NORTH POLAR EXPLORATION 



4277 



NORTH SYDNEY 



NORTH POLAR EXPLORATION . See POLAR 

 EXPLORATION. 



NORTHROP, CYRUS (1834- ), an Ameri- 

 can educator and university president, born at 

 Ridgefield, Conn., and educated at Yale Col- 

 lege. He was graduated at the Yale Law School, 

 in 1860 was admitted to the bar and the next 

 year was made clerk of the Connecticut house 

 of representatives; in 1862 he held the similar 

 office in the state senate. After serving for a 

 time as editor of the New Haven Palladium he 

 became, in 1863, professor of rhetoric and Eng- 

 lish literature at Yale College and remained in 

 that position twenty-one years. From 1884 to 

 1911, a period of twenty-seven years, he was 

 president of the' University of Minnesota, be- 

 coming in the latter year president emeritus. 

 During his administration the university was 

 brought into closer relations with the school 

 system of the state and its usefulness to Min- 

 nesota greatly extended. 



NORTH SEA, a division of the Atlantic 

 Ocean, which lies between Great Britain and 

 the continent of Europe. It is nearly 700 miles 

 from north to south and about 400 miles wide. 

 It has a seacoast of 4,000 miles and its area is 





THE NORTH SEA 



Noted as the location of the world's most ex- 

 tensive horrlnjj fisheries and as th scene of naval 

 Ity (In the War of the Nations) not equaled 

 in .-my past age. 



!y 200,000 square miles. It is, therefore, 

 twice the size of the American Great Lakes, 

 and nearly three times as large as New England. 

 On its shores are the harbors of the greatest 

 seafaring nations of the earth, Germany, Eng- 

 land and Norway, as well as those of Belgium, 

 Holland and Denmark. The waters of the 

 North Sea mingle with those of the Atlantic 

 and Arctic oceans; it communicates with the 

 Baltic Sea by way of the Kiel Canal, and with 



lantic through the English Channel. 

 Under normal conditions exporting and im- 

 porting are continually going on across the 

 North Sea, and emigrants and tourists travel 



back and forth, but the coast fisheries, particu- 

 larly herring, constitute the chief industry. The 

 whole eastern seaboard of England and Scot- 

 land is ordinarily devoted to the fishing in- 

 dustry. Norway ships half the world's herring 

 annually. The outbreak of the War of the 

 Nations brought disaster to this industry, and 

 thousands of people were deprived of their 

 chief occupation because of the multitude of 

 submarine mines laid in the North Sea. 



The position of the sea gave it admirable 

 strategic importance in the great conflict. The 

 nation which controlled it could cut off the 

 Baltic so that hostile ships could neither leave 

 nor enter, and supplies for the enemy could 

 thus be intercepted. At the beginning of the 

 war, England's naval preparedness enabled it 

 to assume the mastery in these waters, an ad- 

 vantage which was of inestimable value to the 

 allies. 



Consult Wood's North Sea Fishers and Fight- 

 ers; Mackinder's Britain and the British Seas. 



NORTH STAR, or POLESTAR, a star of 

 the second magnitude, about 1% from the 

 pole, the brightest star in the constellation 

 Ursa Minor or Little Bear. This star is easily 

 located, as two stars in Ursa Major (the Dip- 

 per) or Great Bear, called the pointers, al- 

 ways point to it. The North Star is of great 

 help as a guide to mariners in northern lati- 

 tudes; from it they can always get direction 

 and find their location. The Greeks called this 

 star Cynosure, meaning the dog's tail, and it 

 is now often called the cynosure, or star that 

 attracts. The polestar is gradually moving 

 nearer and nearer to the pole, owing to the mo- 

 tion of the pole of the heavens around the pole 

 of the ecliptic. It is expected that within the 

 next two centuries it will approach to a dis- 

 tance of one-half degree from the pole and then 

 gradually recede again. 



For illustration of the constellation Ursa Minor, 

 see STAR ; for explanation of magnitude, see 

 STAR, subhead Magnitude. 



NORTH SYDNEY, sid'ni, a town in Nova 

 Scotia, on the northeast coast of Cape Breton 

 Island. It is in Cape Breton County, fifteen 

 > by the Intercolonial Railway northwest of 

 Sydney, the county town. There is hourly serv- 

 ice between Sydney and North Sydney, and 

 from the latter steamers also run to Port aux 

 Basques, Newfoundland, Montreal, Halifax and 

 other Canadian ports. The fisheries of the 

 vicinity are important and furnish a livelihood 

 to a considerable part of the population, but 

 the local industrial plants, including coal mines, 



