506 



NIMROD 



NISHAPUR 



Mm rod. See BABYLONIA, Vol. I. p. 633, also 

 1! \i:i i. ; as a nom de jilumt, see APPERLEY. 



Nine Eyes, a |mpular name for the young 

 lampreys fnuiitl in rivers. See LAMPREY. 



MlH'veh, the modern Kouyxnjik, capital of 

 tlie ancient kingdom of Assyria. Its original 

 capital was Assur, the ruins of which are now 

 called KalaA Sherghat, liut the group of cities some 

 sixty miles to the north, above the Greater Zab, 

 and on the eastern side of the Tigris, namely 

 Nineveh, I'alah (XimrM), and DurSargon (Khur- 

 tabad), ultimately supplanted it in importance. 

 When Nineveh iUtelf fell, the whole Assyrian em- 

 pireessentially a military power perishe<l with 

 it. In the Sassanian period a village was built on 

 the mounds which covered its mini ; hut when its 

 buildings had also crumbled into ruins, the very 

 site of the proud ancient city remained for cen- 

 turies unknown. Kich in 1818 conjectured that 

 the mounds of Kouyuniik, opposite the modern 

 town of Mosul, concealed its ruins beneath, but it 

 was not until the excavations of liotta in 1842 and 

 Layard in 1845 that the remains, first of Dur- 

 Sargon, then of Nineveh itself, were revealed to 

 the world. The sculptured monuments of its 

 ancient kings and the relics of its clay-inscribed 

 library noon violded up their secrets to the in- 

 vestigations i >f scholars, and ere long the life and 

 history of the ancient kingdom of Assyria were 

 known almost with as much certainty as those of 

 Greece and Home. See ASSYRIA, and CUNEIFORM 

 INSCRIPTIONS. 



Xinil-po, a treaty-port of the Chinese province 

 of Che-Kcang, stands in a fertile plain, 16 miles from 

 the mouth of the Takia (Nino-no) Kiver and aliout 

 100 miles S. of Shanghai. It is surrounded by a 

 wall 25 feet high ana 16 feet thick, and contains 

 numerous temples, colleges, &c., chief amongst 

 them the temple of the Queen of Heaven, figured 

 under CHINA (Vol. III. p. 187); the temple was 

 founded in the 12th century, but the present build- 

 ing, elaborately and richly ornamented, dates from 

 1680. The people, 250,000 in number, make sedge 

 hats and mats, grow cotton, catch cuttle-fish, 

 and carry on an active trade, especially in the 

 export of green tea. The customs returns show 

 the annual value of the imports chielly opium (30 

 per cent, of the total ), cotton and woollen goods, 

 tin and iron, medicines ( in transit ), dried Itingnganx, 

 kerosene oil, indigo, sugar, and tobacco to be 

 1,887,900, and the exports green tea (70 per 

 cent, of the total), cuttle-fish, sedge hats and mats, 

 silk goods, and raw cotton to be 1,259.3(10. 

 Apart from junks, some 550 vessels, of 382,800 

 tons, enter every vear, of which 158 vessels, with an 

 aggregate of 127,900 tons, are British. 



Millan. ST, the first known apostle of Scotland, 

 was born of noble parentage, about 360, on the 

 shores of the Sol way Firth. Of studious and ascetic 

 habits, he was moved by the Holy Spirit to make a 

 pilgrimage to Home, and there, after some years' 

 stay, was consecrated bishop by the pope. On his 

 homeward way he viit<-d St Martin (q.v.) at Tours, 

 and after his arrival in Galloway he founded the 

 'Candida Casa,' or church of Whit horn, dedicating 

 it to St Martin, the news of whose death had just 

 reached him (397). Later he lalxmred success- 

 fully for the evangelisation (if the Southern l'iri~. 

 and in 432 (according to the Bollandists) died 

 ' perfect in life ami full of years,' and was buried 

 in his church at Whitlmrn. His festival falls on 

 10th September. His Life by St Ailred (1109-66), 

 abbot of KievRiilx in Yorkshire, who visited 

 Galloway, has been edited by Bishop Forties (vol. 

 v., 'Historians of Scotland' series, 1874), who 

 enumerates sixty-six dedications in Scotland to 

 St N iuian or ' Riiigan 'the Lowland Scotch form 



of his name including the Episcopal cathedral at 



1'erth. 



