal to abandon Peshawar, in order to concentrate all their strength on the siege of Delhi. In June Nicholson was appointed to the command of a movable column, with which he again disarmed two doubtful regiments at Phillaur. In July he made a forced march of 41 m. in a single day in the terrific heat of the Punjab summer, in order to intercept the mutineers from Sialkot, who were marching upon Delhi. He caught them on the banks of the Ravi near Gurdaspur, and utterly destroyed them, thus successfully achieving what hardly any other man would have attempted. In August he had pacified the Punjab and was free to reinforce General Wilson on the Ridge before Delhi. An officer who served in the siege gives the following word picture of him as he appeared at this time:

"He was a man cast in a giant mould, with massive chest and powerful limbs, and an expression ardent and commanding, with a dash of roughness; features of stern beauty, a long black beard, and a deep sonorous voice. There was something of immense strength, talent and resolution in his whole frame and manner, and a power of ruling men on high occasions which no one could escape noticing. His imperial air, which never left him, and which would have been offence to the more unbending of his countrymen, but made him thought arrogant in one of less imposing mien, sometimes gave almost worshipped by the pliant Asiatics."

NICHOLSON, JOHN (1822-1857), Anglo-Indian soldier and administrator, son of Alexander Nicholson, a north of Ireland physician, was born on the 11th of December 1822 and educated at Dungannon College. He was presented with a cadetship in the Bengal infantry in 1839 by his uncle Sir James Hogg, and served in the first Afghan War of 1839-42; he distinguished himself in the defence of Ghazni, and was one of the prisoners who were carried to Bamian and escaped by bribing the guard upon General Pollock's successful advance. It was in Afghanistan that Nicholson first met Sir Henry Lawrence, who got him the Before Nicholson's arrival the counsels of the commanders appointment of political officer in Kashmir and subsequently before Delhi, like those at Meerut, suffered from irresolution on the Punjab frontier. In 1847 he was given charge of the Sind and timidity. As General Wilson's health declined, his caution Sagar district, and did much to pacify the country after the first became excessive, and Nicholson was specially sent by Sir John Sikh War. On the seizure of Multan by Mulraj, he rendered Lawrence to put more spirit into the attack. His first exploit great service in securing the country from Attock, and was after his arrival was the victory of Najafgarh, which he won wounded in an attack upon a tower in the Margalla Pass, where over the rebels who were attempting to intercept the British a monument was subsequently erected to his memory. On the siege train from Ferozepore. After marching through a flooded outbreak of the second Sikh War he was appointed political country scarcely practicable for his guns, Nicholson, with a officer to Lord Gough's force, when he rendered great service in force of 2500 troops, defeated 6000 disciplined sepoys after an the collection of intelligence and in furnishing supplies and boats. hour's fighting, and thenceforth put an end to all attempts On the annexation of the Punjab he was appointed deputy of the enemy to get in the rear of the British position on the commissioner of Bannu. There he became a kind of legendary | Ridge. Nicholson grew fiercely impatient of General Wilson's XIX ⭑

procrastination, and at one time was thinking of appealing to | the army to set Wilson aside and elect a successor; but at last, on the 13th of September, he forced Wilson to make up his mind to the assault, and he himself was chosen to lead the attacking column. On the morning of the 14th he led his column, 1000 strong, in the attack on the Kashmir gate, and successfully entered the streets of Delhi. But in trying to clear the ramparts as far as the Lahore Gate, he undertook a task beyond the powers of his wearied troops. In encouraging them as they hesitated, he turned his back on the enemy and was shot in the back. The wound was mortal, but his magnificent physique allowed him to linger for nine days before finally succumbing on the 23rd of September.

His best epitaph is found in the words of Sir John Lawrence's Mutiny Report:

"Brigadier-General John Nicholson is now beyond human praise and human reward. But so long as British rule shall endure in India, his fame can never perish. He seems especially to have been raised up for this juncture. He crowned a bright, though brief, career by dying of the wound he received in the moment of victory at Delhi. The Chief Commissioner does not hesitate to affirm that without John Nicholson Delhi could not have fallen."

