NEPENTHES 



NEPOS 



437 



with its offset spurs, on which stand the great 

 peaks of Everest, Dhwalagiri, &c. On the south of 

 the state lies the Terai. The intervening territory 

 << moists of mountain-ridges, embracing several 

 valleys drained by the Kiiruali, Gandak, Kosi, and 

 other rivers. The climate of course varies greatly 

 according to the altitude ; the principal valley, in 

 which stands the capital Khatniiuidu i <j.v.), has a 

 climate like that of southern Europe. The soil is , 

 very fertile, in some districts producing three crops 

 in the year. The hillsides are terraced and the 

 land is" irrigated. Rice, opium, rape, linseed, 

 tobacco, and various cereals ami pulses are the 

 more important products. Several minerals, as 

 copper, iron, sulphur, and others exist, but are 

 little worked. Tne forests contain valuable timber 

 trees. Nepal has extensive trading relations with 

 the provinces of British India, reaching the annual 

 average value of 2,000,000, and with Tibet, the 

 details of which are not known. The valleys are 

 inhabited by numerous different hill-trilies, partly 

 aboriginal, partly of Mongolian or Chinese descent ; 

 but the dominant race are the Goorkhas (q.v. ), 

 whose ancestors came to the Himalayan slopes from 

 Kajpntana in the 12th century, though it was not 

 until 1769 that they made themselves masters of 

 Nepal. They rapidly subdued the hill-valleys to 

 east and west of them, and, after a war with China 

 (1789-92), on account of Tibet, in which the 

 Goorkhas were worsted, and a period of great 

 internal disorder, Nepal came into conflict with 

 the Indian government. War followed ; in 1815 

 Sir David Orliterlony defeated the Goorkha armies 

 in the west, and peace was agreed to ; hut, the 

 treaty not having l>een signed by the king of 

 Nepal, a Hritish force, 33,000 strong, advanced in 

 the succeeding year to within three days' march of 

 Kliatmandii. and rompelled the Goorkhas to sign 

 the treaty. Since that they have ceased their en 

 croachments on British territory, and during the 

 Mutiny voluntarily sent to the assistance of the 

 British a force which rendered useful service in the 

 reduction of Oudh. The real ruler of the country- 

 is tlie prime-minister ; Sir Jang Bahadur held this 

 olliee from 1846 to his death in 1877, and was 

 succeeded by his son. But he was slain and sup- 

 planted by the head of a rival faction in 1885. 

 Nepenthes. See INSECTIVOROUS PLANTS. 



|>ll4'line (Gr. nephele, 'a cloud ; ' in allusion 

 to the mineral becoming cloudy when immersed in a 

 strong acid), a rock-forming mineral of some im- 

 portance. It is colourless, white or yellowish, and 

 usually crystallises in hexagonal prisms with 

 various modifications. It has a hardness of 5J to 

 6, and up. gr. of 2J or therealx>uts. It occurs in 

 various volcanic rocks, as in certain basalts 

 (nepheline-basalts), in which it plays the part of 

 felspar in ordinary basalt (plagioclase-basalt). In 

 these flne-grained rocks the crystalline granules of 

 nepheline are of microscopic size ; in the more 

 coarsely crystalline nepheline-basalts ( nephelinites) 

 the crystals are readily seen by the naked eye. 

 Fine crystals often occur in drusy cavities in such 

 rocks. Elipolite (Gr. elaion, 'oil') is a variety 

 of nepheline with a greasy lustre, which seldom 

 assumes a crystalline form. It is dark greenish, 

 gray, or brown in colour, and appears to occur only 

 in plntonir rocks, ns in the syenites of Frederiks- 

 viirn anil Laurvig in Norway. 



Ni plii-liiiiii. See LITCHI. 



