Shortly after the Americans began to trade | English government, at the Revolution, for the with China, the demand increased to nearly double purpose of avoiding unpopular taxation, borrowed the quantity it was possible to furnish. To supply on the credit of the existing taxes, of a company this deficiency, the manufacturers mixed common then incorporated under the name of the Bank of white cotton with the brown; this gave it a pale England; and, as this system was found convenicast, which was immediately remarked; and for ent, this debt increased, till at the end of the this lighter kind no purchaser could be found till American war, it amounted to 130 millions; at the the other was exhausted. But the demand after-end of the French war, from 1793 to 1801, to 450 wards lessening, the white cotton was no longer mixed with it, and the color returned to its former standard.' NAPHTHA. A native combustible liquid, and one of the thinnest of the liquid bitumens issuing from the earth, and found on the borders of springs on the shores of the Caspian Sea, and many other places. It feels greasy, has a bituminous smell, takes fire on the approach of flame, and is so light as to float on the water. NARCISSUS. A genus of plants, which is cultivated in gardens on account of its sweetsmelling flowers, which are either yellow or white. NARCOTICS. A term comprehending opiates, anodynes, or paregorics, and all other drugs which induce sleep, or occasion stupefaction. The narcotics chiefly employed in medicine, are opium, henbane, hemlock, &c. NARRATION. In Oratory and History, a recital or rehearsal of a fact as it happened, or when it is supposed to have happened. Narration is of two kinds, either simple or historical, as where the auditor or reader is supposed to hear or read of a transaction at second hand; or artificial and fabulous, as where their imaginations are raised, and the action is as it were reacted before them. NARVAL. An animal of the whale tribe, remarkable for its single tooth standing out like the horn of the unicorn. NASTURTIUM. A plant, which is cultivated in gardens, and bears a flower of a deep crimson color. The seeds, when bruised, have a pungent smell that causes sneezing. millions; and at the end of the war against Napoleon, from 1803 to 1815, to above 800 millions. The annual interest is now 284 millions, being diminished 3 millions from 1816 to 1832. The debt of course is nominal, and the reality is the annual interest or annuity. There never was 800 millions of gold and silver at one time, and this sum was raised only by diminishing the value of money, or by increasing its quantity by paper circulation and equivalent private debts. The national debt of the United States is inconsiderable, and may be soon cancelled. NATRUM, or NATRON. The nitre of the ancients, in natural history, a genuine, pure, and native salt, extremely different from our nitre, and indeed from all the other native salts, it being in fact an impure natural carbonate of soda, yet capable of a regular crystallization. It is found on the surface of the earth, or at very small depths within it; and is naturally formed into thin and flat cakes or crusts, which are of a spongy or cavernous substance, very light and friable, and, when pure, of a pale brownish white; but, as its spongy texture renders it very subject to be fouled by earth received into its pores, it is often met with of a deep dirty brown, and often reddish. All that we know of this mineral production in Egypt, in Arabia, in Persia, in India, in Thibet, in China, in Siberia, in the plains of the Caspian and Black Seas, in Asia Minor, and at Mexico, evinces that every where it occurs with the same relations, and in the same circumstances; every where it is found in the midst of sands mixed with marl and clay, and is accompanied with many other salts, of which the most constant is common salt. Natron, whether native or purified, dissolves in a very small quantity of water; and this solution is, in many parts of Asia, used for washing; where it is also made into soap by mixing it with oil. Natron reduced to powder, and mixed with sand NATION. Families of men, living under the or flints, or with any other stone of which crystal same institutions and laws, generally created by is the basis, makes them readily run into glass. the ambition of a chief, as in monarchies, or by Gold heated redhot, and sprinkled with a sinall mutual convention, as in republics. Every nation quantity of this salt, melts in the same manner; as is large enough which is able to protect itself by does also iron, copper, and the regulus of antimony; its own power, or by alliances, against the outrages which melt much more easily than they otherwise of other nations, and nothing is gained to the peo- would do. Mercury cannot be mixed with it by ple by an enlargement, while it adds to the patron- any art, and indeed will not amalgamate with age of the government, and to its power of en-metals if only a little of this salt be added. It is slaving the whole. Governments therefore en- found in great abundance in many parts of Asia, courage a passion of aggrandizement, and hence where the natives sweep it up from the surface of the wars and follies of history; but wise men the ground, and call it soap earth. The earliest should