NYCTAGINACEA-NYL-GHAU. Hindus, it has been explained or annotated by a triple set of commentaries, which, in their turn, have become the source of more popular or elementary treatises-The Sanscrit text of the Sutras of Gotama, with a commentary by Viswanatha, has been edited at Calcutta (1828); and the first four books, and part of the fifth, of the text, with an English version, an English commentary, and extracts from the Sanscrit commentary of Vis'wanatha, by the late Dr J. R. Ballantyne (Allahabad, 1850-1854). This excellent English version and commentary, and the celebrated Essay on the Nyaya, by H. T. Colebrooke (Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i. London, 1827; and reprinted in the Miscellaneous Eserys, vol. i. London, 1837), are the best guide for the European student who, without a knowledge of Sanscrit, would wish to familiarise himself with the Nyaya system. NYCTAGINA'CEE, a natural order of exogenous plants, consisting partly of herbaceons plants, both annual and perennial, and partly of shrubs and trees Lindley ranks them in his Chenapodal Alliance. The flowers are either clustered or solitary, and either the cluster or the flower often has an involucre, which is often gaily coloured. The periauth is tubular, plaited in bud, coloured; the limb entire or toothed, deciduous. The stamens are equal in number to the lobes of the perianth. The ovary is superior, with one ovule, and one style. The fruit is a thin caryopsis, enclosed within the enlarged and indurated base of the perianth.-There are about 100 known species, natives of warm countries. Some have flowers of considerable beauty, as those of the genus Mirabilis, known in our gardens as Marrel of Peru, one of which, M. Jalapa, was at one time erroneously supposed to produce jalap. The roots of many are fleshy, purgative, and emetic. Those of Boerhaaria paniculata are used instead of ipecacuanha both in Guiana and in Java NYCTERIBIA, an extremely curious genus of insects, ranked in the order Diptera, although very different from most of that order, and having Dather wings nor balancers. Its nearest alliance is with Hippoboscida (see FOREST FLY and SHEEP TIK, which it resembles particularly in parasitic hab ts, and in the retention of the eggs within the abdomen of the female, until they have not only been hatched, but have passed from the larva into the pupa state. The form, however, is so spiderbike, that these insects were at first ranked among the Arachnila. The few species known are all paras tie on bats, on which they run about with great activity. The head is very small, curiously afixed to the back of the thorax, and when the creature sucks the blood of the bat, upon which it hves it places itself in a reversed position. ment began at the middle of last century. The history of the movement, which spread through out the land, contains all the marks of the later revivals in America, Scotland, and Ireland. See Ypey and Dermout's Geschiedenis der Nederd. Her. Kerk, vol. iv. NY'KÖPING, a seaport of Sweden, pleasantly situated on the Baltic, in lat. 58° 45' N., long. 17° E., about 60 miles south-west of Stockholm. It comprises among its manufacturing products cotton goods, stockings, tobacco, &c., and has good shipyards, mills, and manufactories for machinery, while in the vicinity of the town are extensive paper-mills. The ruined old castle of N., nearly destroyed by fire in 1665, and which ranked in point of strength next to those of Stockholm and Calmar, has experienced many eventful vicissitudes of fortune. King Valdemar of Sweden, after his dethronement in 1288, was imprisoned here till his death in 1302; but the most tragic incident connected with N. Castle was the horrible death within its walls of the Dukes Eric and Valdemar, who, after being entrapped by their pusillanimous brother, King Birger, in 1317, were left to perish of hunger in a dungeon, the keys of which the king threw into the sea before he left the castle. The horror of this deed roused the indignation of the people, who seized upon the castle, sacked it, and demolished its keep and donjons. In 1719, the town was taken and dismantled by the Russians; and since then it has ceased to be the scene of any events of historical interest. It is noted for the pure Swedish spoken by its inhabitants. Pop. 3956. NYL-GHAU (Antilope picta, or Portax tragocamelus), a species of antelope, with somewhat ox-like head and body, but