NEUVILLE 



NEVADA 



451 



territory armed expeditions against a belligerent, 

 or increase therein the warlike force of any belli- 

 gerent ship or expedition. At the same time a 

 neutral state is iiot bound to restrain its subjects 

 from trade in arms and munitions of war. The 

 extent of the responsibility of neutral states for 

 the building and titling out of ships within their 

 territory appears still to be uncertain. Till lately 

 the English idea seems to have been that the 

 neutral government was under no obligation to 

 stop such proceedings, unless the vessel was ready 

 to commence hostilities at the moment of its leav- 

 ing neutral waters. But the events connected 

 with the escape of the Alabama (see ALABAMA) 

 and her sister-cruisers during the American civil 

 war showed the inadequacy of this view. The 

 treaty of Washington, 1871, by which all these 

 questions were referred to arbitration, directed the 

 arbitrators to apply, in addition to the ordinary 

 rules of the law of nations, three new rules, known 

 as the Rules of Washington. These rules, owing 

 to their loose phraseology, have raised more ques- 

 tions than they have solved, but their general 

 effect is immensely to extend the duties of neutral 

 states. 



See Hall, International Law (2d ed. 1884) and The 

 Riiihtf and Du'iei of Xeutralt (1874); Wlieaton, Inter- 

 national Laic (Eng. ed. by A. C. Boyd; 3d ed. 188'J). 

 For the history of the growth of the law of neutrality, 

 see Manning, Law of Natiom. See also the Lettert of 

 HistoriciH, and the works cited at ENEMY. 



Nenville, ALPHOSSE MARIE DE, the most 

 popular of the youngest school of French painters 

 of oattle-scenes, was born at St Omer on 31st May 

 1836, and after studying under Delacroix painted 

 a series of successful pictures illustrative of French 

 exploits in the Crimean war, Italy, and Mexico. 

 Then came the war with Germany. Neuville 

 fought in the ranks and learned something of real 

 warfare from actual ex(>erience. This knowledge 

 imparted additional power to his next and last 

 series of works, depicting incidents of that war. 

 The attack at Rorke's Drift and that at Tel el - 

 Kebir were also chosen by him as subjects for 

 pictures. Neuville excelled moreover as an illus- 

 trator of books, his best work in this line being 

 the designs for Guizot's Hutoirc de France. He 

 died in Paris, 20th May 1885. 



Neiiwied. a town of Prussia, on the right bank 

 of the Rhine, 8 miles below Coblonz, was capital of 

 the mediatised principality of Wied ; the castle of 

 the princes has a l>eautiful garden, in which are 

 many Roman antiquities discovered here. The 

 town contains a:i important institute of the 

 Moravian Brethren, and there are some minor 

 manufactures. Pop. 9056. 



Neva, a river of Russia, flows westward from 

 the south-west corner of Lake Ladoga to the Hay 

 of Cronstadt, in the Gulf of Finland, passing 

 through St Petersburg, and carries to the sea an 

 enormous volume of water ( greater than that of the 

 Rhine) from the lakes Ladoga, Onega, Ilmen, and 

 others. Its total length, with windings, is altfmt 

 40 miles ; in places it is over 4000 feet wide, else- 

 where the channel is narrowed to 180 feet: and in 

 one or two places the navigation is embarrassed by 

 reefs and rapids. It is frozen on an average from 

 November 25 to April 21. By the Ladoga Canal 

 the Neva communicates with the vast water-system 

 of the Volga, and thus it may be said to join the 

 Baltic witli the Caspian Sea. 



X^vada, a silver-mining state of the American 

 I'nion, is hounded N. by Oregon and Idaho, E. by 

 Utah and Arizona, and S. and i r ^ !r i,< ii, im. d 

 \\ . by California. Its greatest I i" '" '" t-. >. 