prefer to belong to a happy and well gov-account we have of it is in the Scriptures, where erned rather than an extended empire. NATIONAL DEBT. A sum borrowed by government, on the security of the existing taxes, which stand pledged to the lender for the payment of the interest of the sum borrowed. Thus, the Iwe find that the salt called nitre in those times would ferment with vinegar, and had an abstersive quality, so that it was used in baths and in washing things. Solomon compares the singing of songs with a heavy heart to the contrariety of vinegar and nitre; and Jeremiah says, that if the sinner The fissure continuing narrow, deep, and straight for a considerable distance above and below the bridge, opens a short but very pleasing view of the North Mountain on one side, and Blue Ridge on the other, at the distance each of them of about five miles. This bridge is in the county of Rock-bridge, to which it has given name, and affords a public and commodious passage over a valley, which cannot be crossed elsewhere for a considerable distance. The stream passing under it, called Cedar creek, is a water of James river, and is sufficient in the driest seasons to turn a grist-mill, though its fountain is not more than two miles above. wash himself with nitre, his sin is not cleansed | indescribable. off. These are properties that perfectly agree with this salt, but not at all with our saltpetre. In the store houses at Rosetta there are two sorts, viz. the common and the 'sultanié,' a word which corresponds to the epithet royal. This latter is whiter, better crystallized, and purer than the common sort; it is consequently stronger, and when used a smaller quantity is sufficient. Its principal use is the bleaching of cloth and thread. The method pursued at Rosetta is as follows:-The skeins of thread are arranged in a large copper, set in mason work; above them is put a layer of natron; and then a sufficient quantity of cold water is poured in to soak both the thread and the natron. The whole is left in this situation for three days, at the NATURAL HISTORY. Natural history is a end of which the thread is taken out and hung generic term, once of considerable use, of which upon sticks placed over the copper. When it has we are required perhaps to take some notice. drained, a fire is lighted under the copper, and the Strictly taken, it would comprehend the developewater, in which the thread was soaked, with the ment and classification of all the divisions and natron, is made to boil, after having received an productions of nature: but this is a sense in which addition of some lime. The thread is steeped and it has been rarely applied. It has been more comstirred about in this hot lie, and washed in it sev-monly used for a systematic description of that eral times, without being left there. It is immedi- part of nature which is immediately connected ately taken to the Nile, in which it is washed and with man and human wants: as, for the history of beaten; it is then spread out to dry. When the the natural products of the earth and atmosphere, skeins are very dry, they are again washed in the whether mineral, vegetable, or animal; and as whey which runs from cheeses, and which in bearing the same relation to natural philosophy as Arabic is called 'mesch.' This is a sort of stiffen-physiology does to physics. ing that improves the cloth, and when the Egyptians handle a soft cloth they say that it wants 'mesch.' Thus limited, natural history is a science both useful and entertaining: it is intimately connected with all the other sciences; and with all the arts, from the simplest and rudest to the most compli NATURAL BRIDGE. The natural bridge of cated and most elegant. We cannot well avoid Virginia is one of the most sublime of Nature's becoming more or less acquainted with the manworks, and consequently demands a place in aners of animals, the economy of vegetables, and work of this nature. It is on the ascent of a hill, which seems to have been cloven through its length, by some great convulsion. The fissure just at the bridge is, by some admeasurements 270 feet deep, but by others only 205. It is about forty-five feet wide at the bottom, and ninety at the top; which of course determines the length of the bridge, and its elevation from the water. Its breadth in the middle is about sixty feet, but more at the ends, and the thickness of the mass at the summit of the arch is about forty feet. A part of this thickness is constituted by a coat of earth, which gives growth to many large trees; and the residue, with the hill on both sides is one solid rock of limestone. The arch approaches the semi-tute a different species for that in common use. elliptical form, but the larger axis of the ellipsis, which would be the cord of the arch, is several times longer than the transverse. Though the sides of this bridge, says Mr. Jefferson, are provided in some parts with a parapet of fixed rocks, yet few persons have resolution to walk over them, and look over into the abyss. You involuntarily fall on your hands and knees, creep to the parapet and peep over it. Looking down from this height about a minute gave me a violent headache. But if the view from the top be painful and intolerable, that from below is delightful in an equal extreme. It is impossible, indeed, for