NET. A net consists of a fabric of thread, twine, or cord, the intersections of which are firmly knotted so as to form meshes or interspaces of fixed dimensions,—the meshes being usually lozenges of uniform size. The art of netting is intimately related to weaving, knitting, plaiting, and pillow-lace and machine-lace making, from all of which, however, it is distinguished by the knotting of the intersections of the cord. It is one of the most ancient and universal of arts, having been in all times commonly practised among the rudest and most primitive tribes, to whom the net is of great importance in hunting and fishing.

Net-making, as a modern industry, is principally concerned with the manufacture of the numerous forms of net used in fisheries, but netting is also largely employed for many and varied purposes, as for catching game and birds, for the temporary division of fields, for protecting fruit in gardens, for collecting insects, for hammocks, and ship use, for screens and other furniture purposes, for ladies’ hair, house bags, &c. While to a large extent net-making continues to be a handicraft, since the early part of the 19 th century numerous forms of machine have been invented for netting, and several of these have been successfully introduced on a large scale in factories for the manufacture Of fishing nets. Such fishing nets were formerly made principally from hemp fibre—technically called “twine”; but since the adaptation of machinery to net-making cotton has been increasingly used. Cotton nets, being more flexible and lighter than those made of twine, are much more easily handled and stowed, and in practice they are rapidly superseding all others....

NETHERLANDS, Kingdom of the. See Holland.

The Nethinims were servants who had been given up to the service of the tabernacle and temple, to perform the meanest and most laborious services therein, in supplying wood and water. At first the Gibeonites were appointed to this service, Joshua ix, 27. Afterward the Canaanites who surrendered themselves, and whose lives were spared, were consigned to the performance of the same duties. We read, Ezra viii, 20, that the Nethinims were slaves devoted by David and the other princes to the ministry of the temple; and elsewhere, that they were slaves given by Solomon; the children of Solomon’s servants, Ezra ii, 58; and we see, in 1 Kings ix, 20, 21, that this prince had subdued the remains of the Canaanites, and had constrained them to several servitudes; and, it is very probable, he gave a good number of them to the priests and Levites for the service of the temple. The Nethinims were carried into captivity with the tribe of Judah, and there were great numbers of them near the coast of the Caspian Sea, from whence Ezra brought some of them back, Ezra viii, 17. After the return from the captivity, they dwelt in the cities appointed them, Ezra ii, 17. There were some of them also at Jerusalem, who inhabited that part of the city called Ophel, Neh. iii, 26. Those who returned with Ezra were to the number of two hundred and twenty, Ezra viii, 20; and those who followed Zerubbabel made up three hundred and ninety-two, Ezra ii, 58. This number was but small in regard to the offices that were imposed on them; so that we find them afterward instituting a solemnity called _Xylophoria_, in which the people carried wood to the temple with great ceremony, to keep up the fire on the altar of burnt sacrifices.

NETSCHER, Gaspar (1639-1684), portrait and genre painter, was born at Heidelberg in 1639. His father died when he was two years of age, and his mother, fleeing from the dangers of a civil war, carried him to Arnheim, where he was adopted and educated by a benevolent physician named Tullekens. At first he was destined for the profession of his patron, but his great aptitude for painting soon caused the plan of his future career to be altered. He was placed under an artist named De Koster, and, having also studied under Terburg, he set out for Italy to complete his education there. Marrying, however, at Liège, he proceeded no farther. He settled at Bordeaux, and toiled hard to earn a livelihood by painting fancy subjects. But those small cabinet pictures which are now so highly valued on account of their exquisite finish brought but a small remuneration; and, after removing to the Hague, he turned his attention to portraitpainting. In this branch of his art he was more successful. He was patronized by William III., and his earnings soon became so considerable that he was enabled at times to gratify his own taste and fancy by depicting musical and conversational pieces. It was in these that Netscher’s genius was first fully displayed. The choice of these subjects, and the habit of introducing female figures, dressed in rich, glossy satins, were imitated from Terburg · they possess easy yet delicate pencilling, brilliant and correct colouring, and pleasing light and shade; but frequently their refinement passes into weakness, and they err through over-finish. The painter soon attracted notice, and was rapidly gaining both fame and wealth, when he was cut off in 1684 at the premature age of forty-five....