with long slender limbs, and of great activity and fleetness. It is one of the largest of antelopes, and is more than four feet high at the shoulder. The horns of the male are about as long as the ears, smooth, black, pointed, slightly curved forwards. The female has Nyl-Ghau (Antilope picta). NYKERK, or NIEUWKERK, on the Veluwe, is a very flourishing and well-built town, near the Zair Zee, in the province of Gelderland, Netherlants, 25 miles north-west of Arnheim. Pop. 8000. It has a good harbour, which is connected with the sea by a wide canal of 14 miles in length. In the negbourhood are fine rich meadow-pastures and lands saited for all kinds of grain, tobacco, potatoes, te Tobacco is extensively grown; many cattle are raised; and a brisk trade carried on both with the surrounding country and Amsterdam, the market no horns. The neck is deep and compressed, not to which the cattle, tobacco, dairy, and other agri rounded as in most of the antelopes. A slight mane cultural produce, together with much firewood, are runs along the neck and part of the back, and the at N. has a handsome Reformed church, a breast is adorned with a long hanging tuft of hair. Roman Catholic chapel, a synagogue, orphan-house, The back is almost elevated into a hump between and good schools. There are several manufactures the shoulders. The N. inhabits the dense forests of camo on, which also give employment to the India and Persia, where it has long been regarded It is often peple In Netherlands church history, N. is as one of the noblest kinds of game. med as the place where a great religious move-taken, like other large animals, by the enclosing of 15 NYMPHÆACEE-NYSTADT. a large space with nets, and by great numbers of daughters of Oceanus (N. of the great ocean people. It is a spirited animal, and dangerous to which flows around the earth), the Nereids, a rash assailant. It is capable of domestication, daughters of Nereus (N. of the inner depths of the but is said to manifest an irritable and capricious temper. NYMPHÆA'CEÆ, a natural order of exogenous plants, growing in lakes, ponds, ditches, and slow rivers, where their fleshy rootstocks are prostrate in the mud at the bottom; and their large, long stalked, heart-shaped, or peltate leaves float on the surface of the water. Their flowers also either float, or are raised on their stalks a little above the water. The flowers are large, and often very beautiful and fragrant. There are usually four sepals, and numerous petals and stamens, often passing gradually into one another. The ovary is many-celled, with radiating stigmas, and very numerous ovules, and is more or less surrounded by a large fleshy disc. The seeds have a farinaceous albumen. More than fifty species are known, mostly natives of warm and temperate regions. The rootstocks of some of them are used as food, and the seeds of many.-See WATER-LILY, LOTUS, VICTORIA, and EURYALE -Very nearly allied to N. are Nelumbiacea. See NELUMBO. NYMPHS, in Classic Mythology, female divinities of inferior rank, inhabiting the sea, streams, groves, meadows and pastures, grottoes, fountains, hills, glens, trees, &c. Among the N., different classes were distinguished, particularly the Oceanides, 16 sea, or of the Inner Sea-the Mediterranean), Potameides (River N.), Naiads (N. of fountains, or Hamadryads (Forest N., who were believed to lakes, brooks, wells), Oreades (Mountain N.), Dryads die with the trees in which they dwelt). They were the goddesses of fertilising moisture, and were represented as taking an interest in the nourishment and growth of infants, and as being addicted to the chase (companions of the divine huntress They are among the most beautiful conceptions Diana), to female occupations, and to dancing. of the plastic and reverent (if credulous) fancy of the ancient Greeks, who, in the various phenomena of nature the rush of sea-waves, the bubble of brooks, the play of sunbeams, the rustle of leaves, and the silence of caves-felt, with a poetic permit us to realise, the presence of unseen joyous vividness that our modern science will hardly powers. NY'SSA. See TUPELO TREE. NY'STADT, a town of Finland, on the eastern coast of the Gulf of Bothnia, 50 miles south of Biorneborg. Here, in 1721, a treaty was agreed to, between Russia and Sweden, by virtue of which all the conquests of Peter the Great along the coasts of the Gulf of Finland were annexed to Russia. Pop. 2610. THE