N
 

AMERICAN DICTIONARY OF
 

N
 

" THE fourteenth letter in English, This is
one of those letters most used, only t, a and
e being in more demand. It is rather thicker
than an en quadrat, which, however, took its
name from this letter. It differs from the u
when inverted, as that has its serifs only on one side of
its body marks, while the n has them on both sides.
Standing alone, N. is used for note, the letter most com¬
monly being in lower case. N. N. in the marriage cere¬
mony, and by the Germans in modern Latin, is used to
express a proper name which is not known to the writer.
In Latin N. signifies noster (our), and on medals of the
Lower Empire D, N, signifies dominus noster (our lord).
It also often signified nevus, nepos, nobilis. In geog¬
raphy and meteorology it stands for north. On French
coins it means the mint of Montpelier. The Spanish
alphabet has a character, n, called n with the tilde, and
pronounced like n in onion, minion. N was frequently
omitted in the first century of printing, a stroke being
put over the letter before to indicate the fact. As a
numeral N signified among the Romans 90, and with a
dash over it 90,000.

N. P.—An abbreviation employed in England to de¬
note a new paragraph,

Nachdruck (Ger.).—Reprint,

Nachdrucken (Ger,).—To reprint.

Naked Form.—A form of type waiting for, or
stripped of furniture.—Jacohi.

Napier Machine.—Platen machines manufactured
by Messrs. Napier in London.

Napier Press.—The press invented in England by
David Napier and imitated in the United States by Hoe,
Taylor and other early makers. Until after 1850 it was
almost the only kind used in this country, but this press
does not seem to have attracted much attention in Eng¬
land, where the press most associated with the reputa¬
tion of the Napiers is a platen machine. Two of David
Napier's inventions are of primary importance, the rising
and falling cylinder and the employment of grippers to
take the sheet and carry it through the machine.

NarroTflT.—The name in England of a furniture three
pica ems in thickness. With broad it forms the com¬
bination broad and narrow. In the United States it is
known only by its thickness in pica ems.

Narrow Measures.—Type composed in narrow
widths, as in column matter. When this is done by the
piece the workman should receive some additional com¬
pensation. If smaller than seventeen or eighteen ems
of the matter he should receive two or three cents extra
per thousand ems, and if less than fourteen ems five or
six cents. Below twelve ems matter should only be
composed on time.

^ Nature Printing.—A method of producing impres¬
sions of plants and other natural objects in a manner so
truthful that only a close inspection reveals the fact that
they are copies. According to Ringwalt, whose descrip¬
tion is copied, so deeply sensible to the touch are the im¬
pressions that it is difficult to persuade those who are
unacquainted with the manipulation that they are the
productions of the printing-press.    The process in its

388
 

application to the reproduction of botanical subjects
represents the size, form and color of the plant, and all
of its most minute details, even to the smallest fibres of
the roots. The distinguishing feature of the process,
compared with other modes of producing engraved sur¬
faces for printing purposes, consists first in imprinting
natural objects, such as plants, mosses, seaweeds, feath¬
ers and embroideries into plates of metal, causing the
objects to engrave themselves by pressure ; and second¬
ly, in being able to take such casts or copies of the im¬
pressed plates as can be printed from at the ordinary
copperplate press. The art is by no means new in idea,
many persons having attempted something analogous to
the present process and produced results which were im¬
perfect, merely because science had not yet discovered
an art necessary to its practical development. It is to
the discovery of electrotyping that the existing art of
nature printing is due, and it was first practiced on an
extensive scale in the Austrian Imperial and Royal Print¬
ing-Office.

The plant, perfectly dry, is placed on a plate of fine
rolled lead, the surface of which has been polished by
planing. The plate and subject are then passed between
rollers, by the pressure of which the subject is forced into
the surface of the lead. The leaden plate is subjected to
a moderate heat, by the action of which the subject is
loosened from its bed and easily removed. This mold
is then subjected to the electrotyping process, the second
shell being a perfect fac-simile of the leaden mold.
When the subject to be printed is of one color only that
pigment is rubbed in, and any superfiuity is removed ;
but when it is of two or more colors the process is sim¬
ple but, it is believed, perfectly novel compared with
any process of printing heretofore practiced. In the
case, for instance, of flowering plants having stems,
roots, leaves and flowers, the plan adopted in the inking
of the plate is to apply the darkest color, which gener-
ally happens to be that of the roots, first; the superflu¬
ous color is cleaned off; the next darkest color, such
perhaps as that of the stems, is then applied, the super¬
fluous color of which is also cleaned off. This is con¬
tinued until every part of the plant in the copperplate
has received the right tint. In this state, before the plate
is printed, the color in the different parts of the copper
looks as if the plant were imbedded in the metal. The
plate thus charged, with the paper laid over it, is placed
upon a copperplate press, the upper roller of which is
covered with five or six layers of blanket of compact,
fine texture. The effect of the pressure is that all of the
colors are printed by one impression, for when the paper
is removed the resemblance of the plant is seen quite
perfect, highly embossed, with the roots, stems and other
parts, each of its proper tint.

Near Cheek.—The upright in a press nearest the
pressman.

Near Side of Press.—The side of the press nearest
to the workman.

Nebraska.—In this Western State printing did not
begin until 1854, when it was introduced at Belleview.
In 1856 a newspaper was begun at Brown ville. The
total number of journals published in 1860 was 14; in
1870, 42 ; in 1880,189, fifteen of which were issued daily.