* 
N E E 
«F the town, at prefent, rifes from agriculture, ana the 
number of genteel families either relident within it, or 
in its neighbourhood. The market-day is Saturday ; and 
there are three fairs during the year; which privileges were 
obtained by the bilhop of Ely in the reign of Henry III. 
The petty-feflions for the hundred are held here. Accord¬ 
ing to the. parliamentary returns of 1801, this town con¬ 
tained 258 houfes, and 1348 inhabitants ; and in thofe of 
1811, the former are Hated to have been 284, and the lat¬ 
ter 1301 in number, i. e. 26 more houfes, and 47 fewer 
inhabitants, a circumftance that feems to indicate fome 
miltake in one of the reports. 
About two miles from Needham are the villages of 
Creeting-All-Saints and Creeting-Olaves. The church 
of the former, which was anciently a ceil to the abbey of 
Greiftein, in Normandy, is a very curious old building- 
»s is likewife that of Olaves, which was a cell to the ab¬ 
bey of Eernay. Magna Britannia. 
NEE'DHAM’s POINT, a cape on the weft coaft of 
Barbadoes, to the fouth of Carlifle Bay. 
NEEDHA'MIA, f [fo named by Mr. Erown, in com¬ 
memoration of J. Turberville Needham.] In botany, a 
genus of the clafs pentandria, order monogynia, na¬ 
tural order epacridese. Generic charafilers—Calyx: 
perianthium inferior, of five linear-awl-lhaped ecjual, 
fomewhat membranous, coloured leaves, with a pair of 
oblong, coriaceous, external ones, of the fame length. 
Corolla : of one petal, falver-lhaped ; tube twice the 
length of the calyx; limb in five beardlefs equal fegments, 
plaited in the bud, their finufes elevated ; nefilary cup¬ 
like, furrounding the bafe of the germen. Stamina: fila¬ 
ments five, thread-lhaped, inferted into the tube ; antherse 
oblong, included within the tube. Piftillum : germen 
fuperior, roundilh, of two cells ; ftyle fliort, columnar; 
ftigma obtufe. Pericarpium : drupe dry. Seed : nut of 
one or two cells ?— Ejffential Cltarader. Outer calyx of 
two leaves; corolla falver-lhaped; its limb five-cleft, 
beardlefs, with elevated finufes ; plaited in the bud ; fta- 
mens included in the tube; drupe dry, of one or two 
cells. 
Needhamia pumilio, or dwarf needhamia; the only 
known fpecies. Gathered by Mr. Brown, in the fouth 
part of New Holland, and by Mr. Menzies at King 
George’s Sound. The Item is fltrubby, three or four 
inches high, divided from the very bafe into numerous, 
fpreading, roundilh, notched, leafy, compound branches, 
hoary when young. Leaves minute, oppolite ; fomewhat 
imbricated, in two rows eroding each other alternately, 
feftile on the notches of the branches, triangular, obtufe, 
keeled, entire, concave, fmooth; the upper ones finely 
fringed, and fomewhat more dilated, or ovate. Flowers 
axillary, feflile, folitary, from feveral of the upper and 
broader leaves, beyond which, after flowering, the branch 
is fubfiequently extended, and clothed with the ordinary 
leaves, till it blofloms again higher up. Calyx fringed, 
reddifh. Corolla white, turning reddifh-browm in drying, 
about a quarter of an inch long. Brown. Prodr. Nov. Hall. 
NEE'DILY, adv. In poverty; poorly. 
NEE'DINESS,/. Want; poverty.—Whereas men have 
many reafons to perfuade; to ufe them all at once, weak- 
enetli them. For it argueth a needinefs in every of the 
reafons, as if one did not trull to any .of them, but fled 
from one to another. Bacon. 
NEE'DLE, f. [:netlial , Goth, nebl, Sax. nael, Icel. from 
the Teut. nelen, to fow. Wachter and Serenius. ] A fmall 
inftrument pointed at one end to pierce cloth ; and per¬ 
forated at the other to receive the thread, ufed in fewing. 
—The moll curious works of art, the lharpeft fineft needle, 
doth appear, when feen through a vnicrolcope, as a blunt 
rough bar of iron coming from the furnace of the forge. 
