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 by contriving the decree of November 7, by which the ministry might not be chosen from the assembly. Financially he proved equally incapable for a time of crisis, and could not understand the need of such extreme measures as the establishment of assignats in order to keep the country quiet. His popularity vanished when his only idea was to ask the assembly for new loans, and in September 1790 he resigned his office, unregretted by a single Frenchman. Not without difficulty he reached Coppet, near Geneva, an estate he had bought in 1784. Here he occupied himself with literature, but Madame Necker pined for her Paris salon and died in 1794. He continued to live on at Coppet, under the care of his daughter, Madame de Staël, and his niece, Madame Necker de Saussure, but his time was past, and his books had no political influence. A momentary excitement was caused by the advance of the French armies in 1798, when he burnt most of his political papers. He died at Coppet in April 1804.

NECROLOGY (from Med. Lat. necrologium, Gr. , corpse, the termination being formed from  to read, in the sense of list, register; cf. “martyrology”), a register in a monastery or other ecclesiastical establishment of the names of the deceased members of the society, or of those for whom the prayers of the foundation were offered as benefactors; hence any roll or list of deceased persons or collection of obituaries.

 NECROMANCY (Gr. , or  , from  or  , corpse, and  , divination, properly divination by communicating with the dead. The latinized form of the Greek word was corrupted into nigromantia, connecting the word with niger, black, and so was applied to the “black art,” “black magic,” in the sense of witchcraft, sorcery. This corrupted form is common in English to the 17th century (see  and ).

 NECROPOLIS, a (q.v.) or burying-place, literally a “city of the dead” (Gr. , corpse, and  , city). Apart from the occasional application of the word to modern cemeteries outside large towns, the term is chiefly used of burial-grounds near the sites of the centres of ancient civilizations.

 <section begin="Necrosis" />NECROSIS (Gr. <span title=nekrós>, corpse), a term restricted in surgery to death of bone. A severe inflammation, caused by a violent blow, by cold, or by the absorption of various poisons, as mercury and phosphorus, is the general precursor of necrosis. The dead part, analogous to the slough in the soft tissues, is called a sequestrum or exfoliation. At first it is firmly attached to the living bone around; gradually, however, the dead portion is separated from the living tissue. The process of separation is a slow one. New bone is formed around the sequestrum, which often renders its removal difficult. As a rule the surgeon waits until the dead part is loose, and then cuts down through the new case and removes the sequestrum. The cavity in which it lay gradually closes, and a useful limb is the result.

<section end="Necrosis" /> <section begin="Nectar" />NECTAR, in ancient mythology generally coupled with ambrosia, the nourishment of the gods in Homer and in Greek literature generally. Probably the two terms were not originally distinguished; but usually both in Homer and in later writers nectar is the drink and ambrosia the food. On the other hand, in Alcman nectar is the food, and in Sappho and Anaxandrides ambrosia the drink. Each is used in Homer as an unguent (Iliad, xiv. 170; xix. 38). Both are fragrant, and may be used as perfume. According to W. H. Roscher (Nektar und Ambrosia, 1883; see also his article in Roscher's Lexikon der Mythologie) nectar and ambrosia were originally only different forms of the same substance—honey, regarded as a dew, like manna, fallen from heaven, which was used both as food and drink. (See also .)

<section end="Nectar" /> <section begin="Need-Fire" />NEED-FIRE, or (Ger. Notfeuer, O. Ger. nodfyr), a term used in folklore to denote a curious superstition which survived in the Highlands of Scotland until a recent date. Like the fire-churning still customary in India for kindling the sacrificial fire, the needor wild-fire is made by the friction of one piece of wood on another, or of a rope upon a stake. Need-fire is a practice of shepherd peoples to ward off disease from their herds and flocks. It is kindled on occasions of special distress, particularly at the outbreak of a murrain, and the cattle are driven through it. Its efficacy is believed to depend on all other fires being extinguished. The kindling of the need-fire in a village near Quedlinburg was impeded by a night light burning in the parsonage (Pröhle, Harz-Bilder, Leipzig, 1855). According to one account, in the Highlands of Scotland the rule that all common fires must be previously extinguished applied only to the houses situated between the two nearest running streams (Kelly, Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and Folklore, p. 53 seq.). In Bulgaria even smoking during need-fire is forbidden. Two naked men produce the fire by rubbing dry branches together in the forest, and with the flame they light two fires, one on each side of a cross-road haunted by wolves. The cattle are then driven between the two fires, from which glowing embers are taken to rekindle the cold hearths in the houses (A. Strausz, Die Bulgaren, p. 198). In Caithness the men who kindled the need-fire had previously to divest themselves of all metal. In some of the Hebrides the men who made the fire had to be eighty-one in number and all married. In the Halberstadt district in Germany, the rope which was wound round the stake, must be pulled by two chaste boys; while at Wolfenbüttel, contrary to usual custom, it is said that the need-fire had to be struck out of the cold anvil by the smith. In England the need-fire is said to have been lit at Birtley within the last half-century. The superstition had its origin in the early ideas of the purifying nature of flame.

<section end="Need-Fire" /> <section begin="Needle" />NEEDLE (O. Eng. nædl; the word appears in various forms in Teutonic languages, Ger. Nadel, Dutch naal, the root being ne-, to sew, cf. Ger. nähen, and probably Lat. nere, to spin, Gr. <span title=nē̃sis>, spinning), an instrument adapted for passing a thread through fabrics in sewing, consisting of a thin rod of steel, having a pointed end and pierced with a hole or “eye” to carry the thread. The term is also applied to various other objects that more or less resemble a sewing needle in form, though differing in function, such as the magnetized piece of steel that points north and south in the mariner's compass, the pointer or indicator of certain forms of electric telegraph instruments, the slender tube by which the contents of a hypodermic syringe are injected beneath the skin, a sharp-pointed mountain peak or isolated mass of rock, &c.

Sewing needles have been in use from prehistoric times. Originally they were made of fishbone, bone or ivory, and their first form was probably a rude bodkin having a hook instead of an eye, though bone needles with an eye, sometimes at the end and sometimes in the middle, have been found in cave deposits in Great Britain and France and in the Swiss lakes. Bone<section end="Needle" />