fifteenth letter in the English and in most western alphabets, is one of the five simple vowel-signs of the English language. As the language is at present pronounced, it stands for at least four distinct sounds, heard in the words note, nor, (not), move, son. The primary and simple sound of O is that heard long in nor, and short in not, top. The sound given to it in such words as note, go, is really a diphthong-a long o terminating in a slight u or oo sound (0”). The corresponding letter in the Hebrew and Phoenician Alphabet (q. v.) was called Ayn, i. e., eye; and accordingly the primitive form of the Phoenician letter was a rough picture of an eye, which naturally became a circle with a dot in the centre-still to be seen in some ancient inscriptions-and then a simple circle. O', a prefix in many Irish family nan.es, serves to form a patronymic, like Mac in Gaelic names; as O'Brien, a descendant of Brien. By some, it is considered to be derived from of; but it is more likely from Ir. ua, Gael. ogha, a grandson. In the Lowland Scottish, the word oe is used for grandson, and in some localities for nephew. the other (Q. sessiliflora) having them almost without stalks. Other differences have been pointed out; but they are regarded by some of the most eminent and careful botanists as merely accidental, and not coincident with these; while, as to the length of the fruit-stalks, every intermediate gradation occurs. Both varieties occur in Britain, the first being the most prevalent, as it is generally in the north of Europe; the second being more abundant in more southern countries. The short-stalked oak is sometimes called DURMAST OAK in England. It has been much disputed which is entitled to be considered the true British oak; and much alarm should be made of the wrong kind; whilst the most has occasionally been expressed lest new plantations contradictory statements have been made as to the comparative value and characters of the timber. The oak succeeds best in loamy soils, and especially in those that are somewhat calcareous. It cannot endure stagnant water. It succeeds well on soils too poor for ash or elm; but depends much on the depth of the soil, its roots penetrating more deeply than those of most other trees. Noble specimens of oak trees, and some of them historically celebrated, exist in almost all parts of Britain; but are much more frequent in England than in Scotland. The former existence of great oak forests is attested by the huge trunks often found in bogs. The oak attains a height of from 50 to 100 or even 150 or 180 feet; the trunk being four, six, or even eight feet in diameter. It sometimes grows tall and stately, but often rather exhibits great thickness of bole and magnitude of branches. It reaches its greatest magnitude in periods varying from 120 to 400 years, but lives to the age of 600, or even 1000. The timber is very solid, durable, peculiarly unsusceptible of the influence of moisture, and therefore OAK (Quercus), a genus of trees and shrubs of eminently adapted for ship-building. It is also the natural order Cupulifera, having a three-celled employed in carpentry, mill-work, &c.-The bark ovary, and a round (not angular) nut-which is abounds in tannin; it also contains a peculiar bitter called an acorn-placed in a scaly truncated cup, principle called Quercine, and is used in medicine, the lower part of it invested by the cup. The species chiefly in gargles, &c., on account of its astringency, are very numerous, natives of temperate and tropical sometimes also as a tonic; it is used along with countries. A few species are found in Europe. gall-nuts in the manufacture of ink; but most of North America produces many; and many are all for tanning (see BARK), and on this account the natives of mountainous regions in the torrid zone; oak is often planted as copse-wood (see COPSE) in Some are found at low elevations in the valleys of situations where it cannot be expected to attain to the Himalaya, some even at the level of the sea great size as a tree. The timber of copse oak is in the Malay peninsula and Indian islands. But excellent firewood. The oak is particularly fitted in the peninsula of India and in Ceylon, none are for copse-wood, by the readiness with which it found; and none in tropical Africa, in Australia, or springs again from the stools after it has been cut. in South America. The oaks have alternate simple-Acorns are very nourishing food