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 been made to connect this succession with the physical changes already described, especially with the periodic influx of Atlantic water, but no very definite relation has been established.

 NORTH SEA FISHERIES CONVENTION. This convention, dated May 6th, 1882, was the result of a conference which was held for the purpose of regulating the police of the fisheries in the North Sea. It was entered into by Great Britain, Germany, Denmark, Holland, Belgium and France for a period of five years and was thereafter to run on until notice of intention to terminate it, such notice to affect only the power giving it. The convention is operative only outside the three-mile limit from land. This limit is defined as follows:—

Under the Herring Fishery (Scotland) Act 1889, the Scottish Fishery Board was empowered by by-law to forbid beam-trawling and otter-trawling within a line drawn from Duncansby Head to Rattras Point. Acting under this power, it forbade these methods of trawling. This gave rise to litigation on the question of whether the prohibition applied to non-British ships beyond the three-mile limit (see Mortensen v. Peters, July 20th, 1906). The high Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh held that it was not incumbent on the court to draw a distinction between foreigners and British subjects which had not been made by the legislature, and that therefore any infringements of general restrictions imposed, although outside the three-mile limit, were binding, whatever the nationality of the persons committing them. Outside the limits of territorial waters British law, however, does not apply. Thus a later act, the Sea Fisheries Regulation (Scotland) Act 1895, though it provided for the imposition of restrictions on certain methods of sea-fishing outside the limits of territorial waters (s. 8), constructively admitted that no power could be given to apply it to non-British fishermen fishing beyond British territorial waters. A provision of the act empowered the Scottish Fishery Board by by-laws to forbid these methods of fishing within 13 m. of the Scottish coast, but added that “no area of sea within the said limit of 13 m. shall be deemed to be under the jurisdiction of her majesty for the purposes of this section unless the powers conferred thereby shall have been accepted as binding upon their own subjects with respect to such area by all the States signatories of the North Sea Convention 1882.”

A supplementary convention was signed at the Hague, November 16th, 1887, among the same High Contracting Parties, relating to the liquor traffic in the North Sea. It applies to the area set out in art. 4 of the Convention of May 6th, 1882, and forbids the sale of spirituous liquors within it to persons on board fishing vessels. A reciprocal right of visit and search is granted under this convention to the cruisers entrusted with the carrying out of its provisions.

 NORTH SHIELDS, a seaport of Northumberland, England, within the municipal and parliamentary borough of (q.v. for history, &c.). The town of that name adjoins it on the E. It lies on the N. bank of the Tyne, immediately above its mouth, and opposite to South Shields in Durham, m. E. of Newcastle by a branch of the North Eastern railway. It is a town of modern growth, and contains the municipal offices of the borough, a custom-house and various benevolent institutions for seamen. The harbour is enclosed by north and south piers, and there is a depth of 29 ft. at spring-tides besides the quays. Coal and coke are largely exported, and corn, timber and esparto grass are imported. There is an extensive fish quay, and about 14,000 tons of fish are landed annually. There are engineering, iron, salt and earthenware works, and some shipbuilding is carried on.

 NORTH SYDNEY, a municipality in the county of Cumberland, New South Wales, Australia, on the N. shore of Port Jackson. Pop. (1901) 22,050. It is a rapidly growing town, immediately opposite and suburban to the city of Sydney, with which, however, the only connexion is by steam ferry. It is the terminus of a railway system serving the district N. of the town.

 NORTH TONAWANDA, a city of Niagara county, New York, U.S.A., on the N. side and at the mouth of Tonawanda Creek (opposite Tonawanda), and on the Niagara river, about 14 m. N. of Buffalo. Pop. (1910 census) 11,955. It is served by the Erie, the Wabash, the Lehigh Valley, the West Shore, and the New York Central & Hudson River railways, by three interurban electric lines and by the Erie Canal. Electric power for its factories is furnished by Niagara Falls. In 1905 the value of its factory product was $6,499,312. The water-supply comes from the Niagara river. North Tonawanda was first settled as a part of Tonawanda in 1809; it became a part of Wheatfield township in 1857; was incorporated as a village in 1865, and chartered as a city in 1897. In 1825 Major Mordecai Manuel Noah (1785–1851), a New York journalist and politician of Portuguese Jewish descent, attempted unsuccessfully to found on Grand Island (area 27 sq. m.; pop. (1910) 914), Erie county, W. of North Tonawanda, the city of Ararat, a temporary refuge for Jews, who should return thence to the Holy Land.

 NORTHUMBERLAND, EARLS AND DUKES OF. The earldom, and later the dukedom, of Northumberland, famous in English history by its connexion with the noble house of (q.v.) is to be traced, from an origin anterior to a strictly regulated system of peerage. The Saxon kingdom of Northumbria embraced a far more extensive territory than the modern county of Northumberland; and for at least a century after the Norman Conquest Northumberland, as the name imports, comprised a great portion of the country north of the Humber, including the cities of Durham and of York. The geographical position of this territory, contiguous with the kingdom of Scotland, conferred vast responsibility as well as power on the earl or governor to whom its administration was entrusted; and it appears to have been the policy of William the Conqueror and his immediate successors to acknowledge the rights of the men who, though sometimes spoken of as earls, were in no strict sense members of the feudal nobility created by the Norman monarchy. William the Conqueror found Northumberland in the possession of Morcar, a younger son of Algar, the Saxon earl of Mercia, who on giving in his submission was confirmed in the government of the district, but was soon afterwards imprisoned for rebellion, and was replaced by Copsi, an uncle of Morcar’s predecessor, Tostig. Copsi was murdered a few weeks after receiving the dignity, and the same fate befell several of his successors; those who escaped it being not infrequently deprived of the post for rebellion or incapacity. Henry, earl of Huntingdon, only son of David I., king of Scotland, was made governor of Northumberland in 1139, and was styled “earl of Northumberland” by the contemporary chronicler Roger of Hoveden. It was not for a long period, however, that the earldom of Northumberland came into existence as a title of honour heritable according to peerage law. Ever since the Conquest the house of (q.v.) had been growing in power and importance, and at the coronation of Richard II. in 1377 Henry de Percy, 4th Baron Percy, who had distinguished himself in the French wars, officiated as marshal of England, and