See J. L. Trotter, Life of John Nicholson (1904); Sir John Kaye, Lives of Indian Officers (1889); Bosworth Smith, Life of Lord Lawrence (1883); Lady Edwardes, Memorials of Sir Herbert Edwardes (1886); and S. S. Thorburn, Bannu (1876).

strategia. On the death of Pericles he was left leader of the aristocrats against the advanced party of Cleon (q.). He made use of his wealth both to buy off enemies (especially informers) and to acquire popularity by the magnificent way in which he discharged various public services, especially those connected with the state religion, of which he was a strong supporter. In the field he displayed extreme caution, and prior to the great Sicilian expedition achieved a number of minor military successes. In 421 he took a prominent part in the arrangement of the "Peace of Nicias," which terminated the first decade of the Peloponnesian War (q.v.). He now entered with varying success upon a period of rivalry with Alcibiades, the details of which are largely matters of conjecture. So bitter was the strife that the ostracism of one seemed inevitable, but by a temporary coalition they secured instead the banishment of the demagogue Hyperbolus (417). In 415 he was appointed with Alcibiades and Lamachus to command the Sicilian expedition, and, after the flight of Alcibiades (q.v.) and the death of Lamachus, was practically the sole commander, the much more capable Demosthenes, who was sent to his aid, being apparently of comparatively little weight. How far it is just to attribute to his excessive caution and his blind faith in omens the disastrous failure it is difficult to say. At all events it is clear that the management of so great an enterprise was a task far beyond his powers. He was a man of conventional respectability and mechanical piety, without the originality which was required to meet the crisis which faced him. His popularity with the aristocratic party in Athens is, however, strikingly shown by the lament of Thucydides over his death: "He assuredly, among all Greeks of my time, least deserved to come to so extreme a pitch of ill-fortune, considering his exact performance of established dutics to the divinity " (vii. 86, Grote's version).

Besides Thucydides see Plutarch's Nicias and Diod. xii. 83; also the general authorities on the history of Greece, and the article PELOPONNESIAN WAR.

NICIAS, son of Nicomedes, an Attic painter of the 4th century B.C. Pliny (xxxv. 131) gives a list of his works. He was associated with Praxiteles, whose statues he coloured, thus adding to their value.

NICHOLSON, WILLIAM (1753-1815), English writer on natural philosophy, was born in London in 1753, and after leaving school | made two voyages as midshipman in the East India service. He subsequently entered an attorney's office, but, having become acquainted, in 1775, with Josiah Wedgwood, he lived for some years at Amsterdam as agent for the sale of pottery. On his return to England he was induced by Thomas Holcroft to devote himself to the composition of light literature for periodicals, assisting that writer also with some of his plays and novels. Meanwhile he employed himself on the preparation of An Introduction to Natural Philosophy, which was published in 1781 and was at once successful. A translation of Voltaire's Elements of the Newtonian Philosophy soon followed, and he now entirely devoted himself to scientific pursuits and philosophical journalism. In 1784 he was appointed secretary to the General Chamber of Manufacturers of Great Britain, and he was also connected with the Society for the Encouragement of Naval Architecture, estab- NICKEL (symbol Ni, atomic weight 58-68 (O=16)), a metallic lished in 1791. He bestowed much attention upon the construc-element. It has been known from the earliest times, being tion of various machines for comb-cutting, file-making, cylinder printing, &c.; he also invented an areometer. In 1800 he began in London a course of public lectures on natural philosophy and chemistry, and about this period he made the discovery of the decomposition of water by the voltaic current. In 1797 the Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry and the Arts, generally known as Nicholson's Journal, the earliest work of the kind in Great Britain, was begun; it was carried on till 1814. During the later years of his life Nicholson's attention was chiefly directed to waterworks engineering at Portsmouth, at Gosport and in Southwark. He died in London on the 21st of May 1815. Besides considerable contributions to the Philosophical Transactions, Nicholson wrote translations of Fourcroy's Chemistry (1787) and Chaptal's Chemistry (1788), First Principles of Chemistry (1788) and a Chemical Dictionary (1795); he also edited the British Encyclopaedia, or Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (6 vols., 8vo, London, 1809). NICHOLSON, WILLIAM (1784-1844), Scottish painter, was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne. Having settled in Edinburgh, he painted portraits both in oil and water-colour; and along with Thomas Hamilton the architect he was one of the founders and most vigorous promoters of the Scottish Academy, of which he became the first secretary (1826-1833). In 1818 he published a series of etchings entitled Portraits of Distinguished Living Characters of Scotland, including Sir Walter Scott, Lord Jeffrey, Robert Burns and Professor Wilson.