the emotions arising from the sublime to be felt beyond what they are here; so beautiful an arch, so elevated, so light, and springing as it were up to heaven, the rapture of the spectator is really the general appearance of nature. From an acquaintance with these, many advantages have already accrued to man; and, from a more intimate knowledge of them, many more will doubtless be derived. The husbandman ought to know the characters of the tame animals which he employs; what advantages are to be derived from them; whether there are others that would suit his purpose better; where they are to be found; how they may be procured, and how supported; the qualities of the soil which he cultivates, and the means of managing and of improving it; the nature of the grains and grasses which he raises, and whether he might not, with advantage, substi Even the meanest mechanic should have a pretty accurate knowledge of many of the qualities of those natural objects with which his craft is connected. The fine arts, though usually considered as the peculiar province of imagination, depend greatly also upon natural history. From the vicissitudes of the seasons acting upon the senses; from the presence of surrounding objects; from the necessity of deriving from them food, clothing, and shelter; natural history must have been a study of the first importance to man, and attended to from the earliest periods of society. Before the invention of letters, however, the observations and discoveries of individuals were neither likely to be communicated to those at a distance, nor recorded for the information of posterity. In a more polished state of society the case is different and hence we find Alexander | to contain the fluids, and glands to secrete different the Great decreeing a collection of animals for the examination of Aristotle; and wild beasts, from every quarter of the globe, produced and exhibited in the amphitheatres at Rome. Yet Aristotle is almost the only ancient writer on zoology that merits attention; for even Pliny and Ælian, with this great example before their eyes, offer us nothing but crude collections, discriminated with little taste or judgment, truth and falsehood being blended in one common mass: and for many succeeding years, from various causes, all Europe is well known to have been immersed in ignorance and credulity as to the most common facts of this study. Books on natural history have been very properly and extensively put, of late years, into the hands of the young. The slightest attention on the part of their authors will render such books interesting, and they cannot fail of being eminently useful. It is under this impression that in the present work we have allotted the utmost extent we have been able to a description of the various objects of this study: and have selected for our descriptions those species whose forms or habits are most striking and worthy of notice. He who studies nature with a careless eye only appears to distinguish the animal from the vegetable, and the vegetable from the mineral kingdom: he notices not the nice gradations by which these different orders of beings run, as it were, into one another; he marks only the more prominent features, and the more glaring colors; the more remarkable differences force themselves upon his observation; but he passes on too rapidly to discern, or even examine, whether these are seeming or real, whether they are divided by a firm and insuperable barrier, or connected by intermediate links; and would think it incredible that the philosopher should declare himself at a loss to give such a definition of any one of these divisions as might absolutely exclude the others. Yet philosophers have felt this difficulty, and continue to feel it. Let us glance at their difficulties in arranging the different objects even of this lower part of the creation, and we shall see the extent and importance of the study of natural history. When they find animals fixed to a particular spot, extremely imperfect in their powers of sensation, and displaying scarcely any instinct or sensorial power, they can hardly consider them as endowed with any principle superior in its nature to vegetative life. Again, when they observe plants unfolding to the rays of the sun their leaves or flowers, which shrink together at the fall of night; receding as if afraid of injury from objects that approach them; and, in whatever situation the seed be sown, or the shoot planted, constantly growing in that direction in which they can best enjoy the influence of light and air; it appears at first sight almost unfair to deny this class of beings sensations, desires, aud even design. The analogies between animals and vegetables, which have been traced by philosophical observation, occasion other difficulties in the attempt to fix the boundary between these two kingdoms. The bodies, as well of plants as of animals, consist of fluids and solids; they have both vessels designed juices: while the blood circulates through the bodies of animals, the sap of vegetables ascends and descends, so as to produce the same effects on the vegetable, which the motion of the blood, by the force of the heart and the arteries, produces on the animal system. These are but a few of the resemblances which have been observed