STATE

Chemists generally apply this term to gaseous bodies at the moment of their evolution, as it were, from liquids or solids, and before they have a umed the aeriform state. There are numerous cases in which bodies having no tendency to combine under ordinary circumstances readily unite when presented to each other in their nascent states. Hydrogen and nitrogen gases, for instance, when mixed together, show no disposition to combine;but when certain organic bodies containing those elements are heated, they are evolved in their nascent states, and combine so as to form ammonia; it is in this way that ammonia is abundantly produced during the destructive dis if many kinds of animal matter, and of pit coal. NESILUM (Lat.), among the ancient Romans signified freight, whence it was used for a piece of money put into the mouths of deceased persons to enable them to pay Charon tat ferrying them over the Styx. A similar custom: among the Greeks. NASUA. [Cat. nas us, a nose.) A genus of Plantigrade Mammal i a, so called from the remarkable elongation and upward curve of the nose. The s]>ecies of this gems,.V. rufa., or red coati, and Jf.fusc a. or brown coati, are both natives of South America. They climb trees in pursuit of b their nests; they burrow for shelter at the foot of large trees, and often undermine them to such an extent that they are liable to be overturned even by a slight wind. [s. 825]