NERVOUS SYSTEM. tubular membrane (A d, d, fig. 7), a homogeneous and probably very delicate elastic tissue, according to Todd. Within the edge of the tubular membrane, on Fig. 6.-The Sympathetic Nerve; the right lateral erwalls of the chest and abdomen, and the stomach, A, diagram of tubular fibre of a spinal nerve; a, axis cylinder; b, inner border of white substance; c, c, its outer border; d, d, tubular membrane; B, tubular fibres; e, in a natural state, shewing the parts as in A; f, the white substance and axis cylinder interrupted by pressure, while the tubular membrane remains; g, the same, with varicosities which are especially apt to be exhibited in the nerves of the special senses, and of young animals generally; C, gelatinous fibres from the solar plexus, treated with acetic acid to exhibit their cell-nuclei; B and C magnified 320 diameters; A on a considerably larger scale. -From Todd and Bowman. The vesicular form of nervous matter is of a dark reddish-gray colour, is found only in the nervous centres, is always well supplied with capillaries, and consists essentially of nucleated cells or vesicles, which are most commonly globular or ovoidal, but often present one or more taillike processes, when they are termed caudate (see fig. 8). These caudate vesicles present great difference in shape and size. The processes are very delicate, and readily break off close to the vesicle. They probably either serve to connect distant vesicles, or else become continuous with the axis cylinders of the tubular fibres. We may now consider the way in which the nerves and nervous centres are made up of these anatomical elements. NERVOUS SYSTEM. the main agent of what has been called the life of relation; for without some channel for the transmission of the mandates of the will to the organs of motion, or some provision for the reception of those impressions which external objects are capable of exciting, the mind, thus completely isolated, could hold no communion with the external world.' The nature of the connection between the mind and nervous matter is, and must ever be, the deepest mystery in physiology, and one into which the human intellect can never hope to penetrate. There are, however, many actions of the body in the production of which the mind has no share. Of this kind are the nervous actions, which are associated with the functions of organic life, such as digestion, respiration, and circulation. Again, there is another class of actions for which two nerves (an afferent or excitor, and a motor) and a nervous centre are necessary. These are the actions known as reflex or excito-motory, for the full investigation of which physiology is especially indebted to the labours of the late Dr Marshall Hall. For example, the movement of the oesophagus in propelling the food onwards to the stomach, is caused by the stimulus of the food acting on the excitor or afferent nerves, which, through the spinal cord, excite the motor or efferent nerves, and thus give rise to the necessary muscular action. When the edge of the eyelid is touched, the excitor nerve (a branch of the ophthalmic division of the fifth or trifacial nerve) conveys the impression of the stimulus to the nervous centre, and the eye is at once closed by the motor influence, which is transmitted by a branch of the facial nerve to the orbicular muscle. In such cases as these-and they form a very numerous class-the mind takes no part. In some of them it is conscious of the application of the stimulus, as well as of the muscular act which follows; but even in these cases no effort of the will could modify or interrupt the sequence of the phenomena. which the action of nerves is commonly excited, are It has been already shewn that the stimuli, by of two kinds, mental and physical, and the change which these stimuli produce in a nerve develops the power known to physiologists as the vis nervosa, or nervous force. The nervous force,' says Dr Sharpey, in his recent Address on Physiology (1862), 'has long been likened to electricity, but rather through a vague perception of analogy than from any rigorous comparison. It is true that electric force is developed in the nerves, and even exhibits modifications connected with different conditions of nervous action. Still, it must be borne in mind that the evolution of electricity is a common accompaniment of various processes involving chemical change, whether within the living body or in external nature; and the tendency of recent speculation is not towards the identification of the nerve force with electricity, but rather to suggest that the two stand related in the same way as electricity and other physical forces are related to each other - that is, as manifestations of a common force or energy, of which they, severally, are the special modifications.' The velocity with which impressions are transmitted by the nerves has been recently made the subject of investigation, but it is doubtful how far the observations are to be depended on, in consequence of the various sources of fallacy by which such experiments are beset. According to Hirsch, the velocity is 34 metres, or about 112 feet per second in man; while Helmholtz