NETTLE is the vernacular equivalent of the Latin Urtica, which again gives its name to the Urticaceae. The species of Urtica are herbs covered with stinging hairs, and with unisexual flowers on the same or on different plants. The male flowers consist of a perianth of four greenish segments enclosing as many stamens, which latter, when freed from the restraint exercised upon them by the perianthsegments while still in the bud, suddenly uncoil themselves, and in so doing liberate the pollen. The female perianth is similar, but encloses only a single seed-vessel with a solitary seed. The stinging hairs consist, at the base, of a bulbous reservoir filled with acrid fluid, and prolonged into a long slender tube, the extremity of which is finely pointed. By means of this point the hair penetrates the skin and discharges its irritant contents beneath the surface. Some tropical species of Urtica produce a fluid of such potency that the most serious consequences ensue from coming into contact with the plant. Nettle tops, or the very young shoots of the nettle, πiay be used as a vegetable like spinach; but from the abundance of crystals (cystolithes) they contain they are apt to be gritty, though esteemed for their antiscorbutic properties. The fibre furnished by the stems of several species is, however, of more economic importance, being used for the purpose of cordage or paper-making. Three species of nettle are wild in the British Isles, although from their general presence in the neighbourhood of houses, or in spots where house refuse is deposited, it has been suggested that they are not really natives, a supposition that to some extent receives countenance from the circumstance that the young shoots are very sensitive to frost. In any case they follow man in his ...

NETTLE TREE is the name applied to certain trees of the genus Celtis, and belonging to the family Urticaceae. The best-known species have usually obliquely ovate, or lanceolate leaves, serrate at the edge, and marked by three prominent nerves. The flowers are inconspicuous, usually hermaphrodite, with a 4- or 5-parted perianth, as many stamens, a hairy disk, and a 1-celled ovary with a 2-parted style. The fruit is succulent like a little drupe, a character which serves to separate the genus alike from the nettles and the elms, to both of which it is closely allied. The wood of Celtis australis of southern Europe (also cultivated in England) is made use of for a variety of purposes, while the leaves serve as forage. An oil for burning is extracted from the seed of Celtis occidentalis. A North-American species is used for like purposes. Celtis australis was one of those to which the term “lotus” was applied by Dioscorides and the older authors, its berries or drupes having a sweet pleasant taste.

NETTLERASH, or Urticaria, a disorder of the skin characterized by an eruption resembling the effect produced by the sting of a nettle, namely, raised red or red and white patches occurring in parts or over the whole of the surface of the body, and attended with great itching and irritation. It may be acute or chronic. In the former variety the attack appears to be connected with digestive derangements, and often comes on after indulgence in certain articles of diet, particularly various kinds of fruit, shell-fish, cheese, pastry, &c., also occasionally from the use of certain drugs, such as henbane, copaiba, cubebs, turpentine, &c. There is at first considerable feverishness and constitutional disturbance, together with sickness and faintness, which either precede or accompany the appearance of the rash. The eruption may appear on any part of the body, but is most common on the face and trunk. In the former position it causes swelling and disfigurement while it lasts, and is apt to excite alarm in persons unacquainted with its nature. The attack may pass off in a few hours, or may last for several days, the eruption continuing to come out in successive patches. The chronic variety consists in an eruption similar to that above described, but lasting with interruptions for a length of time often extending to months or years. This form of the disease occurs independently of errors in diet, and is not attended with the feverish symptoms characterizing the acute attack. It is probably connected with constitutional conditions, and is occasionally observed in the gouty. As regards treatment, the acute variety generally yields quickly to a purgative and the use of some antacid, such as magnesia or liquor potassae. The local irritation is allayed by sponging with a warm alkaline ...