employed by the Chinese in the form of an alloy called pakfong. It was first isolated in an impure condition in 1751 by A. F Cronstedt from niccolite, and his results were afterwards confirmed by T. O. Bergman in 1775 (De niccolo, opusc. 2, p. 231; 3, p. 459; 4, p. 374). It occurs in the uncombined condition and alloyed with iron in meteorites; as sulphide in millerite and nickel blende, as arsenide in niccolite and cloanthite, and frequently in combination with arsenic and antimony in the form of complex sulphides. In recent years it has been found in considerable quantities in New Caledonia in the form of a hydrated silicate of nickel and magnesia approximating to the constitution (NiO, MgO)SiO2 nHO (J. Garnier, 1865), and in Canada in the form of nickeliferous pyrrhotines, which consist of sulphides of iron associated with sulphides of nickel and copper, embedded in a matrix of gneiss. At the present time nickel is obtained practically entirely from garnierite and the nickeliferous pyrrhotines. When the former is used it is roasted with calcium sulphate or alkali waste to form a matte which is then blown in a Bessemer converter or heated in a reverberatory furnace with a siliceous flux with the object of forming a rich nickel sulphide. This sulphide is then by further heating converted into the oxide and finally reduced to the state of metal by ignition with carbon in clay crucibles. The process adopted for the Canadian ores, which are poor in copper and nickel, consists in a preliminary roasting in heaps and smelting in a blast

NICIAS (d. 414 B.C.), a soldier and statesman in ancient Athens, inherited from his father Niceratus a considerable fortune in-furnace in order to obtain a matte, which is then further smelted vested mainly in the silver mines of Laurium. Evidence of his wealth is found in the fact that he had no less than 1000 slaves whom he hired out. He gravitated naturally to the aristocratic party, and was several times colleague with Pericles in the

with a siliceous flux for a rich matte. This rich matte is then mixed with coke and salt-cake and melted down in an open hearth furnace. The nickel sulphide so obtained is then roasted to oxide and reduced to metal. For a wet method of extraction

NICKEL

of the matte see Christofle and Bouilhet, French Patent 111591 (1876). L. Mond (Jour. Soc. Chem. Ind. 1895, p. 945) has obtained metallic nickel from the Canadian mattes by first roasting them and then eliminating copper by the action of The sulphuric acid, the product so obtained being then exposed to the reducing action of producer gas at about 350° C. reduced metal is then passed into a "volatilizer " and exposed to the action of carbon monoxide at about 80° C., the nickel carbonyl so formed being received in a chamber heated to For an electro180-200° C., where it decomposes, the nickel being deposited and the carbon monoxide returned to the volatilizer. lytic method of treating mattes, see T. Ulke, Moniteur scient., The metal as obtained by industrial methods 1897, 49, p. 450. rarely contains more than about 99-99.5% of nickel, the chief impurities being copper, iron, cobalt, silicon and carbon. The following tables show the output of nickel from Canada and the shipments of nickel ore from New Caledonia in recent years:

Production
(b).

CANADA

|

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nickel salts see A. Riche and Laborde, Jour. Pharm. Chem., 1888,
[5], 17, pp: 1, 59, 97.

Nickel is used for the manufacture of domestic utensils, for
crucibles, coinage, plating, and for the preparation of various
35 7%; steel, 64.3%), which has a negligible coefficient of
alloys, such as German silver, nickel steels such as invar (nickel,
thermal expansion, and constantan (nickel, 45%; copper, 55%),
Compounds.
which has a negligible thermal coefficient of its electrical resist-

ance.

Export
(b).

[blocks in formation]

Production
(b).
18,876,315
21,490,955
21,189,793
19,143,111

Export
(b).
11,970,557
20,653,845
19.376,335
19,419,893

NEW CALEDONIA

[blocks in formation]

1906. 1905.

1907.