Ninon de Lenclos. See LENCLOS. 



Nl'obe, in (in-ek Mythology, the daughter of 

 Tantalus ami wife of Ainplii<>ii, kin;; of Thelies, to 

 whom she bore six sons and six daughters. I'nmd 

 of her children, she despised Let" or Latona, who 

 had only two children, A|illo and Artemis ; where- 

 upon Latona, enraged at her presumption, moved 

 her children to destroy all the children of Niobe 

 with their arrows. They lay nine days in their 

 lilnod unlinried, when /ens changed them into 

 stone, and on the tenth day they were buried by 

 the gods themselves. Niolic was changed into stone 

 on Mount Sipylus, in Lydiu, from which tears 

 Unwed every summer. Such is the Homeric legend, 

 which, however, was afterwards much varied and 

 enlarged. Only fragments exist of the tragedies 

 of .Kschvlns and Sophocles on this theme, which 

 was a favourite subject of ancient arts A noble 

 group representing Niobe and her children was ili- 

 covered at Koine in 1583, and is now in the Uffizi 

 Palace at Florence. Even the ancient Komans 

 were in doubts whether the work proceeded from 

 Scopas or Praxiteles. See Heydemann, Aimlil. < n 

 zu den Kunstdarstelltiniirn tin' Xiobe (Leip. 1883). 



Niobium (*vm. Nb; equiv. 94) is a rare metal 

 discovered by ft. Hose in the mineral Tnntalite, 

 It may be obtained by passing the vapour of the 

 chloride along with hydrogen through a red-hot 

 tul>e. It is of a steel-gray colour, specific gravity 

 4'06, and takes fire when' heated in the air or in 

 chlorine gas. It is but little acted on by hydro- 

 chloric or nitric acid, but is soluble in strong sul- 

 phuric acid. It forms compounds with oxygen, 

 chlorine, sulphur, &c., but these are of little practi- 

 cal importance. 



Xiorl. the capital of the French department of 

 Deux-Sevres, pleasantly situated on the navigable 

 Scvre Niortaise, 43 miles NE. of La Rochelle and 

 109 SW. of Tours. An important railway junction, 

 it hits an old castle, a h6tel-de-ville (1530), a fine 

 public garden, and the 16th-century church of 

 Notre Dame, with a spire 246 feet high. The 

 dressing of leather and the manufacture of gloves 

 are the leading industries. Pop. (1872) 20,022; 

 ( 1891 ) 20,994. Niort in the 14th century was held 

 for eighteen years by the English. It was the 

 birthplace of Madame de Maintenon. See Favre's 

 Uvttoire de Niort (1880). 



Xipixoil, a lake of Ontario, 30 miles NW. of 

 Lake Superior, with which it is connected by the 

 Nipigon Kiver. It is almut 70 miles long, but itt 

 deeply-indented coast-line measures 580 miles. Its 

 greatest depth is 540 feet. The lake is studded 

 with hundreds of islands. 



M| issillit. a lake of Ontario, north-east _ of 

 Lake Huron, into which (Georgian Bay) it drains 

 tli rough French Kiver (55 miles). Its length is 

 al'Miit 50 by 28 miles. 



Nipples.. See BREASTS. 



Nippon. See JAPAN. 



NlrvAna. See BUDDHISM, Vol. II. p. 519. 



N I sell, the chief town and commercial centre of 

 southern Servia, stands in the midst of a vine- 

 growing district, 152 miles by rail SE. of Belgrade. 

 It is the seat of a Greek bishop and has a fairly 

 strong citadel ( 1737 ). The place has played a con- 

 spicuous part in the Turkish wars from 1375 down 

 to 1878, when it was occupied by Servia. Here, on 

 23d September 1689, the Austrians defeated the 

 Turks. Pop. (1884) 16,178; (1890) 19,877. 



Msliapiir. a town of the Persian province of 

 Khorassan, 63 miles \V. of Meshed, in a beautiful 

 and fertile valley, has 11,000 inhabitant* and a 



