Page:LA2-NSRW-3-0339.jpg

NEBRASKA CITY large and growing printing and publishing trade.

Commerce and Transportation. Nebraska has 175 national banks, with a capital of about $12,000,000 and about $65,000,000 of deposits. There are 6,067 miles of railway, chiefly in the southeast. The chief lines are the Chicago and Northwestern, Rock Island, Union Pacific, Burlington and Missouri River and Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley roads.

Education and Charities. Educationally the state makes a good showing, though it has no state board of education, for it has an exceedingly low percentage of illiterates. In 1910 there was a total school enrolment of 278,936, with an average daily attendance of 192,454 pupils and 11,099 teachers. Of high schools there were 285, with an aggregate attendance of 18,000. The expenditure on the schools was $7,454,215, over $4,560,000 being for teachers’ salaries. The institutions for higher learning include the University of Nebraska, at Lincoln, with 262 instructors and 3,992 students; Cotner University, at Bethany, with 50 instructors and 350 students; Bellevue College (Presbyterian with 16 instructors and 170 students; Doane College (Congregational), at Crete, with 19 instructors and 210 students; and Nebraska Wesley an University, at University Place, with 43 instructors and 937 students. Besides these collegiate institutions the state maintains asylums for the insane, feebleminded etc. at Lincoln, Norfolk, Hastings and Beatrice; an institute for the blind at Nebraska City; one for the deaf and dumb at Omaha; besides state soldiers’ and sailors’ homes at Milford and Grand Island.

History. Originally the present state, which dates from 1867, formed part of the Louisiana Purchase, and in 1804 it was organized as the District and Territory of Louisiana, eight years later becoming known as Missouri Territory. In the 18th century fur-traders ascended the Platte; in 1804–06 the Lewis and Clark expedition visited the region; and later commerce was begun by fur-traders with the Indians and a settlement was formed in 1805 at Bellevue. In 1821 Fort Atkinson was built, and in 1825–26 Omaha and Nebraska were settled. During 1840—50 the district was visited by Mormons, traders and travellers, as well as by American troops on their way to New Mexico and by gold-seekers in 1849–50 en route for California. It remained unorganized, however, until 1854, when it became a territory under the provisions of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and after various vicissitudes it was admitted as a state, its area being limited by giving portions of it to form Colorado, Idaho and Dakota, and a constitution was formulated in 1866.  Nebraska City, Neb., the capital of Otoe County, lies on the west bank of the Missouri, 74 miles below Omaha. It is the seat of Nebraska College, the state institute for the blind, and the Academy of the Annunciation; it possesses a grain elevator and several manufactories, chief among them being flour and lumber mills, a cannery, a starch factory, distillery, foundries, machineshops and cereal mills. It has a public library, government and county buildings and well-organized public and parochial schools. Population 5,488.  Nebraska, University of, located at Lincoln, the capital of the state, is a part of its public-school system. It was founded by act of legislature in 1869, and is supported, chiefly by a state tax, together with income from land sales and leases under Act of Congress of 1862, the annual revenue being about $270,000. It comprises the following colleges and schools: graduate school, colleges of literature, science and arts, industrial college, college of law, school of fine arts, affiliated school of music. The faculty numbers 173 with 2,914 students in attendance, exclusive of the summer and preparatory schools. E. Benjamin Andrews, LL.D., is chancellor.  Nebuchadrezzar, the most illustrious of Babylonian kings, was the son of Nabopolassar, the general of the Babylonian garrison at the time the Assyrian empire fell to pieces after the death of Assur-bani-pal. The Babylonians then threw off the hated yoke of Assyria, and Nabopolassar was proclaimed king of Babylonia in 625 B. C. Nebuchadrezzar succeeded him in 604, reigning 43 years, and was one of the greatest sovereigns who ever ruled over an ancient empire. He recovered the long-lost provinces, rebuilt palaces and temples as well as the city of Babylon, and captured and destroyed Jerusalem, taking the Jews into captivity. (The Assyrians had previously taken the 10 northern tribes into captivity.) It is an astonishing fact that not a single mound has been opened by explorers in Babylonia, which did not contain bricks, cylinders and tablets inscribed with his name.  Nebulæ, are celestial bodies resembling, in appearance, small patches of white cloud. Hence the name, which is merely the Latin word for small cloud. Many thousands of these nebulæ have been measured and catalogued, but with the exception of two or three all are invisible to the naked eye. Until 1864 — five years after the invention of the spectroscope by and  — nebulæ were considered to be very distant star-clusters, or clusters made up of  so small as not to be resolvable by any existing telescope. But Sir William Huggins then examined a number of nebulæ with the and found that they are not stars, but bodies composed of luminous gas, giving a spectrum of six or seven bright lines. Two of these lines are fairly bright and are due, as has been proved by