Metric tons

100,319 133,676 129,653 77.360

Nickel Oxides.-Several oxides of nickel are known. A suboxide, NiO (?), described by W. Muller (Pogg. Ann., 1869, 212, p. 59), is not certainly known. The monoxide, NiO, occurs naturally as bunsenite, and is obtained artificially when nickel hydroxide, the action of nickel on water, by the reduction of the oxide NiO carbonate, nitrate or sulphate is heated. It may also be prepared by with hydrogen at about 200° C. (H. Moissan, Ann. Chim. Phys., It is a green powder and extracting the fused mass with water. 151, 21, p. 199), or by heating nickel chloride with sodium carbonate which becomes yellow when heated. It dissociates at a red heat, and is readily reduced to the metal when heated with carbon or in a current of hydrogen. It is readily soluble in acids, forming salts, the rate of solution being rapid if the oxide is in the amorphous condition, but slow if the oxide is crystalline. The hydroxide, Ni(OH)2, is obtained in the form of a greenish amorphous powder when nickel salts are precipitated by the caustic alkalis. It is readily soluble in acids and in an aqueous solution of ammonia. Nickel sesquioxide, Ni2O, is formed when the nitrate is decomposed by heat at the lowest possible temperature, by a similar decomposition of the chlorate, or by fusing the chloride with potassium chlorate. It is a black powder, the composition of which is never quite definite, but approximates to the formula given above. When heated with oxy-acids it dissolves, with evolution of oxygen, and with hydrochloric acid it evolves chlorine. Numerous hydrated forms of the oxide have been described (see W. Wernicke, Pogg. A Ann., 1870, 217, p. 122). peroxide, NiO2, has been obtained in the form of dinickelite of 666, 670). barium, BaO-2NiO, by heating the monoxide with anhydrous p. 495). G. Pellini and D. Meneghini (Zeit, anorg. Chem., 1908, 60, p. 178) obtained a greyish green powder of composition NiO xH2O, baryta in the electric furnace (E. Dufau, Comptes rendus, 1896, 123, chloride and hydrogen peroxide at -50°. It has all the reactions of by adding an alcoholic solution of potassium hydrate to nickelit as NiO-H2O2. An oxide, Ni304, has been obtained by heating nickel chloride in a current of moist oxygen at about 400° C. (H. Baubigny, hydrogen peroxide, and S. Tanatar (Ber., 1909, 42, p. 1516) regards The former method yields greyish, metallic-looking, Comptes rendus, 1878, 87, p. 1082), or by heating the sesquioxide in p. 199). microscopic crystals, the latter a grey amorphous powder. A hydrogen at 190° C. (H. Moissan, Ann. Chim. Phys., 1890 [5]. 21, hydrated form, NiO2H2O, is obtained when the monoxide is fused with sodium peroxide at a red heat and the fused mass extracted

1908.

98,665 125,289 130,688 101,708 120,028

(See Rothwell's Mineral Industry (1908), pp. The metal may also be obtained on the small scale by the reduction of the oxide by hydrogen or by carbon, by ignition of the oxalate or of nickel ammonium oxalate (J. J. Berzelius), by reduction of the chloride in a current of hydrogen (E. Péligot), by electrolysis of nickel ammonium sulphate (Winkler, Zeit. anorg. Chem. 1894, 8, p. 1), and by reduction of the chloride with calcium carbide.

It is a greyish white metal, and is very malleable and ductile. Its specific gravity varies according to the method employed for its preparation, the extreme values being 8-279 and 9-25. It melts between 1400-1600° C. Its specific heat increases with rise of temperature, the mean value from, 15° to 100° C. being 0-1084 (A. Naccari, Gazz., 1888, 18, p. 13). It is magnetic, but loses its magnetism when heated, the loss being complete at about 340-350° C. On the physical constants see H. Copaux, Comples rendus, 1905, 140, p. 651. Nickel occludes hydrogen readily, is attacked by the halogen elements, and oxidizes easily when heated in air. In the massive state it is unacted upon by dry air, but if moistened with acidified water, oxidation takes place slowly. When obtained by reduction processes at as low a temperature as possible the finely divided metal so formed is pyrophoric, and according to P. Schutzenberger (Comptes rendus, 1891, 113, p. 177) dry hydrochloric acid gas converts this form into nickel chloride and a volatile compound of composition NiHCl. It decomposes According to E. St Edme (Comptes rendus, 1886, 106, p. 1079) sheet nickel is passive to nitric acid, and the metal remains passive even when heated to redness in a current of hydrogen. On the reduction of organic compounds by hydrogen in the presence of metallic nickel see P. Sabatier and J. B. Senderens, Ann. Chim. Phys., 1905 [8], 4, pp. 319, 433.

water at a red heat.

