Page:EB1911 - Volume 19.djvu/967

 The lake lies at an altitude of about 1650 ft. above the sea. The sides of the valley in which Nyasa lies, which are somewhat irregular towards its southern end, take a decided character of fault scarps in the northern third, and are continued as such beyond the northern extremity. Apart from the recent alluvium on the immediate shores, the lake lies almost entirely in granite and gneiss formations, broken, however, by a band of horizontally-bedded sandstones, which cuts the axis of the lake in about 10° 30′ S., the flat-topped, terraced form of the latter contrasting strangely with the jagged or rounded outlines of the former. Near the margin, overlying the sandstones, there are beds of limestone with remains of recent molluscs, pointing, like the raised beaches which occur elsewhere, to an upward movement of the coasts. Lacustrine deposits up to 700 ft. above the present lake-level have been discovered. Geologically, the lake is believed to be of no great age, a View supported by topographical evidence. The depth of the lake seems to vary in accordance with the steepness of the shores, increasing from south to north. The greater part of the northern half shows depths of over 200 fathoms, while a maximum of 430 fathoms was obtained by Mr. J. E. S. Moore in 1899, off the high western coast in about 11° 40′ S. A more complete series of soundings, however, since made by Lieut. Rhoades, and published in the Geographical Journal in 1902, gives a maximum of 386 fathoms off the same coast in 11° 10′ S. The lake receives its water-supply chiefly from the streams which descend from the mountains to the north, all the rest becoming very small in the dry season. Like other lakes of Central Africa it is subject to fluctuations of level, apparently caused by alternations of dry and wet series of years.

Nyasa, reached in 1859 both by David Livingstone (from the south) and by the German traveller Albrecht Roscher (from the east), was explored by the former to about 11°, and to its northern end by E. D. Young in 1876. From this date onwards it has been the scene of much civilizing work on the part of British (principally Scottish) missionaries, traders and government officials, and, in more recent years, of Germans also. Its shores have been divided between Great Britain, Portugal and Germany, Great Britain holding (within the British Nyasaland Protectorate) all the west coast south of the Songwe, and the southern extremity of the east coast (south of 11° S.); Portugal the rest of the east coast south of 11° S.; and Germany the remainder. British steamers, including two or three gunboats, have been launched on Nyasa, which forms an important link in the water-route from the Zambezi mouth to the heart of the continent. Germany also has a gunboat on the lake. The first detailed survey of its shores was executed by Dr James Stewart (1876–1877), but this has been superseded by later work, especially that of Lieuts. Rhoades and Phillips.

NYBORG, a seaport of Denmark on the east side of the island of Fünen, in the amt (county) of Svendborg, and the point from which the ferry crosses the Great Belt to Korsör in Zealand (15 m.). Pop. (1901) 7790. The fortress, built by Christian IV. and Frederick III., was dismantled in 1869, and the ruins of the castle are used as a prison. In the 12th century the town was founded and a castle erected on Knudshoved (Canute’s Head) by Knud, nephew of Waldemar the Great, and from the 13th to the 15th century Nyborg was one of the most important places in Denmark. In 1658 it surrendered to the Swedes; but by the defeat of the latter under the walls of the fortress on the 24th of November 1659, the country was freed from their dominion. In 1808 the Marquis La Romana, who with a body of Spanish troops garrisoned the fortress for France, revolted from his allegiance, and held out till he and a portion of his men escaped with the English fleet.

NYCKELHARPA (Swed. nyckel＝key, harpa＝harp; Ger. Schlüsselfiedel), a kind of bowed hurdy-gurdy, much used in Scandinavia during the late middle ages, and still in use in some parts of Sweden. It consists of a body some 2 ft. long, shaped like an elongated viol, with sloping shoulders and highly arched sound-board glued over a less arched back, and ribs cut out of a single block of wood. There is no fingerboard, but along the neck, arranged like frets, are a number of keys or wooden tangents, which when pressed inwards bring a little knob or stud into Contact with the first string of thin catgut, thus stopping it and raising the pitch as in the hurdy-gurdy. At three points these keys also act upon the third string. There are in the comparatively modern instruments usually four melody strings of catgut and three drones of fine spun wire. The bridge is quite flat, so that when the bow is passed over the strings, they all sound at once. The tailpiece is very long, extending over half the length of the body, and the two oval sound-holes, far removed from the strings, are at the tail end of the instrument.

NYE, EDGAR WILSON (1850–1896), American humorist, was born at Shirley, Maine, on the 25th of August 1850. His parents removed to a farm on the St Croix river in northern Wisconsin in 1852, and young Nye was educated in Wisconsin at the academy at River Falls, where he studied law. In 1876 he was admitted to the bar at Laramie, Wyoming, where he served as justice of the peace, superintendent of schools, member of the city council and postmaster. Here he began to contribute humorous articles under the pseudonym of “Bill Nye” to newspapers, especially the Cheyenne Sun and the Denver Tribune. In 1881 he founded at Laramie the Boomerang, and his reputation as a humorist was soon widespread. Later he became a successful lecturer, and in 1885, with James Whitcomb Riley, the poet, made an extended tour through the country, each reading from his own writings. Nye removed to New York City in 1886, and passed the later years of his life at Arden, a village in Buncombe county, North Carolina (about 10 m. south of Asheville),