blue litmus paper. It is then said to be "neutralized," the neutralization being due to the fact that the potash has entered into combination with the acid to form a salt (potassium chloride) which is neither acid nor alkaline. If more acid is added than is required to effect precise neutralization, the excess renders the solution acid, and in order to make it neutral again caustic potash or some other alkali must be added. It is often highly important, in chemistry, to effect the precise neutralization of a solution, and a method of quantitative chemical analysis, known as "volumetric analysis," is largely based upon the determination of the quantities of certain standard acid and alkaline solutions which must be added to the given solution, in order to precisely neutralize it. See CHEMICAL ANALYSIS. NEUVILLE, de né-vēl, Alphonse Marie de, French painter: b. Saint Omer, 31 May 1836; d. Paris, 20 May, 1885. While he was for a short time the pupil of Picot, he must be considered largely a self-taught artist developing his talent under the direction of Delacroix. He made his first appearance as a battle painter with his Episode in the Crimean War (1859), followed by The Trench of the Mamelon'; 'Zouave Guard) (Museum of Saint Omer); Chasseurs Crossing the Tchernaia); 'The Battle of San Lorenzo in Mexico.' Meanwhile he was producing numerous illustrations for periodicals and for Guizot's 'Histoire de France.' He served as an engineer in the Franco-Prussian War, and the second period of his artistic activity began. He tickled the vanity and boastfulness of his countrymen by depicting in his glowing and energetic canvases the French as chivalrous heroes, the Germans as barbarians, and became the most popular war painter of "Young France" and the artistic representative of Chauvinism. Among his works with this tendency are 'Bivouac before the Village of Le Bourget (1872, Museum of Dijon); 'The Last Cartridge at Balan' (1873, familiar through its many reproductions), his panoramas of the battles of Champigny and Rezonville (with Détaillé, 1881, and numerous others frequently reproduced as photographs or engravings and thus widely distributed. He left many aquarelles and drawings which were eagerly bought up. NEUVILLE, Jean Guillaume, BARON HYDE DE, French statesman: b. near Charitésur-Loire, France, 24 Jan. 1776; d. Paris, France, 28 May 1857. He was educated at the Collège Cardinal Lemoine, Paris, and early became an active agent of the exiled Bourbon princes. In 1799 he interviewed Napoleon with the purpose of restoring the throne to Louis XVIII, and later his estates were confiscated; but in 1806 upon his agreeing to exile himself to the United States, Napoleon restored them. With the accession of Louis XVIII in 1814 he returned to France and in 1815 was elected to the Chamber of Deputies. He was sent to the United States as Minister and consul-general in 1816-21 and was then made Ambassador to Portugal, and Minister of Marine (1828). In 1830 he became Secretary of the Navy. He wrote 'An Historical Eulogy of General Moreau,' etc. NEVA, në'vä (Russian, nyě-vä′), Russia, a river which flows from Lake Ladoga, and after a westerly winding course of 43 miles has its outlet in the Bay of Cronstadt, an inlet of the Gulf of Finland. It is best known as the river on the delta of which Petrograd (q.v.) is built. The river carries to the sea an enormous volume of water from lakes Ladoga, Onega, Ilmen and others equal to that of the Rhine and the Rhône combined; in places it is over 4,000 feet wide, elsewhere narrows to 180 feet, and at one or two points navigation is obstructed by reefs and rapids; it is frozen over during five months of the year. The Neva connects with the Volga by the Ladoga Canal, and thus joins the Baltic with the Caspian Sea. NEVADA, ne-vä'dä, Emma, stage name of EMMA WIXON, American opera singer: b. Austin, Nev., 1862. She studied in Paris with Marchesi and made her first appearance in opera in London in 1880, as Amina in 'La Sonnambula.' She sang with success in Paris, Italy and in the United States, where she toured in 1885. In 1885 she was married to Dr. Raymond Palmer. NEVADA, ne-vä'da, popularly known as "the_sage-brush State," the name derived from the Spanish nevada, signifying "snow-covered": one of the Mountain Division States. It is bounded on the west by California; on the south by California and Arizona; on the east by Utah and Arizona, and on the north by Oregon and Idaho. The sixth in size among the States of the Union, Nevada has an area of 110,690 square miles of surface, 869 of which are water; extreme length north to south, 484 miles, and width, east to west, 321 miles. It lies between the 35° and 45° parallels of latitude, corresponding, on the Atlantic Coast, with the northern boundary of Pennsylvania and the southern boundary of North Carolina. The capital is Carson City. Climate. Due to its extreme length north and south and varied elevations, Nevada has a climatic range which is exceeded by but one other State, California. Southern Nevada is. semi-tropical; central and northern Nevada, temperate, while certain high valleys and mountain elevations in northeastern Nevada are characterized by extreme winter cold. The atmosphere is clear, dry and almost cloudless. Precipitation occurs chiefly during the winter months and is intercepted largely by the higher mountain ranges. The valleys receive little rainfall. Topography. Nevada, for the most part, lies in the Great Basin, a plateau of about 4,000 feet elevation situated between the Sierra Nevada and Wasatch Mountains, none of the streams of which find their way to the sea but empty into inland lakes without outlets or are. lost in the sands. A narrow strip along the northern part of the State drains into the Columbia and a portion of the southern part of the State into the Colorado River. There are numerous parallel ranges from 20 to 50 miles apart running north and south through the State, broken by passes, with long narrow valleys between. The valley elevations vary from 1,000 feet, in extreme southern Nevada, to a few valleys in excess of 6,000 feet in the northeastern part. For the most part the valleys are between 4,000 and 5,000 feet elevation. Some of the mountain ranges rise to 9,000 feet. The highest mountain is Wheeler Peak in White Pine County, elevation 13,058 feet. Other noted peaks are Charleston Mountain, Pilot Peak, Mount Grant, Mount