fixes it at 190 feet per second in the frog. From the observations which have been made in an earlier part of this article on the functions of individual nerves, it is sufficiently obvious that it is through the instrumentality of the nervous system that the mind influences the bodily organs, as when volition or emotion excites them to action; and that, conversely, impressions made on the organs of the body affect the mind, and excite mental perceptions through the same channel. In this way,' to quote the words of Dr Todd, 'the nervous system becomes The description of the nervous system given in the foregoing pages is applicable, with slight modifications, to all the Vertebrates; the main differences NESS-NESTORIANS. being in the degree of the development of the brain -a point which has been already noticed at the commencement of the article BRAIN. For a sufficient notice of the plan of the nervous system in the Invertebrate animals, the reader is referred to the articles ARTICULATED ANIMALS, MOLLUSCA, and RADIATA. It is only in the lowest subdivision of the Animal Kingdom, the PROTOZOA, that no traces of a nervous system can be detected. For further information on the subject of this article, the reader is referred to Dr Carpenter's works on Human and Comparative Physiology, to Dr Todd's article on 'The Nervous System' in The Cyclopædia of Anatomy and Physiology, to Todd and Bowman's Physiological Anatomy and Physiology of Man, and to Funke's Lehrbuch der Physiologie. NESS (identical with Eng. nose, A.-S. næse, Ger. nase, Ice. nes, Lat. nasus, Fr. nez), a geographical termination, signifying promontory. Names in -ness abound among the Orkney and Shetland Islands, and on the coast of Caithness; and they occur, though less frequently, along the east coast of Great Britain, as far as Dungeness in Kent. As the corresponding Scandinavian termination -naes prevails in the names of promontories in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark (e. g., Lindesnaes, in south of Norway), the existence of names in -ness in Britain is held as an evidence of Scandinavian and Danish colonisation. Grisnez, on the north coast of France, points to the same source. NESS, LOCH, a long narrow lake in Inverness-shire, Scotland, extends north-east and south-west, and is 23 miles in length, and 1 mile in average breadth. Its north-east extremity reaches a point 6 miles south-west of the town of Inverness. It receives the Morriston, the Oich, the Foyers, and other streams, and its surplus waters are carried off to the Moray Firth by the River Ness. It lies in the valley of Glenmore, and is enclosed by mountain masses averaging 1000 feet in height; but the scenery on its banks is not strikingly picturesque. In many places it is about 130 fathoms in depth, and owing to the length of time which this immense body of water takes to cool down to the freezing-point, ice never forms to any considerable extent. at the same time, of bringing Austria very much under Russian influence. Being one of the chiefs of the German or moderate party in Russia, N. is supposed to have exerted himself strenuously to preserve peace with the Western Powers; and after the war had broken out in 1854, and the ill success of Russia was manifest, he undoubtedly strove for the re-establishment of peace, and for the assembling of a congress to settle all disputes. After the accession of Alexander II. he retired from the direction of foreign affairs, and was succeeded in that department by Prince Alexander Gortchakov, but retained the dignity of chancellor of the empire, and a seat in the ministerial council. He died at St Petersburg, 23d March 1862. NE'STOR, according to ancient Grecian legend, the son of Neleus and Chloris, born in the Messenian Pylos, escaped destruction when Hercules slew all his brothers, being then a dweller among the Geronians, with whom he was brought up. He married Eurydice, by whom he became the father of a numerous family. In his youth he was distinguished for valour in wars with the Arcadians, Eleians, and the Centaurs, and in his advanced age for wisdom. Although he was an old man when the expedition against Troy was undertaken, he joined it with his Pylians in sixty ships. Homer makes him the great counsellor of the Grecian chiefs, and extols his eloquence as superior even to that of Ulysses. His authority was even considered equal to that of the immortal gods. N. returned in safety to his own dominions after the fall of Troy, along with Meuelaus and Diomedes, and continued for long to rule over the people of Pylos. NESTO'RIANS, a sect of the 5th c., so called from its founder NESTORIUS, under which head their distinctive doctrine, as well as their history up to the time of its condemnation, are sufficiently detailed. Of the later history it will be enough to say that, even after the Council of Ephesus, Nestorianism prevailed in Assyria and Persia, chiefly through the influence of the well-known school of Edessa. Although vigorously repressed in the Roman empire, it was protected, and probably the more on that account, by the Persians, and ultimately was NESSELRODE, KARL ROB., COUNT, one of established by King Pherozes as the national