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 NAPOLEONITE, also called Corsite because the stone is found in the island of Corsica, a variety of diorite which is characterized by orbicular structure. The grey matrix of the stone has the normal appearance of a diorite, but contains many rounded lumps 1 or 2 in. in diameter, which show concentric zones of light and dark colours. In these spheroids also a distinct and well-marked radial arrangement of the crystals is apparent. The centre of the spheroid is usually white or pale grey and consists mainly of felspar; the same mineral makes the pale zones while the dark ones are rich in hornblende and pyroxene. The felspar is a basic variety of plagioclase (anorthite or bytownite). Though mostly rounded, the spheroids may be elliptical or subangular; sometimes they are in contact with one another but usually they are separated by small areas of massive diorite. When cut and polished the rock makes a beautiful and striking ornamental stone. It has been used for making paper-weights and other small ornamental articles.

 NAQUET, ALFRED JOSEPH (1834–), French chemist and politician, was born at Carpentras (Vaucluse), on the 6th of October 1834. He became professor in the faculty of medicine in Paris in 1863, and in the same year professor of chemistry at Palermo, where he delivered his lectures in Italian. He lost his professorship in 1867 with his civic rights, when he was condemned to fifteen months’ imprisonment for his share in a secret society. On a new prosecution in 1869 for his book Religion, propriété, famille he took refuge in Spain. Returning to France under the government of Emile Ollivier he took an active share in the revolution of the 4th of September 1870, and became secretary of the commission of national defence. In the National Assembly he sat on the extreme Left, consistently opposing the opportunist, policy of successive governments. Re-elected to the Chamber of Deputies he began the agitation against the marriage laws with which his name is especially

connected. His proposal for the re-establishment of divorce was discussed in May 1879, and again in 1881 and 1882, and became law two years later. Naquet, although he disapproved in principle of a second chamber, secured his election to the senate in 1883 to pilot his measure through that body. In 1886 by his efforts divorce became legal after three years of definite separation on the demand of one of the parties concerned. In 1890 he resigned from the senate to re-enter the Chamber of Deputies, this time for the 5th arrondissement of Paris, and took his seat with the Boulangist deputies. After Boulanger’s suicide his political influence declined, and was further compromised by accusations (of which he was legally cleared) in connexion with the Panama scandals.

 NARA, an important water channel in Sind, India, probably representing a former bed of the Indus, though now traversing the desert far E. of the river. Its total length is 250 m.; and by means of cross cuts, weirs and embankments, it has been made to irrigate no less than 429 sq. m., with a navigable length of 425 m.

 NARA, a town of Japan, in the province of Yamato, 25 m. from Osaka by rail. Pop. 32,000. It lies on the slope of a range of picturesque hills, beautifully wooded with, cryptomerias, evergreen oaks, &c. This was the first permanent capital of Japan. Up to the beginning of the 8th century the imperial court changed its location at the accession of each sovereign, and the court’s place of residence naturally became the official metropolis. But Nara remained the metropolis during seven consecutive reigns (709 to 784), and its seventy-five years of favoured existence sufficed for the building and furnishing of several imposing shrines and temples, for the laying out of a noble park, for the casting of a colossal image of Buddha, and for the execution of many other beautiful specimens of applied art. Not much is known of the Nara palace in its original form, but many of the articles and ornaments used by its inmates survive in a celebrated collection which, during nearly twelve hundred years, had been preserved in a store-house (Shoso-in) near the temple of Todai-ji. This collection cannot be visited by strangers more than once a year, and even then only by special permission. The vigorous growth of the Buddhist creed throughout the Nara epoch was remarkable, and found outward expression in many striking architectural and artistic Works. The best of these, namely, those dating from the first half of the 8th century, show Indo-Grecian affinities, which gradually grow fainter as the end of the epoch approaches. The temple called Todai-ji was completed about 750. At present the buildings enclose a quadrangle 520 ft. by 620, the south side being mainly occupied by the huge, ungainly and no longer perpendicular hall containing the Dai Butsu, or colossal statue of Buddha. The casting of this wonderful piece of work was accomplished after eight failures in 749 by Takusho, an artist from Korea. On two occasions the head was melted during the burning of the temple (1180 and 1567) and from 1567 to 1697 the statue stood exposed to the weather. The height of the figure is 53 ft. On a hill to the east of the temple stands a bell-house with a huge bell, cast in 732, 13 ft. high, 9 ft. across the mouth and weighing 37 tons. The great Buddha is often spoken of as the most remarkable of the Nara relics; but restorations have so marred it that it can no longer be compared with many smaller examples of contemporaneous and subsequent sculpture. More worthy of close attention are two effigies of Brahma and Indra preserved among the relics of Kobuku-ji, which, with Kasuga-no-Miya, Ni-gwatsudo and Todai-ji, constitute the chief religious edifices. These figures, sculptured in wood, have suffered much from the ravages of time, but nothing could destroy the grandeur of their proportions or the majesty and dignity of their pose. Several other