Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/366

Rh 352 N E R N E R The fort of Nertchinsk dates from 1654, and the town was founded in 165S by Pashkoff, who in that year opened direct com munication between the Russian settlements in Transbaikalia and those on the Amur which had been founded by Cossacks and fur- traders coming from the Yakutsk region. The mutual help thus given proved, however, insufficient, and two years after the fall of Albazin the chief Russian fort on the Amur the Russian envoy Golovin, meeting at Nertchinsk the Chinese envoys, who were supported by a strong military force encamped on the banks of the Shilka, signed in 1689 the well-known &quot;treaty of Nertchinsk,&quot; which stopped for two centuries the further ad vauce of Russians into the basin of the Amur. Nertchinsk, which in the following year received municipal institutions and was more strongly fortified, soon became the chief centre for the trade with China. The open ing of the western route through Mongolia, by Urga, and the establishment of a custom-house at Kiachta in 1728, diverted this trade into a new channel; so that towards the end of the 18th century Nertchinsk lost its commercial importance ; but it acquired a new consequence from the influx of immigrants, mostly exiles, into eastern Transbaikalia, the discovery of rich mines, and the arrival of great numbers of convicts. It ultimately became the chief town of Transbaikalia, and in 1812 was transferred from the banks of the Shilka to its present site, on account of the floods. After the foundation, in 1851, of Tchita, the present capital of Transbaikalia, it was reduced to the rank of a district town, and is now rapidly falling into decay. NERTCHINSK (in full NERTCHINSKIY ZAVOD), a town and silver-mine situated in the government of Transbaikalia, 185 miles E.S.E. of the Nertchinsk noticed above (with which it is very often confounded), on the Algacha river, a few miles above its junction with the Argun. It lies in a narrow valley between barren mountains, and consists of town, silver-mine, and village, with an aggregate of 5000 inhabitants. It is much better built than any of the district towns of eastern Siberia, and its shops carry on an active trade. It has a chemical laboratory supported by the crown for mining purposes, and a first-class meteoro logical observatory (51 18 N. lat, 119 37 E. long., 2450 feet above the sea-level), where meteorological and magnetical observations have been made every hour since 1842. The average yearly temperature, calculated from twenty-six years observations, is 2 4 8 F. Nertchinskiy Zavod is the chief town and administrative centre of the NERTCHINSK MINING DISTRICT, an area of more than 2700 square miles, extending for nearly 270 miles from north to south, and comprising all the silver-mines and gold-fields situated between the Shilka and the Argun, together with a few on the left bank of the Shilka. It is traversed by several parallel chains of mountains which ran from south-west to north-east, having their base on the eastern Transbaikalian plateau, while their summits rise to about 4500 feet. These are intersected by a com plicated system of deep, narrow valleys, densely wooded, with a few expansions along the larger rivers, where the inhabitants with difficulty raise some rye and wheat. The mountains, so far as they have been geologically explored, consist of crystalline slates and limestones probably Upper Silurian and Devonian interspersed with granite, syenite, and diorite ; they contain rich ores of silver, lead, tin, and iron, while the diluvial and alluvial valley for mations contain rich auriferous sands. Several of the villages that have sprung up around the silver-mines are more populous than the district towns of eastern Siberia. The Nertchinsk silver mines began to be wrought in 1704, but during the first half of the 18th century their yearly production did not exceed 700 lb. From 1765 to 1777 the annual average was 64 cwts. ; and the total amount for the first hundred and fifty years (1704-1854) amounted to 8600 cwts. The lead was mostly neglected on account of the difficulties of transport, but its production is at present on the increase, and recently reached about 2000 cwts. Gold was first discovered in 1830, and between 1850 and 1854 no less than 131 cwts. of gold dust were obtained, but_this fell to 24 3 cwts. in 1860. In 1864, private gold mining having been permitted in the western parts of the district, a large number of auriferous beds were discovered, and the production greatly increased. Until 1863 all the labour in the silver and gold mines of the district was performed by serfs, who were the property of the emperor, and by convicts, numbering usually nearly four thousand. The serfdom was partially abolished in 1851, and finally in 1863, when a great number of mines were abandoned by the crown. NERVA (32-98 A.D.), Roman emperor from 96 to 98, was called to the throne on the murder of Domitian (Sep tember 18, 96; Suet., Dom., 17; Corp. Inscr. Lat., vi. 472). His full name was Marcus Cocceius Nerva (Henzen, 5435), and his family, though of no great antiquity, had attained to considerable distinction under the emperors. The M. Cocceius Nerva who was consul in 36 B.C. was prob ably his great-grandfather. His grandfather of the same name (consul c. 22 A.D.) was a lawyer of high reputation and an intimate friend of the emperor Tiberius (Tac., Ann., iv. 58, vi. 26 ; Front., De Aquxd., 102). His father is usually identified with the &quot; Nerva filius &quot; who is mentioned in the Digest as a prominent jurist, and who was possibly consul in 40 A.D. Of his mother a single inscription tells us that she was Sergia Plautilla, daughter of Lsenas (Orelli, 777). Nerva must have been born in 32 A.D., for he was sixty- four years old at the time of his accession in 96 A.D. In early manhood he had been on friendly terms with Nero, whose taste for versification he shared (Martial, viii. 70 ; Pliny, Ep., v. 3), and by whom, in 65, he was decorated with the &quot; insignia triumphalia &quot; (Tac., Ann., xv. 72). He had been praetor (266) and twice consul, in 71 with the emperor Vespasian for colleague (Orelli, 1634), and again in 90 with Domitian. Towards the close of the latter s reign he is said to have excited suspicion and to have been banished to Tarentum on a charge of conspiracy (Dio Cass., Epit., Ixvii. 15 ; Philostr., Apoll. Tyan., vii. 8). He is described as a quiet, kindly, dignified man, honest of pur pose, but unfitted by age and temperament, as well as by feeble health, to bear the weight of empire. Nevertheless his selection by Domitian s murderers as that prince s successor seems to have been generally approved, and his short rule, in spite of occasional exhibitions of weakness, justified the choice. His accession brought a welcome relief from the terrible strain of the last few years. The reign of terror was at an end and liberty restored. The new emperor recalled those who had been exiled by Domitian ; what remained of their confiscated property was restored to them, and a stop was put to the vexatious prosecutions which Domitian had encouraged. But the popular feeling demanded more than this. The countless informers of all classes who had thriven under the previous regime now found themselves swept away, to borrow Pliny s metaphor (Pliny, Paney., 35), by a hurricane of revengeful fury, which threatened to become as dangerous in its indiscriminate ravages as the system it attacked. It was finally checked by Nerva, who was stung into action by the sarcastic remark of the consul Fronto that, &quot; bad as it was to have an emperor who allowed no one to do any thing, it was worse to have one who allowed every one to do everything&quot; (Dio Cass., Epit., Ixviii. 1). Nerva seems to have followed the custom established by his predecessors of announcing at the outset the general lines of his future policy. Domitian had been arbitrary and high-handed, and had heaped favours on the soldiery while humiliating the senate; Nerva naturally enough assumed the opposite attitude, and showed himself anxious in every way to respect the traditional privileges of the senate, and such maxims of constitutional government as still survived. He pledged himself to put no senator to death. His chosen councillors in all affairs of state were senators, and the hearing of claims against the fiscus was taken from the imperial procuratores and entrusted to the more impartial jurisdiction of a praetor and a court of &quot;judices&quot; (Dio Cass., 7i&amp;gt;//., Ixviii. 2; Digest, i. 2, 2; Pliny,