for swine, and in leaves; which are entire in some, but in the greater times of scarcity have been often used for human number variously lobed and sinuated or cut; ever-food, as, indeed, they commonly are in some very green in some, but more generally deciduous. Many poor countries, either alone or mixed with meal. of them are trees of great size, famous for the strength and durability of their timber, as well as for the majesty of their appearance, and their great longevity. Throughout all parts of Europe, except the extreme north, two species are found, or varieties of one species, the COMMON OAK (Q. robur); one (Q. pedunculata) having the acorns on longish stalks, OA'HU, one of the Sandwich Islands (q. v.). OAJA'CO, OAXACA, or GUAXACA, a city of Mexico, capital of a state of the same name, stands on the river Rio Verde, 210 miles south-south-east of Mexico. It covers an area 2 miles in length by I in breadth, is well built, with open streets, interspersed with plantations, on which the cochineal insect feeds, and has about 25,000 inhabitants. Silk, cotton, sugar, and chocolate are manufactured. 314 The bitterness which makes them disagreeable is. said to be in part removed by burying them for a. time in the earth. The acorns of some trees are also much less bitter than others, and oaks of the common species occur which produce acorns as sweet as chestnuts. Other varieties of the common oak are assiduously propagated by nurserymen as 17 OAK-OAKUM. curious and ornamental, particularly one with pendulous branchlets (the Weeping Oak), and one with branches growing up close to the stem, as in some kinds of poplar. Among the Greeks and Romans, the oak was sacred to Zeus or Jupiter; and it has been connected with the religious observances of many nations, as of the ancient Celts and Germans. -The TURKEY OAK or ADRIATIC OAK (Q. cerris), now very frequently planted in Britain, is a large and valuable tree, very common in the south-east of Europe, and in some parts of Asia. The timber is imported in considerable quantity into Britain for ship-building and other purposes. The leaves differ from those of the common oak in their acute lobes, and the cups of the acorns are mossy, i. e., have long, loose, acute scales. Similar to this, in both these respects, are the AUSTRIAN OAK (Q. Austriaca), abundant near Vienna, and the SPANISH OAK (Q. Hispanica).-The CORK OAK or CORK-TREE (Q. suber) is noticed in the article CORK; the HOLM OAK or EVERGREEN OAK (Q. ilex), another of the species found in the south of Europe, in the article ILEX. Of the North American oaks, some are very valuable as timber trees. Perhaps the most important is the WHITE OAK or QUEBEC OAK (Q. alba), a large tree, the leaves of which have a few rounded lobes. It is found from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada; and in some places forms the chief part of the forest. The timber is less compact than that of the British oak; that of young trees is very elastic.--The OVERCUP OAK (Q. lyrata), a majestic tree, highly esteemed for its timber, and having its acorns almost covered by their globular cup, grows chiefly in lands liable to inundation in the Southern States. -The CHESTNUT-LEAVED WHITE OAK (Q. prinus) is also a much-esteemed timber tree of the Southern States. The SWAMP WHITE OAK (Q. bicolor), a closely allied species, extends further north.-The LIVE OAK (Q. virens), an evergreen species, with entire leathery leaves, is regarded as a tree of the first importance in the United States, from the excellence of its timber and its value for ship-building, so that efforts have been made by the government to protect it and to promote the planting of its acorns. Yet it is not a very large tree, being seldom more than forty-five feet in height, with a trunk of two feet in diameter. It grows on the coasts of the Gulf of Mexico, and as far north as Virginia. It once abounded on the Sea Islands, now so celebrated for their cotton.