It rapidly oxidizes when fused with caustic soda, but is
scarcely acted upon by caustic potash (W. Dittmar, Jour. Soc.
Chem. Ind., 1884, 3, p. 103). Hydrochloric and sulphuric acids
are almost without action on the metal, but it dissolves readily
Nickel salts are antiseptic; they arrest
in dilute nitric acid.
fermentation and stop the growth of plants. Nickel carbonyl,
On the toxic properties of
however, is extremely poisonous.

with water.

Nickel Salls. Only one series of salts is known, namely those corresponding to the monoxide. In the anhydrous state they are green. They may be recognized by the brownish violet colour they usually of a yellow colour, whilst in the hydrated condition they are impart to a borax bead when heated in an oxidizing flame. The precipitate of the hydroxide, insoluble in excess of the precipitant. caustic alkalis added to solutions of nickel salts give a pale green This latter reaction is hindered by the presence of many organic acids (tartaric acid, citric acid, &c.). Potassium cyanide gives a excess of potassium cyanide, forming a double salt, Ni(CN)2-2KCN, which remains unaltered when boiled with excess of potassium greenish yellow precipitate of nickel cyanide, Ni(CN)2, soluble in cyanide in presence of air (cf. COBALT). Ammonium sulphide precipitates black nickel sulphide, which is somewhat soluble in excess of the precipitate (especially if yellow ammonium sulphide be used), green precipitate of the hydroxide, soluble in excess of ammonia, forming a blue solution. Numerous methods have been devised for forming a dark-coloured solution. Ammonium hydroxide gives a -the cobaltinitrite method by which the cobalt is precipitated in the the separation of nickel and cobalt, the more important of which are: presence of acetic acid by means of potassium nitrite (the alkaline earth metals must not be present); the cyanide method (J. v. Liebig, Ann., 1848, 65, p. 244: 1853,87.p. 128), in which the two metals are precipitated by excess of potassium cyanide in alkaline solution, bromine being afterwards added and the solution warmed, when the adding potassium cyanide in slight excess to the solution of the mixed salts, heating for some time and then adding mercuric oxide nickel is precipitated. The latter method has been modified by and water, the whole being then warmed on the water bath, when a precipitate of mercuric oxide and nickel hydroxide is obtained