 Jongtn from north to south is a I '"""">" c t"- 

 little less than 500 miles, and its greatest width 



from east to west is more than 300 miles. In area 

 (110,700 sq. m. ) it is the fourth largest state of the 

 Union ; in population it is the lowest of all the 

 states and territories ( 1870 ) 42,491 ; ( 1890 ) 45,761 ; 

 (1900) 42,335. Nearly the whole of Nevada is in- 

 cluded in the Great Basin (q.v.), once occupied by 

 a great inland sea, and afterwards by several great 

 lakes which have also disappeared. Some of the 

 deepest depressions of such a body of water are yet 

 marked by Walker, Hurnl>oldt, Carson, Pyramid, 

 and Winnemucca lakes, and by other ' sin"ks ' and 

 playas. The ancient shore-lines are clearly visible 

 in certain places, and the climate, now arid and 

 nearly rainless, was once moist. The soil of the 

 Great Basin at some time produced an abundant 

 vegetation, whereas it is now almost totally unlit 

 for agriculture, frowned upon by barren treeless 

 mountains, and traversed by regions of nearly 

 absolute desert. At present Nevada is a high 

 plateau with an average altitude of 4000 feet, 

 crossed by numerous ranges of mountains which as 

 a rule are parallel and separated by valleys from 

 5 to 20 miles in width. Some of these valleys are 

 barren and desolate ; others, through which the 

 rivers How, have areas of arable land. The moun- 

 tains contain rocks of every geological period ; 

 many of them are volcanic, and there are striking 

 exhibition* of metamorphic and trap rocks. In 

 the valleys lie the sedimentary deposits of ages 

 mixed with cinders and other volcanic products 

 which fell in many cases on the surface of the 

 extinct lake, and at the mouths of the canons are 

 vast moraines. The mineral production of Nevada, 

 esi>ccially of silver, has l>een enormous (see COM- 

 STOCK LODE). Though the high grades of ore 

 appear to have been largely exhausted, the pro- 

 duction was at first so great as to materially change 

 the value of the precious metals, and to promote 

 Nevada hastily from an uninhabited desert to a 

 state of the Union. Mining is still the chief 

 interest. A small area in the north is drained by 

 the Owyhee River, a tributary of the Snake, and 

 another portion of the state in the south belongs 

 to the Colorado valley. Otherwise Nevada lies 

 wholly in the great basin of interior drainage, 

 where none of the water reaches the sea. The 

 streams disappear in the sand or How into 'sinks,' 

 salt or brackish lakes, m pianos, which are shallow 

 mud lakes that evaporate when the supply of water 

 fails. The llnmholdt River pursues a winding 

 course of 350 miles. There are numerous hot 

 springs, many of which are surrounded with in- 

 crustations of tufa often in weird and fantastic 

 forms. Some of the lakes are nearly saturated 

 solutions of borax and salts of sodium and potas- 

 sium, and in the valleys are tracts of glistening 

 alkaline deposits, which mark the beds of extinct 

 lakes. 



The atmosphere is dry, remarkably clear in 

 winter, but tilled in summer with minute particles 

 of dust, which produce endless and extraordinary 

 effects of colour on the sunlight. The temperature 

 is subject to extremes, and the rainfall is exceed- 

 ingly light. It nowhere exceeds 15 inches, and 

 scarcely averages more than 5 inches. Sunn- 

 sections receive no rain for several successive years. 

 Sage-brush and other desert plants capable of 

 enduring drought form the native vegetation. It 

 has lieen estimated that with careful irrigation 

 :il ion t three per cent, of the land may l>e successfully 

 cultivated. The Mormons established a few tem- 

 porary camps in 1848, and in 1850 a settlement was 

 made at Genoa ; but the real history of the state 

 begins with the discovery of silver in 1859. Nevada 

 was separated from Utah territory in 1861, nod in 

 1864 was admitted to the Union as a state. There 

 are fourteen counties in the state, and the moot 

 important towns are Virginia City and Gold UU1, 