between the species of the animal and those of the vegetable kingdom. Almost every one of the parts common to animal bodies has been represented by one naturalist or another as matched by some correspondent part in vegetable bodies. Such analogies are sometimes plain and striking, and sometimes scarcely perceptible, or merely imaginary. They afford, however, an agreeable subject of speculation; and it cannot be denied that they increase the difficulty of ascertaining the limits by which these two departments of nature are divided. But, however numerous and strong the analogies between animals and vegetables, however difficult it may be to discern the precise line which separates the one kingdom from the other, yet the leading characteristics are sufficiently distinct. The privileges which animals enjoy above the other parts of the creation are in most instances highly conspicuous. One of the most eminent of these is their power of locomotion. Klein, with sufficient propriety, assumes this as the great characteristic by which animals may be distinguished from the other orders of beings. It does not hold indeed in every instance, for there are some plants of a nature almost as wandering as the most migratory of the animal tribes; such as the fragaria, or strawberry, as a land plant, and the valiseneria as an aquatic: but these anomalies are not common, and vegetables may in general be regarded as destitute of locomotion. They seem to enjoy a species of life, and display on many occasions a degree of sensibility, or something very like it; but they are fixed, each to a peculiar spot, where they spring up, expand into full growth, and at length wither and decay. Animals, without suffering any external impulse, readily move from place to place, by virtue of an inward principle, superior in its nature to vegetative life. Some enjoy this power or property in a more eminent degree than others; some are more disposed than the rest of their fellows to exert it; and some, again, possess the power in a very inferior degree, and discover but a faint inclination to avail themselves of it. We admire the rapid flight of the eagle, and the swiftness of the horse and the greyhound; we observe many of the swiftest and most rigorous animals sink into lethargic indolence, till roused by some peculiarly powerful motive; the snail, the sloth, but more particularly the oyster, the limpet, and other shell fishes, both in their powers of self motion, and in their dispositions to exert them, rise but very little above those vegetables which are more remarkable for sensibility. Sensation is usually regarded as another characteristic of animals: it is intimately connected with their powers of locomotion, and even necessary to prompt them to the exertion of those powers. Did we not feel, we should never be roused to action. Yet several vegetables, among which the mimosa or sensitive plant is one of the most re- | moment after they were communicated. Animals, markable instances, appear to possess something without this power, could perform no voluntary like sensibility. It is scarcely possible to determine functions. To render them equal to such funcupon what principle in their nature the emotions tions, it seems indispensably necessary that they which these kinds of plants display on certain be able to connect the past with the present. Acoccasions may depend. Is it owing to something cordingly, every animal whose manners and econpeculiar in the structure of their parts, or in the omy have been observed with any considerable matter of which they are formed? or are they degree of attention appears to be more or less caactually informed by a sentient principle? This pable of remembrance. The docility of the dois perhaps one of those intricate cases in which mestic animals is a sufficient proof that they are truth is removed from our view, even beyond the endowed with this faculty: the cunning, and even reach of experiment. Yet, if we may fairly ven- the ferocity of beasts of prey, prove the same fact ture on this occasion to reason from general analo- with respect to themselves: the complex and wongy, we must conclude that these plants are equally derful economy of the bee, the beaver, the crow, destitute of a conscious sentient principle with the the birds of passage in general, and various others other kind of the vegetable kingdom. The struc- of the inferior animals, whose manners have been ture of their parts is not that of an animal, but of often contemplated with admiration, shows that a vegetable body; they are, like other vegetables, their retentive powers are remarkably tenacious of fixed to a particular spot: in all their other char- the impressions made upon them. The human acters too they resemble not animals but vegetables; species possess the faculty of memory in a very and even those phenomena in which it may be eminent degree; and the arts by which they have imagined that they display indications of sensibility learned to improve and assist it, render it a more are of such a nature, that no decisive inference important feature in their character than in that can be deduced from them. Animals are endowed of any of the other species in the animal creation. with various organs and powers of sensation, But we cannot conceive a being to possess the which