-The RED OAK (Q. rubra), a large tree, with sinuated and lobed leaves, the lobes toothed and bristle-pointed, yields great part of the Red Oak Staves exported from Canada and the north of the United States to the West Indies; but Red Oak Staves are also produced in the Middle and Southern States by the SCARLET OAK (2. coccinea), a very similar species, by the BLACK OAK or QUERCITRON OAK (Q. tinctoria), another species with the lobes of the leaves bristle-pointed, better known for the dye-stuff which its bark yields (see QUERCITRON), and by the Willow Oak (Q. phellos), a large tree with lanceolate leaves and a willow-like aspect. The timber of all these species is of very inferior quality. These are the American oaks of greatest economical and commercial importance, but there are numerous other species, some of them trees, some mere shrubs, of which some grow on poor soils, and cover them in compact masses; resembling in this a single European species (Q viminalis), a native of the Vosges, 6-8 feet high, with slender tough branches, which makes excellent hedges.-The BLACK JACK (Q. nigra) is an American oak, chiefly notable for the abundance in which it grows on some of the poorest soils. It is a small tree, and its timber of little value. The bark is black.-Some of the Nepaulese oaks are large and | valuable trees, as are some of those of China and Japan, of Java, of Mexico, &c. The oaks of Java and the other Indian islands have generally the leaves quite entire. The bark of most of the species of oak is capable of being used for tanning, and is used in different countries. The cups and acorns of the VALONIA OAK (Q. Egilops) are exported from the Morea and other parts of the Levant, in great quantities, for this purpose, under the name of Valonia. See LEATHER. The tree resembles the Turkey Oak, and has very large hemispherical mossy cups. The cups are said to contain more tannin than any other vegetable substance.-Galls (q. v.) or Gall-nuts are in great part obtained from the oak therefore called the GALL-OAK (Q. infectoria), a scrubby bush, a native of Asia Minor, with bluntly serrated, ovate-oblong leaves.-The KERMES OAK (Q. coccifera), on the leaves of which the Kermes (q. v.) insect is found, is a low bush, with evergreen spinous leaves, much resembling a holly, a native of the south-east of Europe.-Of oaks with sweet and edible acorns, may be mentioned the BALLOTE OAK (Q. Ballota or Gramuntia), an evergreen with round spiny-toothed leaves, a native of the north of Africa, the acorns of which are regularly brought to market in Algeria and in Spain, and are long and cylindrical; the Italian Oak (Q. Esculus), closely allied to the common oak; and the DWARF CHESTNUT OAK (Q. chinquapin or prinoides) of North America, a small shrubby species, which has been specially recommended to cultivation on this account. Other North American species, and some of the Himalayan species, also produce edible acorns. From the acorns of some species, oil is made in considerable quantity in different parts of the world, and is used in cookery.-The leaves of the Manna Oak (Q. mannifera)—a native of the mountains of Kurdistan, having oblong, blunt-lobed leaves-secrete in hot weather a kind of manna, a sweet mucilaginous substance, which is made into sweetmeats, and very highly esteemed. The name Oak is sometimes popularly applied to timber trees of very different genera. Thus, AFRICAN OAK is another name of African Teak. See TEAK. Some of the species of Casuarina (q. v.) are called Oak in Australia. The STONE OAK (Lithocarpus Javenensis) of Java, so named from the extreme hardness of its timber, is a tree of the same family with the true oaks. OAK BEAUTY (Biston prodromaria), a moth of the family Geometridae, a native of England, about an inch and a half or two inches in expanse of wings; the upper wings with two brown curved bands, and margined with black, the lower wings with one brown band. The caterpillar feeds on the oak. It is a station on OA'KHAM, the county-town of Rutlandshire, England, in the vale of Catmos, 25 miles westnorth-west of Peterborough. the Syston and Peterborough branch of the Midland Railway. In former times, there was a castle here; it is now in ruins, with the exception of the portion used as the county-hall. The church, the interior of which was beautifully restored in 1858, is an edifice in the perpendicular style, and has a fine tower and spire. The Free Grammar-school, with an annual endowment of about £700 a year, was founded in 1581. Pop. 2948. OA'KUM a tangled mass of tarred hempen fibres, is made from old rope by untwisting the strands and rubbing the fibres free from each other. Its principal use is in Caulking (q. v.) the seams between planks, the space round rivets, bolts, &c., for the purpose of preventing water from penetrating. Oannes. OANNES-OASES. vertical position must be resumed. Feathering diminishes the resistance