(Liebig). M. Ilinski and G. v. Knorre (Ber., 1885, 18, p. 169) separate the metals by adding nitroso-8-naphthol in the presence of 50% acetic acid, a precipitate of cobalti nitroso-8-naphthol, (CoHO(NO)]Co, insoluble in hydrochloric acid, being formed, whilst the corresponding nickel compound dissolves in hydrochloric acid. E. Pinerua separates the metals by taking advantage of the fact that cobalt chloride is soluble in ether which has been saturated with hydrochloric acid gas at low temperature. For an examination of the above and other methods see E. Hintz, Zeit. anal. Chem., 1891, 30, p. 227. Nickel fluoride, NiF2, obtained by the action of hydrofluoric acid on nickel chloride, crystallizes in yellowish green prisms which volatilise above 1000° C. It is difficultly soluble in water, and combines with the alkaline fluorides to form double salts. Nickel chloride, NiCh, is obtained in the anhydrous condition by heating the hydrated salt to 140° C., or by gently heating the finely divided metal in a current of chlorine. It readily sublimes when heated in a current of chlorine, forming golden yellow scales. It is easily reduced when heated in hydrogen. It forms crystalline compounds with ammonia and the organic bases. It is soluble in alcohol and in water. Three hydrated forms are known, viz. a mono-, di-, and hexa-hydrate; the latter being the form usually obtained by the solution of the oxide or carbonate in hydrochloric acid. Nickel chloride ammonia, NiCh-6NH,, is obtained as a white powder when anhydrous nickel chloride is exposed to the action of ammonia gas (H. Rose, Pogg. Ann., 1830, 96, p. 155), or in the form of blue octahedra by evaporating a solution of nickel chloride in aqueous ammonia.. When heated to 100° C. it loses four molecules of ammonia. Two hydrated forms have been described, one containing three molecules of water and the other half a molecule. Numerous double chlorides of nickel and other metals are known. The bromide and iodide of nickel resemble the chloride and are prepared in a similar fashion. Several sulphides of the element have been obtained. A subsulphide, NiS(?), results when the sulphate is heated with sulphur or when the precipitated monosulphide is heated in a current of hydrogen. It forms a light yellow amorphous mass which is almost insoluble in acids. The monosulphide, NiS, is obtained by heating nickel with sulphur, by heating the monoxide with sulphuretted hydrogen to a red heat, and by heating potassium sulphide with nickel chloride to 160-180° C. When prepared by dry methods it is an exceedingly stable, yellowish, somewhat crystalline mass. When prepared by the precipitation of nickel salts with alkaline sulphide in neutral solution it is a greyish black amorphous compound which readily oxidizes in moist air, forming a basic nickel sulphate. The freshly precipitated sulphide is soluble in sulphurous acid and somewhat soluble in hydrochloric acid and yellow ammonium sulphide (see H. Baubigny, Comptes rendus, 1882, 94, pp. 961, 1183; 95. p. 34). Nickel sulphate, NiSO,, is obtained anhydrous as a yellow powder when any of its hydrates are heated. When heated with carbon it is reduced to the metal. It forms hydrates containing one, two, five, six and seven molecules of water. The heptahydrate is obtained by dissolving the metal or its oxide, hydroxide or carbonate in dilute sulphuric acid (preferably in the presence of a small quantity of nitric acid), and allowing the solution to crystallize between 15° and 20° C. It crystallizes in emerald-green rhombic prisms and is moderately soluble in water. It effloresces gradually on exposure to air and passes into the hexahydrate. It loses four molecules of water of crystallization when heated to 100° C. and becomes anhydrous at about 300° C. The hexahydrate is dimorphous, a tetragonal form being obtained by crystallization of a solution of the heptahydrate between 200 and 30° C., and a monoclinic form between 50 and 70°C. Nickel sulphate combines with many metallic sulphates to form double salts, and also forms addition compounds with ammonia aniline and hydroxylamine. The nitrate, Ni(NO3)2.6H2O, is obtained by dissolving the metal in dilute nitric acid and concentrating the solution between 40° and 50° C. It crystallizes in green prisms which deliquesce rapidly on exposure to moist air.

Nickel carbonyl, Ni(CO), is obtained as a colourless mobile liquid by passing carbon monoxide over reduced nickel at a temperature of about 60° C. (L. Mond, Langer and Quincke, Jour. Chem. Soc., 1890, 57. p. 749). It boils at 43° C. (751 mm.), and sets at -25° C. to a mass of crystalline needles. It is readily soluble in hydrocarbon solvents, in chloroform and in alcohol. Its critical pressure is 30 atmospheres and its critical temperature is in the neighbourhood of 195° C. (J. Dewar, Proc. Roy. Soc., 1903, 71, p. 427). It decomposes with explosive violence when heated rapidly. Dewar and Jones (Journ. Chem. Soc., 1904, p. 203) have made an exhaustive study of its reactions, and find that it is decomposed by the halogens (dissolved in carbon tetrachloride) with liberation of carbon monoxide and formation of a nickel halide. Cyanogen iodide and iodine mono- and tri-chloride effect similar decompositions with simultaneous liberation of iodine; sulphuric acid reacts slowly, forming nickel sulphate and liberating hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Hydrochloric and hydrobromic acids are without action; hydriodic acid only reacts slowly. With aromatic hydrocarbons in the presence of anhydrous aluminium chloride, in the cold, there is a large evolution of hydrochloric acid gas, and an aldehyde is formed; at 100° C., on the other hand, anthracene derivatives are produced. Thus by using benzene, benzaldehyde and anthracene are obtained. Dewar and Jones suggest that in the latter reaction it is the