Rose. Freel's Peak, Job's Peak and Mount Jefferson, which are 10,000 to 12,000 feet. Forests are unevenly distributed, with a few areas of commercial forests comprising white and yellow pine, firs, spruces and cedars of great size. In some places the hills are covered with dense growths of juniper, piñon and mountain mahogany. Deciduous native trees comprise the cottonwood, aspen, alder, elder, willow, choke cherry, etc. Aside from the several varieties of sage-brush which clothe the valleys and low hills, there are many native shrubs and bushes and a plant flora remarkable for its varied range. Some of the mountain scenery is picturesque beyond description. The general landscape, however, other than in the comparatively few agricultural valleys, presents great stretches of sage-brush, sandy or alkali wastes, bounded by mountain ranges, the first impression of which is of unutterable loneliness and desolation. This gives place, in time, to the lure of the desert the sensation of untrammeled freedom in Nature's immensity and delight in the diurnal panorama of the landscape's ever-changing coloration. Rivers and Lakes. The rivers are all comparatively small. The Humboldt, 350 miles in length, flows in a southwesterly direction through the northern part of the State and affords the pass through the mountains for the Southern Pacific and Western Pacific railroads. Other important streams are the Truckee, Carson and Walker rivers. The Salmon, Owyhee and Bruneau rivers rise in northern Elko County and flow northerly into tributaries of the Columbia. The Rio Virgin and Muddy rivers, in southern Nevada, flow into the Colorado. A part of Lake Tahoe, one of the most beautiful mountain lakes in the world, is in Nevada. Pyramid Lake, so named from the pyramid-shaped islands of gray stone which rise picturesquely from its deep blue waters, is the largest lake. It is 35 miles in length with a water surface of 390 square miles. Other important lakes are Walker, Winnemucca, Ruby and Washoe. Several of these lakes are remnants of the ancient Lake Lahontan, which in geological times covered a large part of Nevada. of Geology. The mountains of Nevada show formations of nearly every epoch from the Azoic to the late Jurassic, crumpled and uplifted; ancient erupted rocks which accompanied the Jurassic upheaval; modern eruptive rocks ranging in date from the late Miocene to the Glacial period, and uptilted strata Cretaceous sedimentaries. The principal rocks are granite, sienite, andesite, dacite, basalt, limestone, slate, sandstone and quartzite. Nevada is one of the most important of the States in the variety, extent and richness of its deposits of precious and valuable metals and minerals. The comparative thinness of the detritus blanket on its mountain slopes has been an important aid to the prospector in discovering the outcroppings of ores. History. At the time Nevada was organized as a Territory in 1861, the extreme western portion was locally considered a part of California, known as the "Washoe Country," although the civil government was under the jurisdiction of the Territory of Utah. Nevada was first visited by the white man in 1775, when Francisco Garces, a Franciscan friar, stopped here on his way to California. Peter Ogden of the Hudson Bay Company in 1825 visited the Humboldt River, which for a time was called the Ogden. In 1826 Jedediah Smith crossed the State from west to east. Irving's 'Bonneville Papers describes a visit by members of Captain Bonneville's party to Mary's River, now the Humboldt, about this time. Fremont explored parts of the State in 1843-44-45, discovering and naming Pyramid Lake, Lake Tahoe and the Humboldt and Truckee rivers. The first settlement was made by Mormons in 1849, at Genoa, where a trading post was established. Gold was discovered the same year at Dayton, near Virginia City, by William Prouse. Placer mining on this gulch led, 10 years later, to the uncovering of the famous Comstock Lode, the richest deposit of precious metals ever found in the world. A petition for Territorial government was sent to Congress in 1857 and the following year a provisional government was formed at Carson City with Isaac Roop as governor. In 1860 another petition was sent to Congress and the Territorial delegate applied for admission. The Comstock Lode had now been discovered and a rush of miners from California occurred. Emigrants from the East on the Overland Trail across the State stopped to cast their fortunes with the new El Dorado. Other mining discoveries followed in rapid succession. Virginia City became over night a magic city of Aladdin and the "Washoe Country" became the Mecca of the seekers of fortune the world over. At the outbreak of the Civil War the scanty citizens sent loyal troops to the front. In September 1863 an election was held for delegates to form a State constitution, but the proposition was defeated in January 1864. By the close of the Civil War Nevada had produced $43,000,000 in gold and silver bullion which was of material assistance to the North. The adoption of the 13th and 14th amendments to the Constitution of the United States required the vote of one additional loyal State, necessitating the admission of another State into the Union. President Lincoln's choice fell upon Nevada. On his recommendation Congress, in March 1864 passed an enabling act. In July the constitution was accepted and Nevada became a State, 31 Oct. 1864, the only State admitted during the administration of the martyred President. The first telegram sent across the continent on the completion of the Western Union Telegraph line, in 1864, was from the Nevada legislature certifying the loyalty of the State. To save delay the constitution of Nevada was telegraphed to Congress for ratification under authority of a special resolution. It is significant that at this time California and Oregon were the only other States west of Kansas. In June 1868 the Central Pacific Railroad was completed and the golden spike which connected it with the Union Pacific driven near Iron Point, Nev. Subsequently the divisional point between the two railroads was established at Ogden, Utah. The Sutro Tunnel, designed for draining the Comstock Lode, was completed in 1879, but not before the "Great Bonanza" was substantially worked out. Other important mining camps which flourished during this period were Austin, Eureka, Aurora, Hamilton, Treasure City, |