offered by air, wind, and small waves; it also adds greatly to the beauty and grace of rowing. The best oars are of Norway fir, though some are made of ash and beech. OANNES, the name of a Babylonian god, who, in the first year of the foundation of Babylon, is said to have come out of the Persian Gulf, or the old Erythræan Sea, adjoining Babylon. He is described as having the head and body of a fish, to which were added a human head and feet under the fish's head and at the tail. He lived amongst men O'ASES, certain cultivated spots in the Libyan during the daytime, without, however, taking any desert (called also Auasis, Ouasis, or Hoasis) food, and retired at which produce vegetation, owing to the presence sunset to the sea, from of springs issuing from the ground. The princiwhich he had emerged. pal oases are those lying to the west of Egypt, O. had a human voice, a few days' journey from the Nile, and known to and instructed men in the ancients by the name of the Greater and Lesser the use of letters, Oases, and that of Ammon. It is supposed that and in all the prin- they were known to the Egyptians during the 12th cipal arts and sciences dynasty under the name of Suten-Khenn, but no of civilisation, which evidence of their occupation by the Egyptians he communicated to earlier than Darius has been found in situ. By them. Such is the some of the ancients they were called the Islands of account of him pre- the Blessed, or compared to the spots on a panther's served by Berosus and skin. Their name is supposed to be the Coptic Apollodorus. Five Ouahé (Inhabited Place). They are first mentioned such monsters are said by Herodotus in his account of the destruction of to have come out of the army of Cambyses by the storm of sand, or the Persian Gulf; one, called Anedotos or Idotion, in simoom. Equally celebrated is the visit of Alexthe reign of Amenon, the fourth king of Babylon; ander the Great to the oasis, which he successfully another in that of the fifth king; and the last, accomplished after the conquest of Egypt, and called Odacon (or Ho Dagon), apparently the Phoe-passed through the desert a nine days journey nician Dagon, under the sixth. Many figures of O., before he reached the Temple of Ammon, the priests resembling that of a Triton, having the upper part of which declared him the son of that god, and the of a man, and the lower of a fish, or as a man future conqueror of the entire world. Herodotus covered with a fish's body, have been found in the describes that of El Wah, or the Oasis Magna of sculptures of Kouyunjik and Khorsabad, as well as the Romans, which contained the oracle of Ammon, on many cylinders and gems. O. is supposed to have and which lies seven days' journey west of Thebes. symbolised the conquest of Babylonia by a more It appears to have been anciently frequented by civilised nation coming in ships to the mouth of the caravans going to the Pillars of Hercules. Strabo Euphrates; but he is apparently a water-god, resem- mentions three oases: the first seven days' journey bling in type and character the Phoenician Dagon, west of Abydos; the second, west of the Lake Moris; and the Greek Proteus and Triton. the third, near the oracle of Ammon. Pliny mentions two oases; so does Ptolemy, who calls them the Lesser and Greater. Under the Roman empire, they were used for temporary banishment of criminals of state, and the poet Juvenal was sent there. Olympiodorus, a native of the Thebaid, gives a glowing description of them in the days of Theodosius the Younger. Under the Byzantine emperors, Helladius, Apud Phot. Cod. 279, pp. 535, 34; Richter, De Beroso; Cory, Anc. Fragm. p. 30; 1 Sam. v. 4; Bunsen, Egypt's Place, vol. i. p. 706; F Layard, Nineveh, p. 343. d OAR, a wooden instrument by which a person sitting in a boat propels it through the water. The form found in practice to combine greatest power with lightness, is that shewn in the figure. From a to b is the blade of the oar, thin and nearly flat, though occasionally somewhat curved, so as to present a concave -C surface to the water; from b to d is round or square, gradually thickening towards d, that the part ce may nearly balance the part ac. At de is the handle, which is grasped by one or both hands. Oar. . The oar rests at c on the row-lock, and in many is horizontal, and in preserving this position until Temple of Jupiter Ammon-Oasis of Siwah. (From Hoskin's Visit to the Great Oasis) 19 |