the most eminent diplomatists of modern times, church, with a patriarch resident at Seleucia; its was born, 14th December 1780, at Lisbon, where fundamental doctrine, as laid down in the synod his father, a descendant of an ancient noble family of Seleucia in 496, being the existence of two distinct on the Lower Rhine, was then Russian ambas-persons as Christ, united solely by a unity of will sador. He early devoted himself to a diplomatic and affection. Under the rule of the califs, the career, gained in a high degree the esteem and N. enjoyed considerable protection, and throughout confidence of the Emperor Alexander, and in the countries of the East their community extended 1813 was one of the representatives of Russia itself. Of their condition in Central Asia during in the important negotiations which took place the medieval period, some account will be found between the powers who combined against France. under the head of PRESTER JOHN. In the middle. In 1814, he accompanied the Russian emperor to of the 12th c., their church reckoned no fewer than France, and on 1st March signed the treaty of the 90 bishops under regular metropolitans, together Quadruple Alliance at Chaumont. He was also one with 56 others, whose special dependencies are of those who concluded the treaty with Marshal unknown; but in the destructive career of TamerMarmont for the surrender of Paris. He continued lane, they shared the common fate of all the repreto take a principal part in all the negotiations which sentatives of the eastern civilisation. In the 16th ended in the Peace of Paris; and was one of the c., a great schism took place in this body, of which most prominent and active of the plenipotentiaries a portion renounced their distinctive doctrine, and in the Congress of Vienna. He was one of the most placed themselves under the jurisdiction of the active diplomatists of the Holy Alliance, and accom- Roman pontiff, to whom, under the title of Chaldean panied the Emperor Alexander to the Congresses of Christians, they have since remained faithful. The Aix-la-Chapelle, Troppau, Laibach, and Verona. others still maintain their old creed and their The Emperor Nicholas reposed in him the same ancient organisation. Their chief seat is in the confidence, and under his reign he conducted the mountain-ranges of Kurdistan. They are at present Russian policy in the affairs of Greece and Turkey. a poor and illiterate race, numbering about 140,000, Amidst the European convulsions of 1848 and 1849, and subject to a patriarch residing at Diz (who is Russia, under his guidance, refrained from inter- always chosen from the same family, and takes ference, till opportunity occurred of dealing a deadly invariably the name of Schamun, or Simon) and blow to the revolutionary cause in Hungary; and, 18 bishops. All these are bound to observe NESTORIUS-NESTS. celibacy, but marriage is permitted to the priests and inferior clergy. Their liturgical books recognise seven sacraments, but confession is infrequent, if not altogether disused. Marriage is dissoluble by the sentence of the patriarch; communion is administered in both kinds; and although the language of the liturgy plainly implies the belief of transubstantiation, yet, according to Layard, that doctrine is not popularly held among them. The fasts are strict, and of very long duration, amounting to very nearly one half of the entire year. They pray for the dead, but are said to reject the notion of purgatory, and the only sacred image which they use or reverence is that of the cross. The N. of Kurdistan, like the Christians of the Lebanon, have suffered much from time to time through the fanaticism of the wild tribes among whom they reside. In a massacre in 1843, and again in 1846, many fell victims, and even still they owe much of their security to the influence exercised in their favour by the foreign representatives at the Turkish and Persian courts. account given by Evageius, that his death was caused by a disease in which his tongue was eaten by worms, rests, according to Evageius himself, on a single and unnamed authority. The more probable narratives ascribe his death to the effects of a fall The date of this event is uncertain. It was after 439, when Socrates wrote his history (Hist. Ecc. vii. 34), but there is little doubt that he was already dead in 450, when the Eutychian controversy first began to attract notice. NESTS (Lat. nidus, Gael. nead; allied to Ger. nähen, Sax. nestan, Lat. nectere, to sew, bind, or tie) are the structures which animals prepare for the rearing of their young. They are very different, not only when the creatures which construct them belong to widely separated divisions of the animal kingdom, but often when the animals are of the same class, or even when they are nearly allied; and whilst some construct very simple nests, and those of others are very curious and elaborately framed, some make no nest at all. Among MAMMALS, the only nest-builders are certain rodents, as There is another body of N. who have existed mice, dormice, squirrels, &c. The structures of in India from the period of the early migrations of some of the species are as artfully contrived and