234 



NIEMEN NIGHT. 



NIEMEN (in German, Memel) ; a large river of 

 Lithuania, which rises in the Russian province of 

 Grodno, near Slonim, and divides, eight miles below 

 Tilsit, into two branches, called the Russ and the 

 New Gilge, which form the Tilsit plain, celebrated 

 for its fertility, and empty into the Curische-Haff. 

 The Tilsit plain suffered severely from an inundation 

 in 1829, by which the river dikes were much injured. 

 The Nit-men is navigable in summer, and facilitates 

 the commerce of Memel and Konigsberg. The meet- 

 ing of Napoleon with the emperor Alexander and 

 Frederic William, king of Prussia, which took place 

 on a raft in this river, in 1807, gives it an historical 

 celebrity. 



NIEMEYER, AUGUSTUS HERMANN, a German 

 theologian and miscellaneous writer, was born Sept. 

 1, 1754, at Halle, where he studied theology. In 

 1 780, he was appointed professor extraordinarius of 

 theology in the university of his native city ; in 1784, 

 professor ordinarius, and inspector of the royal peeda- 

 gogium. He received a number of appointments, 

 which gradually enlarged the sphere of his activity ; 

 and, in 1808, he was made member of the estates of 

 the kingdom of Westphalia, chancellor, and rector 

 perpetuus of the university. In 1813 the university 

 was abolished by Napoleon ; but, when the Prussian 

 government restored it he was reappointed. He soon 

 laid down this office, but occupied several other 

 places connected with education. Besides a number 

 of sermons, treatises, and translations, he has pub- 

 lished the following works, all in German : Charac- 

 teristics of the Bible ; Philotas, or Consolations for 

 the Suffering and the Friends of the Suffering ; Ti- 

 motheus, for the Awakening and Promotion of Piety 

 in thinking Christians ; Popular and Practical Theo- 

 logy ; Letters to Christian Teachers of Religion ; 

 Teacher's Manual (Halle, 1802) ; Views of German 

 School Instruction, and its History in the eighteenth 

 Century (Halle, 1801) ; Principles of Education and 

 Instruction for Parents, Tutors, and Teachers (7th 

 ed., 1819, 3 vols.) ; Original Passages of Greek and 

 Roman Classics on the Theory of Education (Halle 

 and Berlin, 1813) ; the Book of Religion, and Hymns 

 for higher Schools ; Leisure Hours during the War ; 

 Religious Poems (Halle and Berlin, 1814.) In 1820, 

 he made a journey to England, which he has described 

 in his Observations in Travelling (1822, 2 vols.) The 

 third and fourth volumes describe a former journey to 

 Holland and France. April 18, 1827, the university 

 of Halle celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his re- 

 ception of the degree of master of arts ; and the 

 king, on that day, presented the university with 

 40,000 Prussian dollars for the erection of a building, 

 for which Niemeyer had petitioned. He died at 

 Halle in 1828. 



NIERENSTEINER,orNIERSTEINER ; a Rhen- 

 ish wine, which grows near Nierenstein, a village on 

 the left bank of the Rhine, in the grand-duchy of 

 Darmstadt, three leagues S. S. E. of Mayence. It 

 lias 2080 inhabitants. See Rhenish Wines. 



NIEVRE. See Department. 



NIFLHEIM. See Northern Mythology. 



NIGER ; a large river of the central part of 

 Africa, which has been rendered celebrated on 

 account of our ignorance of its course and termina- 

 tion, and the various theories which have been 

 formed relative to them. Notwithstanding the 

 opinion of some writers, that the Niger of the 

 moderns was known to Ptolemy, and even to Hero- 

 dotus, it appears evident that nothing was known, 

 by the ancients, of the central region of Africa, and 

 that the streams referred to by those authors were in 

 Hie more northern parts of that continent. Mungo 

 Park (q. v.) reached the banks of the Niger, at 

 Sego, in the kingdom of Bambarra (July 22, 179C), 



and determined the direction of its course to be 

 eastward, and not to the west, as had been com- 

 monly supposed. He traced its course upward to 

 Bammakoo, and downward to Silla. On his second 

 expedition (1805), he embarked at Sansanding, with 

 the intention of descending the river to its mouth ; 

 but, on reaching Boussa, was attacked by the natives, 

 and killed. It was thus ascertained that the Niger 

 rises in the western part of Africa (10 12 N. 

