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Nn 



N is the fourteenth letter of the 



English alphabet. Like m, it has 



come with little change of form or 



value from the Phoenician alphabet, 



though in the course of the change in 



the direction of writing to the present 



left to right method the letter has been turned around. The Phoenician name of the 

 letter was nun, which meant juh, and some scholars have succeeded in seeing in the 

 original form a crude sketch of a fish's head with open mouth. The resemblance, how- 

 ever, is far from striking. 



The sound of the letter in English is simple and unvarying. It is a nasal, by far 

 the most common of all the nasal sounds, but is also elassed as a liquid or semivowel. 

 In combination with g it forms a nasal, as in sing, the g serving merely to modify the 

 n and not being pronounced itself. In a few words, n is silent, as in hymn. 



NABOPOLASSAR, nab opolas'ar, a Baby- 

 lonian king from 625 to 605 B.C., the founder 

 of the new Babylonian empire. His parents 

 were not members of the ruling class, so his 

 rise to sovereignty was by means of his own 

 efforts. At first he was a vassal king, but 

 through a revolt gained power over the practi- 

 cally independent district of Chaldea. Later, 

 in 606 B.C., with the aid of the Medes and 

 Scythians, he destroyed the Assyrian empire 

 through the fall of Nineveh, thus making his 

 the supreme authority in the Euphrates valley. 

 Nebuchadnezzar, his son, succeeded him, rc- 

 ng a prosperous and extensive empire. By 

 means of a canal Nabopolassar brought the 

 waters of the Euphrates River to the city, en- 

 I the Babylonian temple, Marduk, and 

 greatly beautified the city in all showing him- 

 self a man of energy and power. See ASSYRIA. 

 NADIR, na'dcr, the point of the heavens 

 tly opposed to the zenith, the latter benm 

 tin point .lmrtly over our heads. The zenith 

 and the nadir are the two poles of the horizon ; 

 > i . nadir and center of the earth are 

 fore in one straight line. The word is 

 ntly used to describe the lowest depres- . 

 sion of spirits, or the lowest point of a career. 



Hawthorne, in his Blithedale Romance, uses 

 the terms nadir and zenith to point a contrast, 

 as follows: 



The two theories differed as widely as the 

 zenith and the nadir. 



This is a comparison which is used frequently 

 in speech and in writing. 



NAGASAKI, nahgasah'kc, one of the prin- 

 cipal cities of Japan, a seaport lying on a pen- 

 insula on the northwestern coast of the island 

 of Kiushiu. Its harbor, one of the most beauti- 

 ful in the world and one of the safest in the 

 Eastern hemisphere, is about three miles long 

 and six miles wide. Nagasaki is the first port 

 of entry for vessels approaching Japan from 

 the south and west, and it has the largest dock 

 in the empire. This was built in 1879 with the 

 expectation of promoting trade; it is 460 feet 

 long, eighty-nine feet broad and twenty-eight 

 feet deep. The city figures l.-trgely in the ship- 

 building industry, and is an important coaling 

 station. Previous to 1858 Nagasaki was the 

 only Japanese port having communication with 

 Europe. The houses are not particularly at- 

 tractive, but the streets are clean and well 

 paved. On the hills behind the town are va- 

 rious Buddhist temples. The chief exports are 



40.M 