metallic nickel which is probably the reducing agent effecting the change, since it is only dissolved in any quantity when the anthracene hydrocarbon is produced. When mesitylene is used, the reaction does not proceed beyond the aldehyde stage since hydrocarbon formation is prevented by the presence of a methyl group in the ortho-position to the -CHO group. Acids and alkalis are in general without action on nickel carbonyl. The vapour of nickel carbonyl burns with a luminous flame, a cold surface depressed in the flame being covered with a black deposit of nickel. It is an extremely powerful poison. Mond and his assistants have discovered several other carbonyls. For example cobalt gives Co(CO),, as orange crystals which melt at 51°, decomposing at a higher temperature, giving Co(CO), and CO at 60°; Co(CO), forms jet black crystals. For iron carbonyls sce IRON; also L. Mond, H. Hirtz and M. D. Cowap, Jour. Chem. Soc., 1910, 97, p. 798. Nickel carbonate, NiCO3, is obtained in the anhydrous state by heating nickel chloride with calcium carbonate in a sealed tube to 150° C. (H. de Sénarmont, Ann. Chim. Phys., 1850 [3], 30, 138). It crystallizes in microscopic rhombohedra insoluble in cold acids. By precipitation of nickel salts with solutions of the alkaline carbonates, basic carbonates of variable composition are obtained.

Numerous determinations of the atomic weight of nickel have been published, the values obtained varying from 58-0 to approximately 59.5. The more recent work of T. W. Richards and Cushman (Chem. News, 1899. 79, 163, 174, 185) gives for the atomic weight of the metal the values 58-69 and 58.70.

NICKNAME, a name given to a person in addition to his personal names, Christian and surname, either as a playful or familiar form of address or as a mark of ridicule, contempt or hatred. The Middle English form of the word, nekename, shows that it is a corruption of "an ekename" (i.e. "added" name; eke, earlier cche, from the root seen in Lat. augere, Gr. avşávew), and is therefore equivalent to the Lat. agnomen.

There is an interesting list of national nicknames in Notes and Queries, 9th series, 4, 212-214.

NICOBAR ISLANDS, a British group of twelve inhabited and seven uninhabited islands in the Bay of Bengal, between Sumatra and the Andaman Islands, to which latter they are administratively appended. They have an aggregate area of about 635 sq. m., Great Nicobar (Loöng), the largest and southernmost of any size, covering 333 sq. m. Six others range in area from about 20 sq. m. to 62 sq. m.; the rest are mere islets. A careful census of the natives, taken by Mr E. H. Man in 1901, gave a total population of some 6700, at about which figure the estimates of the number of inhabitants have always stood. Car Nicobar (Pu), the most northerly island, with an area of 49 sq. m., was by far the most densely populated, and had 3500 inhabitants, Great Nicobar containing only 450. The marine surveys of these islands are still meagre and unsatisfactory, but the whole of the Nicobars and outlying islands were surveyed topographically by the Indian Survey Department in 1886-1887, when a number of maps on the scale of 2 in. to the mile were produced, Some of the islands have mere giving an accurate coast-line. flat, coral-covered surfaces; others, again, are hilly, the Great Nicobar rising to 2105 ft. On that island there are considerable and beautiful streams, but the others generally are badly off for fresh surface water. There is one good harbour, a magnificent land-locked shelter called Nancowry Harbour, formed by the islands of Camorta and Nancowry (both known to natives as Nankauri).

Geology. The Nicobars form part of a great submarine chain, of which the Andamans are a continuation. Elaborate geological reports were issued by a Danish scientific expedition in 1846 and an Austrian expedition in 1858. Dr Rink of the former found no trace of true volcanic rocks, though the chain as a whole is known for its volcanic activity, but features were not wanting to indicate considerable upheavals in the most recent periods. He considered that the islands belonged to the Tertiary age. Von Hochstetter of the Austrian expedition classified the most important formations thus: eruptive, serpentine and gabbro; marine deposits, probably late Tertiary, consisting of sandstones, slates, clay, marls, and plastic clay, recent corals. He considered the whole group connected geologically with the great islands of the Malay Archipelago farther south. The vexed question of the presence of coal and tin in the Nicobars has so far received no decided scientific support. The white clay marls of Camorta and Nancowry have become famous as being true polycistinan marls like those of Barbados. Earthquakes of great violence were recorded in 1847 and 1881 (with tidal wave), and mild shocks were experienced in December 1899.

Meteorology. It has always been held to be important to maintain a meteorological station on the Nicobars, for the purpose of

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