Wilkins. 
For him you wafte in tears your widow’d hours, 
For him your curious needle paints the flowers. Dryden. 
The fmall fteel bar which in the mariner’s covnpafs Hands 
nr E E 075 
regularly north and fouth.— The ufe of the loadftone 
and the mariner’s needle was not then known. Burnet. 
Go bid the needle its dear north forfake, 
To which with trembling reverence it doth bend. Cowley. 
NEE'DLE-FISH, J". A kind of fea-filh ; the Syncna- 
thus acus.—One rhomboidal bony fcale of file needle - JUh . 
Woodward. 
NEE'DLE-MAKER, J. One who makes needles. 
NEE'DLE-MAKING, J’. The procefs of manufafitur- 
ing needles of various kinds and fizes. 
Needles were firft made in England by a native of India, 
in 1545, but the art was loft at.his death; it was, how¬ 
ever, recovered by Chriftopher Greening in 1 560, who 
was fettled with his three children, Elizabeth, John, and 
Thomas, by Mr. Darner, anceftor of the late lord Milton 
(which title became extimft in 1808), at Long Crendon, 
Bucks, where the manufactory has been carried on from 
that time to the prefent day. JEney. Britannica. 
Needles at this time make a very coniTderable article ill 
commerce; and the confumption of them is almoft in¬ 
credible. The fizes are from N° 1, the largeft, to N° 23, 
the fmalleft. There is fcarcely any commodity cheaper 
than needles; which will appear fomething extraordinary 
to the reader, after he has been fliown the great number 
of operations they undergo, before they are brought to 
perfection. 
German and Hungarian fteel is of moft repute for nee¬ 
dles. The firft thing is topafs it through a coal-fire, and 
under a hammer, and to bring it out of its fquare figure 
into a cylindrical one: this done, it is drawn through a 
large hole of a wire-drawing iron, returned into the fire, 
and drawn through afecondhole of the iron, (mailer than 
the firft ; and thus fucceffively from hole to hole, till it has 
acquired the degree of finenefs required for that fpecies of 
needles ; obferving, every time it is to be drawn, that it 
be greafed over with lard to render it the more manage¬ 
able. The fteel, thus reduced into a fine wire, is cut in 
pieces of the length of the needles intended. Thefe piece* 
are flattened at one end, on the anvil, in order to form 
the head and eye ; they are then put into the fire to foften 
them farther ; and ther.ce taken out and pierced at each 
extreme of the flat part, on the anvil, by the force of a 
puncheon of well-tempered fteel, and laid on a leaden 
block, to bring out, with another puncheon, the little 
piece of fteel remaining in the eye. The corners are then 
filed off the fquare of the heads, and a little cavity filed 
on each fide the flat of the head. This done, the point it 
formed with a file; and the whole filed over. 
They are then laid to heat red-hot, on a long flat nar¬ 
row iron, crooked at one end, in a charcoal-fire; and, 
when taken out thence, are thrown into a bafon of cold 
water to harden. On this operation a good deal depends ; 
too much heat burns them, and too little leaves them 
loft ; the medium is only to be learnt by experience. 
When they are thus hardened, they are laid in an iron 
fliovel, on a fire, more or lefs brilk, in proportion to the 
thickncfs of the needles ; taking care to move them from 
time to time. This ferves to temper them, and take olf 
their brittlenefs; great care, here too, mult be taken ef 
the degree of heat. They are then ftraightened, one after 
another, with the hammer; the coldnefs of the water, 
ufed in hardening them, having twilled the greateft part 
of them. 
The next procefs is the poli/hing. To do this, they 
take twelve or fifteen thoufand needles, and range them 
in little heaps againll each other, on a piece of new buck¬ 
ram fprinkled with emery. The needles thus difpofed, 
emery-dull is thrown over them, which is again fprinkled 
with oil of olives ; at laft, the whole is made up into a 
roll, well bound at both ends. The roll is then laid on 
a polifhing-table, and over it a thick plank, loaded with 
Hones, which two men work backwards and forwards a 
day and a half or two days fuccelfively ; by which means, 
th« roll thus continually agitated by the weight and mo- 