serve to make them acquainted with the powers of perception and memory, and yet not be different properties of surrounding objects. Most conscious of its existence: this consciousness must of them see, hear, taste, touch, and smell. They therefore be allowed to be another of the internal all possess these, or a part of these powers of sen-powers of animals. With the powers of percepsation, in an unequivocal manner. The senses are not indeed equally perfect in all; and some species appear to enjoy only a part of them. In some animals the sight, the hearing, the touch, the taste, or the smell, is remarkably dull; and in others exquisitely delicate and acute. The eye of the mole receives but a faint glimmer of light; the ear of the ass is insensible to the harmony or melody of sounds: the sight of the ounce, on the contrary, is wonderfully acute; and the touch of the spider is exquisitely delicate. Possibly the same feelings may not communicate to all animals the same images and sentiments: what is sweet to one animal may perhaps be bitter to another; what is beautiful to one species may appear to another ugly or disagreeable; an odor which to this animal is sweetsmelling may be a stench in the nostrils of that. All sensations, however, communicate to the animal some useful knowledge of the qualities of surrounding objects; some knowledge suitable to his character and his circumstances. tion, remembrance, and consciousness, animals are observed to be also endowed with certain affections, and to be susceptible of certain emotions. Joy, grief, love, hatred, gratitude, resentment, fear, courage, with a number of other similar principles, reside in the human breast, and are to man the great springs of action. The inferior animals appear to be susceptible of the same emotions, and capable of many both of the selfish and the social affections which distinguish the human character. But neither do all the species or individuals of any one kind possess all these affections and passions in the very same degree; nor are the dispositions and affections of the different kinds in any respect the same. One kind or species is ferocious and cunning; in another courage appears united with generosity: one is remarkable for sloth and inactivity; another is restlessly active: one is grateful, submissive, and affectionate; another of a froward, untameable spirit, insensible to kindness, and incapable of attachment: one is docile and intelligent; But sensibility requires the beings to whom it another dull and stupid. Besides these emotions, belongs to possess some superior powers. Organs affections, and passions of a more generous and of sensation serve merely to carry on an inter-refined nature, animals are likewise subject to cercourse between some internal principle in the ani- tain appetites and feelings of a different sort: such mal possessed of them, and external nature. This are the appetites for food, and for the procreation internal principle exalts animals highly above of the species; the sense of bodily pleasure and every other arrangement of beings; and is, besides, of bodily pain. These are more uniformly comso much diversified in different kinds and species mon to animals in general than the former: to reof animals, and in different individuals, as to create ceive the requisite supplies of food, and to reprothe most remarkable distinctions among them. duce the species, are properties still more essential Perception must be common to all animals; with- to the animal character than the more refined senout it organs of sensation would be useless. Per-timents and affections. ception is indeed scarcely any thing else but another word for sensibility. Memory appears to be no less necessary to animals than perception; to receive impressions from external nature would be but a trifling privilege, were those impressions of so evanescent a nature as to be effaced the next Those who with a philosophical eye have contemplated the productions of Nature, have all, by common consent, divided them into three great classes, called the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral or fossil kingdoms. These terms are still in general use, and the most superficial observer must be struck with their propriety. Animals | diate agency of the Deity, it is in the contemplation have an organized structure which regularly un- of this vital principle, which seems independent folds itself, and is nourished and supported by air of material organization, and an impulse of his and food; they consequently possess life, and are own divine energy. subject to death; they are moreover endowed with The man who surveys the vast field of nature, sensation, and with spontaneous, as well as volun- and devotes a portion of his time to the study of tary, motion. Vegetables are organized, supported the principles which influence, or govern, the moby air and food, endowed with life, and subject to tions of animated beings, however minute they death as well as animals. They have in some in- may be, will not only derive pleasure from the stances spontaneous, though we know not that pursuit, but he will gain the only means of discovthey have voluntary motion. They are sensible ering the object and utility of their creation. And to the action of nourishment, air, and light, and as he