NANNING 368 NANTES NANNING, a city of China in the province of Kwangsi. It is an impor- tant trading station and has a number of important educational and commercial establishments. Pop. about 37,000. NANOSAUBUS, or NANOSAUB, a fossil lizard-like animal belonging to the group Dinosauria, discovered in North America, and about the size of a cat. NANSEN, FRIDTJOF, a Norwegian scientist and explorer; born in Great EFroen, near Christiania, Norway, Oct. 10, 1861.^ At the age of 19 he entered Christiania University, giving his at- tention there chiefly to biological in- FRIDTJOF NANSEN vestigations, in the pursuit of which, in 1882, he made a voyage in a sealer to the North Atlantic sealing grounds, and in 1888 crossed the continent of Green- land, returning in 1889. Following 1884, he matured a plan for a polar journey, a vessel (the "Fram") was built, designed especially for encount- ering the drift ice, and on June 24, 1893, with a crew of 11 men, he set sail from Christiania for the polar regions — the design being to reach the North Pole by letting the ship get frozen into the ice N. of Siberia and drift with a cur- rent setting toward Greenland. They reached the New Siberian Islands in September, and in 1895 were in lat. 84° 4'. There, accompanied by Johan- sen, Nansen left the "Fram" in charge of his other companions and pushed across the ice to Franz-Josef Land, where he wintered. Here, on June 17, 1896, he met the Jackson-Harmsworth Expedition, with which he returned to Vardo, having in his cruise penetrated to lat. 88°, circumnavigated the Nova Zembla, Franz-Josef, and Spitzbepgen archipelagoes, and reached a point about 225 miles from the Pole. One week later the "Fram" reached Vardo. He was appointed Professor of Zoology in the University of Christiania. In 1919 he visited Russia for the Allied Council and prepared a report on condi- tions there. He wrote: "Across Green- land"; "Esquimaux Life"; "Farthest North" (1897); "Through Siberia, the Land of the Future" (1914). NANTES (nongt) , the 7th largest city of France, capital of the department of Loire-Inferieure, on the right bank of the tidal Loire (here 2,000 yards wide, and joined by the navigable Erdre and Sevre-Nantaise), 35 miles from the sea, and 248 S. V/. of Paris. The natural beauties of the site have been much im- proved by art, and, the old town hav- ing been demolished 1865-1870, Nantes is one of the handsomest cities in France, with its noble river, quays, bridges, shady boulevards, squares, and statues. The unfinished cathedral (1434-1852) contains Colomb's splendid monument (1507) to the last Duke and Duchess of Brittany, and another (1879) to General Lamoriciere. The ducal castle, founded in 938, and rebuilt in 1466, was the occasional residence of Charles VIII. and most of his successors, the prison of Cardinal de Retz and Fou- quet, and the place where on April 15, 1598, Henry IV. signed the famous Edict of Nantes. Other notalsle build- ings are the splendid Church of St. Nicholas (1854), the court house (1853), the theater (1787), and the new post- office (1884) , besides a museum, a picture gallery, and a library of 50,000 volumes. The harbor has been extensively im- proved in recent years. The chief in- dustries are sugar making, shipbuilding, and manufactories of copper and iron. The chief exports are hardware, cereals, and preserved provisions; the chief im- ports sugar, iron, cocoa, and wines. The Portus Nannetum of the Romans, and the former capital of Brittany — a rank it disputed with Rennes — Nantes has witnessed the marriage of Anne of Btit- tany to Louis XII. (1499), the em- barkation of the Young Pretender (1745), the fall of the Vendean leader Cath^lineau (1793), and the arrest of the Duchess of Berri (1832). FoucMwas a native. Pop. about 175,000.