\'|hrilo. : mineral usually called Jade (q.v.), 

 and known also as lleilstein, or Axestoiie. It is a 

 hard, tough mineral found in Turkestan, in Siberia, 

 in Bhutan, in New Caledonia, in the Marquesas, 

 in British Columbia, and in Alaska. It is a com- 

 position of silicate of calcium and magnesium, with 

 lime, alumina, sodium, and protoxide of iron. The 



bright green of some of the more highly-prized speci- 

 mens is probably due to oxide of nickel. Some speci- 

 mens in India ( where it is not native ) strike fire with 

 steel, and are therefore not pure nephrite. What 

 is most generally known as oriental jade is a pale- 

 greenish nephrite, more or less opaque, very hard, 

 but with a peculiar greasy feeling to the touch. 

 This quality is more often seen in vases, &c., the 

 finer and rarer colours being used for personal 

 ornaments. Much of what is called Oceanic 

 jade, because found in the South Sea Islands and 

 New Zealand, is not true nephrite, but is neverthe- 

 less a beautiful and valuable mineral. Nephrite 

 (Greek nejihros, 'kidney') was supposed to be a 

 charm against nephritic diseases, and had many 

 other virtues ascribed to it ; in China to this' 

 day jade ornaments are believed to afford pro- 

 tection from lightning. The old Aryan belief 

 in this may account for the wide distribution of 

 jade ornaments although deposits of the mineral 

 are so limited. The specimens of nephrite obtained 

 from prehistoric 'finds' in Europe were believed to 

 have been imported from Asia. But recently the 

 mineral has been discovered in place at Jordans- 

 miihl in Silesia; and the water-worn fragments 

 found at Neuenburger See have probably lieen 

 derived from some local source not yet detected. 



Nephritis (Gr. nr/i/mix, 'kidney'), inflamma- 

 tion of the Kidneys (q.v.). 



Nepomilk (or I'OMCK), JOHN OF, the patron 

 saint of Bohemia, who is honoured as a martyr of 

 the seal of confession, was liorn at Pomuk, a few 

 miles SE. from 1'ilsen, about 1330. Having studied 

 at the university of Prague and taken holy order-. 

 he held various ecclesiastical offices in Prague, and 

 was appointed confessor to Sophia, wife of King 

 \\~enceslaus IV. For refusing to betray to this 

 monarch the confession of the queen John was put 

 to the torture, then tied hand and foot, and flung 

 into the Moldan, in March 1383. His memory was 

 cherished with peculiar affection by the Bohemian 

 people, and in 1729 he was canonised by 1'ope 

 Benedict XIII. His memory is celebrated on 16th 

 May. By some historians two distinct personages 

 of the same name are enumerated one, the martyr 

 of the confessional, the other, a victim to the simoni- 

 acal tyranny of VVenceslaus ; but the identity of the 

 two is sustained by Palacky, Gejchichte von Bohmen, 

 iii. 62. In 1855 Abel tried to prove that John of 

 Nepomilk was a merely Catholic transformation of 

 the people'-, darling, the heretical John Huss. See 

 Wratislaw's Life, Legend, and Canonisation of 

 St .liikn Nepomucen (1873). 



Nepos, CORNELIUS, a Roman historical writer, 

 was a native of Pavia, as Mornmsen thinks, of 

 Hostilia (now Ostiglia), as its citizens l>e!ieved 

 they proved by erecting a statue in 1868. He was 

 the contemporary and friend of Cicero, Atticus. 

 and Catullus, and was probably still alive in 25 

 or 24 B.C. The ancients ascribed to him the follow- 

 ing works : Chronica, Eremnlontm Libri, Lives of 

 Cato and Cicero, and De Viris Ilhistribua. The 

 last is supposed to have consisted of sixteen books, 

 but only twenty-five brief biographies of warriors 

 and statesmen, mostly Greeks, have survived. 

 These biographies are untrustworthy as history, 

 but are written in a clear and elegant style, 

 although affected archaisms and euphnistic manner- 

 isms are not unfrequent. Until the middle of the 

 16th century they were generally ascribed to 

 Kmiliiis Probns (4th century); but in 1569 the 

 famous Dionysius Lambiniis claimed them as part 

 of the lost work of Cornelius Nepos. Other good 

 editions are those of Cellarius (1689) and, in 

 modern days, Nipperdey (2d ed. 1879). See 

 Freudenberg, Qtteestiones historic^ in C. Nepotis 

 vitas ( 1839). 



