The earliest attempt at this set apart three regions—an ‘Eastern,’ from the Atlantic to the plains; a ‘Central,’ including the dry interior plains; and a ‘Western,’ the Pacific Slope. As early as 1854 Louis Agassiz stated that the eastern half of the continent contained three faunas: a northern, which he called ‘Canadian;’ a middle (Great Lakes to the latitude of Kentucky), which he called ‘Alleghanian;’ and a southern or ‘Louisianian.’ Later writers, especially Allen, dealing mainly with birds, made eight zones in succession from north to south—Arctic, Hudsonian, Canadian, Alleghanian, Carolinian, Louisianian, Floridian, and Antillean. Ornithologists still use this classification east of the Mississippi River. Subsequently Merriam announced the opinion that there was no reason for recognizing a ‘Central Province,’ and that too much stress had been laid upon the dissimilarities between Eastern and Western animals. He asserted the view that only two primary subdivisions of the Nearctic Region should be made—a ‘Boreal’ province and a ‘Sonoran’ province. The former stretches from New England and the Great Lakes northwest across Canada to Alaska, and sends down long arms along the heights of the Alleghanies and the Rocky Mountains, and along the Pacific Coast, whose fauna is a mingled one. Everything south of this is ‘Sonoran,’ embracing nearly all the United States, a great area of the plains of Northwestern Canada, and all of Mexico except the low tropical coast-lands. These generalizations, however, have not been universally accepted, most critics objecting that too high rank has been accorded to the ‘Sonoran’ region, whose boundaries are regarded as too indefinite to entitle it to be differentiated and outlined as Merriam proposed in his “Biological Survey of the San Francisco Mountain Region,” in North American Fauna, No. 3 (Washington, 1890). The question of the subdivision of the Nearctic Region therefore remains open.
NEAR-SIGHTEDNESS. See Sight, Defects of.
NEATH, nēth. A municipal borough and river port in Glamorganshire, South Wales, on the Neath, seven miles northeast of Swansea (Map: England, C 5). It has extensive copper and iron works. Copper, spelter, iron, tin-plates, and fine bricks are extensively exported; stone is quarried, and coal and culm are produced. The town, built on the site of the Roman station Nidum, contains the remains of an ancient castle, burned in 1231. The town received its first charter from Edward II. It owns its gas, water, slaughter-houses, markets, tramways, library, cemetery, the Victoria Gardens pleasure ground, a fair-field, and real estate worth $1,000,000. Population, in 1891, 11,157; in 1901, 13,700.
NEBENIUS, nā̇-bā′nē̇-ụs, Karl Friedrich (1785-1857). A German statesman and economist, born at Rhodt, near Landau. In 1819 he took a prominent part in working out the Baden Constitution, and for many years was the principal statesman of the Grand Duchy. In 1833 he was made Privy Councilor of State, and soon afterwards became Minister of the Interior and president of the Cabinet Council. Owing, however, to reactionary influences, he did not keep this position very long. In 1845 he again joined the Cabinet, but the Revolution of 1849 compelled him to resign, and thereafter he devoted himself entirely to literary pursuits. He published, among many treatises on political economy: Bemerkungen über den Zustand Grossbritannicus in staatswirtschaftlicher Hinsicht (1818); Ueber technische Lehranstalten (1833); and wrote a Geschichte der Pfalz, which appeared posthumously (1874).
NE′BO (from Bab. nabū, to call, name, proclaim). A deity of the Babylonians and Assyrians, mentioned in Isaiah xlvi. 1. The name also occurs in the Old Testament as a geographical term. (See Nebo, Mount.) In cuneiform literature the form is Nabu or Nabium. After Babylon became the centre of the Babylonian Empire, Nebo took rank immediately after Marduk (see Merodach), the head of the pantheon. He appears originally to have been the local patron deity of Borsippa, opposite the ancient city of Babylon, and there are grounds for believing that Borsippa was older than Babylon. This may have been one reason for the prominence which Nebo retained beside the powerful Marduk. In time Borsippa became a suburb of Babylon and the union between the two was symbolized by erecting a shrine to Nebo in Marduk's temple at Babylon to which Nebo was carried in solemn procession on the New Year's Day, while the statue of Marduk was on the return trip carried part way back to E-zida (‘the true house’), Nebo's temple in Borsippa. To express further the relationship to Marduk, Nebo was regarded as the son of Marduk. Originally an agricultural deity, Nebo became in time the god of wisdom, and it is in this capacity that he was chiefly worshiped by the Assyrians. To Nebo and his consort Tashmitum Assyrian rulers ascribe the art of writing on stone and tablets, and all learning is eventually traced back to him. In this respect he supplanted an earlier god of wisdom, Ea, whose cult reaches back to a still higher antiquity than that of Nebo or Marduk. Consult Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria (Boston, 1898).
NEBO, Mount. The mountain from which, according to the Book of Deuteronomy (xxxii. 49; xxxiv. 1), Moses viewed the land of Canaan before his death. It has been identified with the mountain Neba—a ridge 2643 feet above the Mediterranean, situated five miles southwest of Heshbon. The name Nebo also occurs as that of a town in Moab (Num. xxxii. 3, and on the Moabite Stone), and a town in Judah (Ezra ii. 29). It is identical in form with the name of a well-known Babylonian god Nabu (see Nebo), whose worship appears to have spread far to the west. The tradition associating the death of Moses with Mount Nebo may have had as a starting-point the existence of a sanctuary on the top of the mount, or, at all events, the sacred character of the mountain.
NEBRAS′KA (North American Indian, shallow water). One of the north central States of the American Union, popularly known as the “Blackwater State.” It lies between the parallels of latitude 40° and 43° N., and between longitudes 95° 20′ and 104° W., the latter meridian and the two parallels forming rectilinear boundaries. It is bounded on the north by South Dakota, on the east by Iowa and Missouri, on the
