NEMOURS 



5678 



NEONAL 



Due de Nemours, 

 French soldier 



Nemours, Louis CHARLES 

 PHILIPPE RAPHAEL D'ORLEANS, 

 Due DE (1814-96). French soldier. 

 Born in Paris, 

 Oct. 25, 1814, 

 the second 

 son of Louis 

 Philippe, h e 

 took part in 

 the French 

 expedition in 

 Belgium, 

 1831-32, and 

 served in 

 Algeria, 1836- 

 37 and 1841, becoming lieutenant- 

 general. He was named prospec- 

 tive regent, and was an active 

 member of the house of peers until 

 the revolution of 1848, when he 

 took refuge in England until 1871. 

 In 1840 he married Victoria 

 Augusta of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha 

 (1822-57). He died at Versailles, 

 June 26, 1896. 



Nen OR NENE. River of Eng- 

 land. It rises in the W. of North- 

 amptonshire and flows S.E. to 

 Northampton, where it takes a 

 N.E. direction past Welling borough, 

 Thrapston, Oundle, Peterborough, 

 and Wisbech to the Wash, which 

 it enters 3 m. below Sutton Bridge. 

 It has a canal communication with 

 all the central waterways of Eng- 

 land, and is navigable for small 

 vessels. Its length is 90 m. 



Nenagh. Market town and 

 urban dist. of co. Tipperary, Ire- 

 land. It stands on the river Ne- 

 nagh, 27 m. from 

 Limerick and 96 

 m. from Dublin, 

 with a station on 

 the G.S. & W. 

 Rly. The keep of 

 the castle, at one 

 time the resi- 

 dence of the 

 family of Butler, 

 still stands. In 



Nenagh urban 

 district seal 



the Middle Ages the Franciscans 

 and Austin Friars had houses here. 

 There is an agricultural trade, while 

 slate is quarried. Market days, 

 Thurs. and Sat. Pop. 5,000. The 

 river Nenagh is 14 m. long and falls 

 into Lough Derg. 



Nennius. Welsh historian. 

 Little is known of him, save that 

 he lived in S. Wales and wrote in 

 Latin a History of the Britons, 

 completed in 796. To him are 

 due many of the stories told 

 about King Arthur, but the worth 

 of his work is seriously questioned. 

 The best scholarship values only a 

 section, believed to be taken from 

 the work of a northern writer, 

 which gives information about the 

 conquest by the Anglo-Saxons. 



Neo-Caesarea, SYNOD OF. Sy- 

 nod of the Church, held about 315 

 at a town in Pontus. It passed 



canons dealing with eccles. disci- 

 pline, decreeing, inter alia, that a 

 priest who married after ordina- 

 tion must be deposed ; that no 

 priest might attend a second mar- 

 riage; and that no one should be 

 ordained under 30 years of age. 

 At a second synod of fchis name, 

 held about 358, Bishop Eustathius 

 of Sebaste was condemned. 



Neocomian. In geology, the 

 name given by J. Thurmann to the 

 lowest stage of the Cretaceous 

 system of rocks. It is usually taken 

 as being synonymous with the 

 Lower Cretaceous. See Cretaceous. 



Neodymium. One of the ele- 

 mentary metals. Its chemical 

 symbol is Nd ; atomic weight, 

 144 '3 ; specific gravity, 6 '956 ; and 

 melting point, 840 C. It was 

 obtained in 1885 by Auer von 

 Welsbach by submitting to frac- 

 tional crystallisation the double 

 ammonium and sodium nitrate 

 of didymium (q.v.). It is found, 

 associated with lanthanum, in the 

 rare earths. 



Neo- Impressionism. Modern 

 school of painting. The neo-im- 

 pressionists are an offshoot of the 

 impressionist school, differing from 

 the latter in carrying the analysis 

 of light by the division of tones to 

 the farthest possible limit, and 

 also in the reversion, to some ex- 

 tent, to design in composition. 