 lat.), near the sources of the Senegal, and, after an 

 easterly course of several hundred miles, runs in a 

 southerly direction. Different opinions were enter- 

 tained in regard to its termination. Some supposed 

 it to flow into the Nile ; others, into a great central 

 lake : some maintained that it was lost in the sands ; 

 and others, that it emptied into the gulf of Guinea, 

 or that the Congo, farther to the south, was its 

 mouth. Numerous attempts were made, by the 

 British government, to resolve the question, but 

 with little success, until the expedition of 1821, 

 under Denham and Clapperton (q. v.). They dis- 

 covered lake Tchad (Ion. 13 E.) and, on visiting 

 Soccatoo (6 10' E.), found that the Niger there 

 flowed to the south, under the name of the Quorra. 

 Its termination, however, was yet undetermined. In 

 1825, Clapperton again set out on a tour of discovery, 

 and crossed the Niger at Boussa. On this expedi- 

 tion, he was accompanied by his servant, Richard 

 Lander (q. v.), who, after the death of his master, 

 attempted to descend the Niger from Fundah, but 

 was prevented by the jealousy of the government. 

 In 1830, Richard Lander set out from Badagry, with 

 his brother John, for the purpose of following down 

 the course of the river to its mouth. They reached 

 the river at Boussa, from thence ascended to Youri 

 and the Cubbie, which comes from Soccatoo. They 

 then descended the river, which flows nearly south 

 from Boussa, and which, after receiving the Shary, 

 expands into a large lake, and thence empties, by 

 several arms, into the Bight of Benin. The mouth 

 by which they reached the sea, is laid down on the 

 maps as the river Nun. Thus from Park's first 

 point, in 1805, its course is traced for 2000 miles, 

 a considerable part of which is navigable for steam- 

 boats, through a rich and populous country, the 

 inhabitants of which have made considerable pro- 

 gress in civilization. The river, in the upper part 

 of its course, is known to the natives as the Joliba; 

 in the lower, as the Quorra ; the name Niger was 

 erroneously applied to it by the Europeans, on the 

 supposition that it was the river spoken of by 

 Ptolemy. 



NIGHT. (For the division of the twenty-four 

 hours into day and night, see Day.) As a telluric 

 phenomenon, night is of the greatest interest. The 

 sleep which it brings to most organic creatures ; the 

 life to which others awake with it ; the increase of 

 feverish symptoms on its arrival ; and many other 

 phenomena, are of the highest interest.* 



* One of the most interesting of these is the greater clear- 

 ness with which distant sounds are heard during night. This 

 fact, which had been observed by the ancients, and in lar^e 

 cities, or their vicinity, was commonly ascribed to the repose 

 of animated beings. When Humboldt first heard the noise of 

 the great cataracts of the Orinoco, in the plain which sur- 

 rounds the Mission of the Apures, his attention was particu- 

 larly directed to this curious fact, and he was of opinion that 

 the noise was three times louder at night than during the day. 

 As the humming of insects was much greater at night than 

 during the day, and as the breeze which might have agitated 

 the leaves of the trees never rose till after sunset, this eminent 

 traveller was compelled to seek for another cause of the 

 phenomenon. In a hot day, when warm currents of air 

 aecend from the heated ground, and mix with the cold air 

 above, of a different density, the transparency of the air ia BO 

 much affected, that every object seen through it appears to be 

 in motion, just as when we look at any object over a fire or 

 the flame of a candle. The air is, therefore, during the day, 

 a mixed medium, in which the Bounds arc- reflected cud qott- 



