NOTTINGHAM-
below the Soar. The climate of Nottingham is mildand salubrious, and has been considered by the earliestwriters as remarkable for its dryness, a circumstancewhich has been thought to bring it nearly on a parwith the most southerly districts with regard to seedtime and harvest. Nottinghamshire had, at the com-mencement of the. seventeenth century, apopulation of65,200 persons; in 1750, they had increased to 77,600;in 1801, to 145,000; in 1811,168,400; in 1821,190,700;and in 1831, they had increased to 225,340 persons.Nottingham is a divided county ; the northern divisioncomprising the hundreds of Bassetlaw and Broxton,has a population of 153,244. It returns twomembers; and the polling places are Nottingham,Mansfield, and East Retford. The court for theelection of the knight of the shire is at Mansfield.
The southern division comprises the hundreds ofRushcliffe, Bingham, Newark, and Thurgarton, andthe population amounts to 72,096 persons. It returnstwo members; Newark-upon-Trent, Bingham, andSouthwell, are the polling places, and the court forthe election of the knight of the shire is at Southwell.
Nottingham. A borough town in the county ofNottingham, of which it is the capital. It is situatedat a short distance to the northward of the banks ofthe Trent. The little river Lone runs close to thetown on the south side, and joins the Trent at aboutone mile distant from it. The town stands on severalrocks, hills, and valleys, forming a great diversity inthe streets, many of which are extremely steep : thehighest elevation is upwards of ninety feet above thelevel of the adjoining meadows. The castle w r asbuilt in the reign of Charles II. Near it is the siteof the ancient fortress founded by William the Con-queror, and celebrated during the civil wars. Thestaple manufacture is that of stockings, chiefly thefiner kinds, as those of silk and cotton. The twistnet is also made to a considerable extent, and thenumber of frames and machines cannot amount toless than 15,000. Several large mills have beenerected in the town and its vicinity, for the spinningof cotton, and preparing of silk. There are alsomanufactures of lace for veils, shawls, &c., the work-ing of which gives employment, and is a source ofprofitable industry to females. Nottingham hasderived great benefit from the extension ofinland navi-gation havingbecome a depot of goods for the adjacentcountry. Nottingham is a place of great antiquity,and there still remain evident traces of the Druids,as well as the habitations of the ancient Britons. Itspopulation, by the census of 1821, amounted to40,415, but is now increased to above 50,000. It is124 miles N. by W. from London; Ion. 1° J2' 47" W.,lat. 52° 59' N.
Novara. A province in the north-west of Italy.It is divided into Upper and Lower. Low’er Novarais a fiat country, and very unhealthy. Upper Novararesembles, in many respects, the cantons of Switzer-land ; and the degrees of comfort enjoyed by theinhabitants is more owing to their industry than tothe fertility of the soil. Novara has a territorialextent of 14,000 square miles, and a population of227,000 persons.
Novara, A considerable town in the north-westof Italy, and the capital of the above province. Itcontains about 13,000 inhabitants, and is twenty-sixmiles W. of Milan. Lon. 8° 37' E„ lat. 45° 26' N.
Nova Scotia. A British province of NorthAmerica, situated between the forty-third and forty-
NOVA SCOTIA. HI
sixth parallels of north latitude, and between the sixty-first and sixty-seventh degrees of west longitude ; andbounded on the north by the strait of Northumber-land, which separates it from Prince Edw ard’s Island ;on the north-east by the gut of Canseau, whichdivides it from Cape Breton ; on the south-east andsoutii by the Atlantic Ocean; and on the west bytile bay of Fundy and New Brunswick. It is a penin-sula, connected by a narrow isthmus with the conti-nent, and is about 300 miles long, of unequal breadth,containing nearly 16,000 square miles. Cape BretonIsland belongs to this province, and constitutes oneof its counties. The civil departments of the provinceconsist of general divisions and counties. Of the divi-sions there are five—the Eastern, Middle, Western.Halifax, and Cape Breton. The Cape Breton divi-sion comprehends the whole island of that name,which forms but one county. Thus there are tencounties, and these are subdivided into districts andtownships. The term division has reference only tothe circuits of the courts and to their officers. A dis-trict is a portion of a county entitled to a court ofgeneral sessions of the peace. A township has noprescribed size, nor is it endowed with any' corporatepowers, except that most of them have the privilegeof choosing representatives, and of voting money forthe support of their poor. The population, in 1827,according to the census of that year, was 153,848, ofwhich number 30,000 were in Cape Breton. Thepopulation has been rapidly increasing for severalyears, and, at the present time, doubtless, greatlyexceeds the above enumeration. The means of sub-sistence are easy ; the price of labour is high ; thethe climate is healthy ; and there are supposed to beas many as seven children to each marriage. Amajority of the inhabitants are natives, who aredescendants of emigrants from Great Britain and theUnited States.
The face of the country is agreeably diversifiedwith hills and dales; much of it is undulating, but thereis no mountain more than 600 feet high. The ridgesof land generally run north and south, and sometimesterminate in abrupt cliffs on the sea-shore. Theappearance of the sea-coast is generally inhospitable,presenting a bold, rocky shore, and a poor and sterilesoil, clothed with a thin and stinted growth of birchand spruce. The features of the northern coast, how-ever, are far more pleasant. The shores are everywhere indented with harbours, rivers, coves, and bays;and these have a ready communication with thewaters of the interior of the country, scarcely anypart of which is more than thirty miles distant froma navigable communication. There is a great ine-quality in the surface of Nova Scotia ; much of theland lies in broken ridges ; and the country’ aboundswith small lakes. Lake Rossignol, a little to thewestward of Liverpool, is said to be thirty’ miles incircumference. The arable lands of the country, asyet, bear but a small proportion to the wilderness;they are chiefly confined to the borders of rivers andharbours ; but there are extensive tracts of excellentland which have not been cleared. About one-sixth ofthe land is supposed to be incapable of cultivation. Theaverage crop of wheat on new land is said to be fromseventeen to tw enty bushels to the acre, and of ryefrom nineteen to twenty-two bushels. In many pans,much larger crops of wheat are raised; but a goodcrop of rye, Indian corn, barley, buck w heat, or oats,is much more certain to be obtained by proper culture.