Hall, Temple Opera House, Pearl and Natchez hotels, and the handsome court house and city hall buildings. A national cemetery, on a bluff adjoining the city, contains 3159 graves, 2780 of unknown dead. In the cemetery is an observatory which commands good views of the vicinity. Natchez has steamboat connection with the whole Mississippi Valley, and is the shipping port of a large cotton region, exporting annually many thousand bales. There are cotton mills, cotton compress, cottonseed oil mills, a foundry, saw and planing mills, an artificial ice plant, etc. The government is administered under a charter of 1877, which provides for a mayor, chosen biennially, and a unicameral council that elects the school trustees. Population, in 1890, 10,101; in 1900, 12,210.
In 1716 Bienville built Fort Rosalie on Natchez Bluff. In November, 1729, the place was destroyed, and most of its inhabitants were massacred by the Natchez Indians. In 1763, according to the terms of the Treaty of Paris, the English took possession and renamed the fort Fort Parmure. From this year dates the real foundation of the village. A Spanish force from New Orleans dispossessed the English in 1779, and in 1798 Spain gave way to the United States. Natchez was incorporated as a city in 1803, and was the capital of Mississippi from 1798 to 1820. It suffered considerable damage from a tornado in 1840. The city was shelled by Commodore Porter in 1862, and in 1863, soon after the fall of Vicksburg, it was occupied by Federal troops, and remained under their control until the close of the war.
NATCHEZ, nȧ′chā̇′, Les. A romance written by Chateaubriand during his exile in England, and printed in 1825-26. It contains the author's impressions of America and views of life, and is pervaded by a morbid psychology.
NATCHITOCHES, năch′ĭ-tŏch′ĕz. A tribe of the Caddoan linguistic family of Indians, living formerly on the Red River in Louisiana. Each clan lived apart and they were scattered among the Sioux from Dakota to the Gulf. Their habit of life was partly hunting, partly agricultural. They dwelt in permanent houses covered with sod. In some of their kindred tribes rude pottery was also made. Their religion demanded under certain conditions the sacrifice of human beings.
NATCHITOCHES, năk′ĭ-tŏsh′. A town and the parish seat of Natchitoches Parish, La., 63 miles southeast of Shreveport; on a branch of the Red River, and on the Texas and Pacific Railroad (Map: Louisiana, B 2). It is the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop, and has a State normal school, a State high school, and a Roman Catholic convent. The town is surrounded by a productive district, devoted to stock-breeding and agriculture, its chief products being cotton and sugar-cane. Natchitoches owes its origin to a trading post established in 1714 by the French. Population, in 1890, 1820; in 1900, 2388.
NATHAN′AEL (Heb. Nĕthan’ēl, God gives). A man of Cana in Galilee, brought to Jesus by Philip, and declared by Jesus to be a true Israelite and a sincere, open-minded man. He proved this sincerity by coming to meet Jesus, although the fact that Jesus was described as ‘of Nazareth’ was naturally repugnant to him. He accepted the claims of Jesus as Messiah when those claims were brought clearly before him (John i. 45-51). From this time on nothing more is said of Nathanael in the Gospels, except the mention of him as one of seven to whom Jesus manifested himself after the Resurrection (John xxi. 2). He is not named among the Twelve Apostles. This fact has led many to attempt to identify Nathanael with Bartholomew (q.v.).
NATHAN DER WEISE, nä′tan dĕr vī̇′ze A dramatic poem by Lessing, published in 1779, in which the author clothed in poetic form the principles underlying his controversial writings. The interest of the drama concentrates itself in the seventh scene of the third act, in which Nathan, the Jew, summoned by Sultan Saladin, to express his opinion as to which of the three religious creeds professed in Palestine he holds to be the true one, recites the parable of “The Three Rings,” purporting to show that the true religion is to be known only by its fruits. The drama is based upon the story of Melchisedec the Jew, in Boccaccio's Decamerone. The character of Nathan is a monument to Lessing's friend Moses Mendelssohn, the Jewish philosopher.
NAT′ICA (Neo-Lat., from ML. naticæ, from Lat. natis, buttock). A genus of gastropod mollusks, represented by Natica heros (now Polynices heros, one of the most common and largest of the univalves, and to be found in abundance along our coast from New Jersey to Maine.
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| WHITE SNAIL (Natica heros). |
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a, The shell; b, an egg case; c, animal, with distended foot, in the attitude of walking. |
The shell is large, composed of several whorls, with a small flattened spire or apex. The aperture is large, lunate in shape, and can be closed by a large horny door or operculum. The animal lives partly buried in the sand, near low-water mark. On taking it up the large, round swollen ‘foot’ or creeping disk ejects a spray of water as if poured from the ‘rose’ of a watering-pot. The animal has two short, broad, flattened tentacles, but, owing to its burrowing habits, its eyes are wanting. Its eggs are laid in a large, thin circular mass, like a miniature lamp-shade, which is a curious object and a good deal of a puzzle to young collectors. Another common but much smaller snail (Polynices triscriata) is thought to be the young of this species. It is marked with three rows of bluish or chestnut-brown spots. A rather more southern species is Polynices duplicata, in which the umbilicus (open in the other species) is closed or nearly so.
