Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/186

Rh 174 A N N A P prints cross-hatching like Eegnesson, or stippling in the manner of Jean Boulanger ; but he gradually asserted his full individuality, modelling the faces of his portraits with the utmost precision and completeness, and employing various methods of touch for the draperies and other parts of his plates. Much of the beauty and artistic character of his prints is due to the fact that he was himself a skil ful portraitist, accustomed to work much from the life, and that he commonly engraved from his own designs. His subjects are quiet, tender, and silvern in effect, but, compared with those of his great contemporary Edelinck, they are less rich and varied in the rendering of the rela tive weights of colour. Among the finest works of his fully developed period may be named the portraits of Pomponne de Bellievre, Gilles Manage, Jean Loret, the Due de la Meilleraye, and the Duchesse de Nemours. A list of his works will be found in Dumesnil s Le Peintre Graveur Franqais, vol. iv. He died at Paris in 1678. NANTUCKET, an island, county, and town of the United States, forming (since 1693) part of Massachusetts. The island, with an area of about 50 square miles, lies within the 10-fathom line, but is separated from the main land by Nantucket Sound, which measures from 25 to 30 miles in breadth, and has a general depth of from 5 to 8 fathoms. With the exception of a few inconsiderable hills, the surface for the most part consists of open, breezy, and now almost treeless downs. The soil is generally sandy, but affords in some places good pasture. On the north or landward side of the island there is a large lagoon-like harbour formed by a long narrow tongue of land the Coatue Beach which, curving north-west, runs out into Great Point, the end of which is marked by a white light house tower in 41 23 24&quot; N. lat. and 70 2 24&quot; W. long. Within the harbour the depth at low water is about 12 or 14 feet, but on the bar it is only between 6 and 7. The western end of the island shelves out in a broad submarine platform (Tuckernuck Bank), which supports the two considerable islands of Tuckernuck and Muskeget, both included in the county. Nantucket post-village, the prin cipal settlement, lies at the south-west end of the harbour, a quiet place, but beginning to attract attention as a summer residence. A library and museum are maintained in the Athenaeum building. Nantucket (Natocko on the map of 1630) was visited by Gosnold (1602), who found it covered with oaks and other trees, and in habited by about 1500 Indians. Governor Mayhew, in 1659, granted nine-tenths of the island to ten men for 30 and two beaver hats, and shortly afterwards the first settler, Thomas Macy, took posses sion. The town of Nantucket (known as Sherburne from 1673 to 1795) was incorporated in 1671 ; the original site was at Maddequet, 5 or 6 miles west of the present position, to which it was removed in the following year. About the same time whaling operations were commenced, and Nantucket gradually became the greatest whaling station in the world. In 1775 it had 150 vessels engaged in the business ; but since the beginning of the century its pro sperity has rapidly declined : in 1852 there were still 18,105 tons of its registered shipping employed in Avhale-fishing ; in 1863 there were only 3739 ; and the number has gradually sunk to zero. The last full-blood Indian in Nantucket died in 1821 ; the last half- breed in 1854. The population of the county was 4500 in 1775, 9012 in 1840, 6094 in 1860, 4123 in 1870, and 3727 in 1880. NANTWICH, a market-town of Cheshire, situated on two railway lines and on both sides of the Weaver, 20 miles south-east of Chester and 36 south-south-west of Manchester. There is water communication by the Grand Junction Canal, which near it joins the Ellesmere Canal. The town, which consists of three main streets, is some what irregularly built. The principal buildings are the church of SS. Mary and Nicholas, in the Decorated Gothic style, with octagonal tower ; the grammar school, founded in 1611; the town-hall, in the Gothic style; and the new market-hall, which replaced the old one in 1867. There are several almshouses and other charities. The ancient castle, erected by the Normans, was in ruins before the time