as the sect, and who are called by the name of Syrian beautiful as the nests of birds. It is among BIRDS Christians. Their chief seat is in Travancore, where that nest-making is most general; although there they number about 100,000, and are subject to a are not a few species which merely scrape a hole in patriarch. Among both bodies of N., European the ground, and many sea-fowls lay their eggs on missionaries, Catholic and Protestant, have of late ledges of naked rock. The situations chosen by birds years endeavoured to effect an entrance, but the for their nests are very various, each species affectdetails would be out of place here. See A Residence ing some particular kind of situation, as each species of Eight Years in Persia, among the Nestorian also exhibits a uniformity in choice of materials Christians, by Rev. Justin Perkins, Andover, 1843. and in form and mode of structure; these partiNESTO'RIUS, a native of Germanicia, a city of culars, however, being all liable to modification— Northern Syria, in the patriarchate of Antioch, was within certain limits according to circumstances. probably a disciple of the celebrated Theodore of Some birds' nests consist merely of a few straws or Mopsuestia; and having received priest's orders at leaves collected together; some, of such materials Antioch, became so eminent for his fluency, if not as twigs, straws, moss, hair, &c., very nicely intereloquence, as a preacher, and for grave demeanour woven, and often with a lining finer than the frameand exemplary life, that on occasion of a dispute work; some, as those of swallows, are made of clay about the election of a patriarch of Constantinople or other soft material, which hardens as it dries. he was selected by the emperor, in 428 A.D., to fill the Birds' nests are generally open at top, but some, as vacant see. Soon after his consecration, a contro- those of swallows, are so placed under a projection versy arose as to the divine and human natures of of rock or of a building, as to be covered, and have our Lord, in which N. took a leading part. One the opening at the side; whilst others are vaulted, of the priests, who followed N. to Constantinople, and have the opening at the side. Some are situated Anastasius, having in a sermon, which was by some in holes excavated in clayey, loamy, or sandy banks. ascribed to N. himself, denied that the Virgin Mary The nests of troupials, baltimores, weaver-birds, could be truly called the Mother of God,' being &c., are remarkable for the ingenious contrivance only in truth the mother of the man Christ, N. displayed in them; and a very singular nest is that warmly defended Anastasius, espoused this view, of the tailor-bird, made by sewing together the and elaborated it into the theory which has since edges of leaves. These are noticed in the articles been known by his name, and which equivalently, on these birds. Many birds are as solitary as if not in formal terms, exaggerated the distinction possible in their nidification; whilst others, as of two natures in our Lord into a distinction of rooks and herons, congregate in large communities. two persons-the human person of Christ and the -NO REPTILES are known to construct nests; their Divine Person of the Word. An animated contro- utmost approach to it being to make a hole for versy ensued, which extended from Constantinople their eggs in sand, or in some other suitable situato the other patriarchates, and drew from Cyril, tion.-The nests of FISHES have recently attracted patriarch of Alexandria, a formal condemnation of much attention of naturalists. It is supposed that the doctrine of N. in twelve anathemas still pre- the ancients were acquainted with the nest-building served, and a similar condemnation, accompanied instinct of some fishes; but it was unknown to by a threat of deposition and excommunication, from modern naturalists till 1838, when Mr Edwards Celestine, bishop of Rome, unless he would withdraw discovered it in a species of Stickleback (q. v.). It the obnoxious doctrine. N. remaining firm in his now gives interest to many a fresh-water aquarium. opinions, a general council was convened at Ephesus Not many fishes are yet known as nest-builders. in 431, at which Cyril took the most active and Among them are gobies and the goramy. Many prominent part, and in which, notwithstanding the are known not to construct nests. The salmon and absence of the patriarch of Antioch and his bishops, others exhibit an approach to the nest-building N. was condemned and deposed. Considerable habit, in making a place for their eggs in the sand opposition was offered to this judgment for a time, or gravel which they choose for a spawning-bed. but ultimately N. was confined in a monastery near-Many INSECTS-a small proportion, however, of the Constantinople, whence, after four years, still persisting in his views, he was banished to the Greater Oasis in Upper Egypt, and after several changes of his place of confinement, died in exile. The whole number, and mostly Hymenoptera-construct nests, as bees, wasps, and ants. The nests of the social bees and wasps are also their ordinary habitations, but the nests of solitary bees are entirely |