journeys along from one gradation of knoweither thrive or languish according to the whole-ledge to another, he will become more and more some or hurtful application of these stimulants. intimate with the designs of the great Creator of The spontaneous movements of plants are almost as readily to be observed as their living principle. The general direction of their branches, and especially of the upper surface of their leaves, though repeatedly disturbed, to the light, the unfolding and closing of their flowers at stated times, or according to favorable or unfavorable circumstances, with some still more curious particulars, are actions undoubtedly depending on their vital principle, and are performed with the greater facility in proportion as that principle is in its greatest vigor. Plants alone have a power of deriving nourishment, though not indeed exclusively, from inorganic matter, mere earths, salts, or airs, substances certainly incapable of serving as food for any animals, the latter only feeding on what is or has been organized matter, either of a vegetable or animal nature. So that it would seem to be the office of vegetable life alone to transforın dead matter into organized living bodies. all. He will gain a more comprehensive view of that wonderful and illimitable power which hath organized the universe, for purposes with which, in the fulness of time, the wise and the virtuous will doubtless be made acquainted. But knowledge must ever be progressive; and he who makes the attempt to read the characters by which the wisdom, power, beneficence, and eternal nature of God is stamped upon every thing here below, will not do it in vain. NATURALIST. A person well versed in the study of nature, and the knowledge of natural bodies, especially in what relates to animals, vegetables, metals, minerals, and stones. NATURALIZATION. In England, is when an alien born is made the king's natural subject. Hereby an alien is put in the same state as if he had been born in the king's ligeance, except only, that he is incapable of being a member of the Privy Council, or Parliament, and of holding any office or grant. No bill for a naturalization, can be received in either House of Parliament, without such disabling clause in it; nor without a clause disabling the person from obtaining any immunity in trade thereby, in any foreign country, unless he shall have resided in Britain seven years next after the commencement of the session in which he is naturalized. Neither can any person be naturalized, or restored in blood, unless he have received the sacrament within one month before the bringing in of the bill, and unless he also take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy in the presence of the Parliament. The mineral kingdom can never be confounded with the other two. Fossils are masses of mere dead unorganized matter, subject to the laws of chemistry alone; growing indeed, or increasing by the mechanical addition of extraneous substances, or by the laws of chemical attraction, but not fed by nourishment taken into an organized structure. Their curious crystallization bears some resemblance to organization, but performs none of its offices, nor is any thing like a vital principle to be found in this department of nature. If it be asked what is this vital principle, so essential to animals and vegetables, but of which fossils are destitute, we must own our complete ignorance. We know it, as we know its omnipotent Author, by its effects. The infinitely small vessels of an almost invisible insect, the fine and pellucid tubes of a plant, all NATURAL LAW. Natural law, or, as it is hold their destined fluids, conveying or changing commonly called, the law of nature, is that system them according to fixed laws, but never permitting of principles, which human reason has discovered them to run into confusion, so long as the vital to regulate the conduct of man in all his various principle animates their various forms. But no relations. Dr. Paley defines it to be the science, sooner does death happen, than, without any alter- which teaches men their duty and the reasons of ation of structure, any apparent change in their it. In its largest sense, it comprehends natural material configuration, all is reversed. The eye theology, moral philosophy, and political philosoloses its form and brightness; its membranes let go phy; in other words, it comprehends man's duties their contents, which mix in confusion, and thence- to God, to himself, to other men, and as a member forth yield to the laws of chemistry alone. Just of political society. The obligatory force of the so it happens, sooner or later, to the other parts of law of nature upon man is derived from its prethe animal as well as vegetable frame. Chemical sumed coincidence with the will of his Creator. changes immediately follow the total privation of God has fashioned man according to his own good life, the importance of which becomes instantly pleasure, and has fixed the laws of his being, and evident when it is no more. If the human under- determined his powers and faculties. He has the standing can in any case flatter itself with obtain-supreme right to prescribe the rules, by which man ing, in the natural world, a glimpse of the imme- shall regulate his conduct, and the means, by which |