of Henry VII., and there are now no remains of it. The principal industry is the manufacture of boots and shoes ; there are also several clothing factories. The population of the urban sanitary district in 1871 was 6673, and in 1881 it was 7495 Nantwich, which is said to have existed in the time of the Romans, was originally called Halen Gwyn, the white salt town. In Domesday it is entered as the part possession of the king and Earl Edwin, to whom its numerous salt springs supplied a con siderable revenue. It was erected into a barony by Hugh Lupus, first Norman earl of Chester. The town suffered severely from fire in 1438 and in 1583, from a kind of mad ague in 1587, and from plague in 1604. In the reign of Henry VIII. it possessed three hundred salt-works, but, on account of the discovery of salt in 1624 at a district of the Vale of Weaver more convenient for water carriage, the industry rapidly declined, and is now wholly discontinued. Brine baths have been erected (1883) behind the town-hall. NAPHTALI, the son of Jacob by Bilhah, Rachel s maid, and uterine brother of Dan. The narrator of Gen. xxx. 8 explains the name vPI?3 by the verb 7^93, &quot; wrestle.&quot; The seats of the tribe lay in the eastern half of upper Galilee, a fertile mountainous country sloping down to the headwaters of Jordan and the Sea of Galilee (Josh. xix. 32-39). Within this country the Canaanites continued to hold Beth-shemesh and Beth-anath (Judg. i. 33). After the wars with Sisera, in which the tribe took a prominent part (Judg. iv.; v. 18), and with Midian (Judg. vii. 23), we hear little of Naphtali. Dwelling near the settlements of the Aramaeans, the tribe was an early sufferer in the bloody conflicts of Damascus with Israel (1 Kings xv. 20), and it was depopulated in the first Assyrian captivity by Tiglath Pileser (2 Kings xv. 29 ; Isa. ix. 1 [viii. 23]). NAPHTHA, a word originally applied to the limpid liquid portion of the petroleum which exudes abundantly at Baku, &c., on the shores of the Caspian Sea. It is the va.&amp;lt;$&amp;gt;0a of Dioscorides, and the naphtha or bitiimen liquidum candidum of Pliny. Both in commerce and in science the term is now used somewhat vaguely, but more in a generic sense, to embrace several bodies having certain properties in common, than as a specific name for a particular sub stance. Naphtha indeed has no distinct place or meaning in modern chemistry. By the alchemists the word was used principally to distinguish various highly volatile, mobile, and inflammable liquids, such as the ethers, sulphuric ether and acetic ether having been known respectively as Naphtha sulphurici and Naphtha aceti. In recent times naphtha has been employed to indicate the volatile, limpid, inflammable hydrocarbons obtained by destructive distillation of organic substances artificially conducted, as well as those produced by similar agencies acting within the earth. In commerce the application of the term is still more restricted, and in general it embraces no more than the more volatile portion of the fluid hydro carbons separated in the distillation of tar. Under the name naphtha we thus find the subjoined series of substances comprehended. (1) Coal-tar naphtha consists of the lightest and first separated portions of the hydrocarbons obtained in the distillation of gas-tar. It embraces the hydrocarbons having a specific gravity ranging from about 850 up to 950, and is, especially in its lighter fractions, rich in benzole. (2) Shale naphtha is obtained in the purification of the crude oil got by the destructive distillation of shale and other carbonaceous minerals. The first fraction secured, having a specific gravity ranging from 640 to 680, is termed gasoline; and coming between this and the ordinary burning oils is a light volatile and highly inflammable oil with a specific gravity of 700-760, known commonly as naphtha, but also more conveniently termed shale spirit. It is valuable as a solvent, and is also used to some extent for burning in open air. (See PARAFFIN.) (3) Native naphtha is the more fluid portion of the rock oil or petroleum found in many parts of the world. (4) Wood napWia, or methyl alcohol, has been already described under METHYL, vol. xvi. p. 195. (5) Caoutchouc naphtha : a series of hydrocarbons can be prepared by the distillation of india-rubber,