 The chief exponents of neo-im- 

 pressionism in France, where the 

 movement originated, were Georges 

 Seurat, Lucien Pissarro, Paul Sig- 

 nac, and Louis Valtot. The move- 

 ment really embodied a scientific 

 revolt against impressionism pure 

 and simple. See Impressionism. 



Neolithic (Gr. neoa, recent ; 

 lithos, stone). Term introduced by 

 Lord Avebury to denote the later 

 phase of the prehistoric stone-age 

 civilization which preceded the use 

 of metals. It is distinguished from 

 the older or palaeolithic phase by 

 the more advanced workmanship, 

 especially the polishing and grind- 

 ing of the cutting edges, as well as 

 by the variety of form and use, 

 displayed by implements wrought 

 out of flint and other hard stones. 



It is not, however, from its lithic 

 industries as such that the later 

 stone age derives its importance 

 in human history. Kitchen-mid- 

 dens, lake-dwellings, inhabited 

 oaves, burial mounds, and mega- 

 lithic rude stone monuments show 

 that neolithic man gradually 

 achieved momentous advances in 

 other directions also. Among these 

 were the inventions of basketry, 

 weaving, and pottery, and the 

 domestication of animals and ' 

 plants, which turned men from 

 mere hunters and fishers into 

 herdsmen and farmers. Side by 



side with these developments arose 

 corn-grinding, navigation, and the 

 first principles of stone and timber 

 architecture. These amenities led 

 to improved social organization, 

 the reverential treatment of the 

 dead, and the emergence of the 

 theistic principle in religion. 



Notwithstanding the lack of 

 chronological data, attempts have 

 been made to divide the neolithic 

 age of each cultural region into 

 early, middle, and late periods. 

 Reliance is placed on the develop- 

 ment of style, aided by evidence 

 drawn from the relative position of 

 stratified remains. Exact work of 

 this kind was first done by Prof. 

 Petrie in connexion with the pre- 

 dynastic pottery of Egypt. 



Although the stone age was suc- 

 ceeded among all the progressive 

 peoples of the Old World by an age 

 of metals, there have survived to 

 modern times in every continent 

 primitive peoples whose cultural 

 outlook remained neolithic, even 

 after the existence of metals was 

 learned from external sources. The 

 New World was peopled in a dis- 

 tant past by bands of neolithic folk 

 from Asia, who developed through 

 centuries of isolation the cultural 

 elements brought with them. The 

 result was that aboriginal America 

 was still essentially neolithic at the 

 European discovery. See Anthrop- 

 ology ; Callernish ; Man ; Stone 

 Age ; consult also The New Stone 

 Age in N. Europe, J. M. Tyler,1921. 



Neon. One of the gaseous ele- 

 ments. It is present in the atmo- 

 sphere in the proportion of about 

 one part in 80,000. It occurs mixed 

 with argon, and was discovered by 

 Sir William Ramsay in 1898 when 

 examining a large quantity of 

 argon. This latter gas was liquefied, 

 and it was found, as the tempera- 

 ture was raised, that a lighter gas 

 than argon was present. To this 

 the name neon ("new") was 

 given. It was not until two years 

 afterwards that a sufficient quan- 

 tity of the gas could be collected 

 for an extended study of its pro- 

 perties. Neon is recognized by its 

 spectrum, which consists of a great 

 number of red, orange, and yellow 

 lines. Chemical symbol Ne. 



Neonal. Perchlorate safety ex- 

 plosive, in which nitroglycerine is 

 used as the sensitiser. It is of a 

 similar type to the Permonites but 

 it contains more nitro-glycerine 

 and wood meal ; while the ammo- 

 nium nitrate has been replaced 

 by ammonium oxalate, BO that 

 the material is not hygroscopic. 

 The oxalate reduces the flame 

 temperature sufficiently for the 

 explosive to pass the Rotherham 

 test. See Explosives ; Safety 

 Explosives. 



