NOSSEN  , a

town of Germany, in the kingdom of Saxony, pleasantly situated on the Freiberger Mulde, 51 M . S.E. from Leipzig by the railway to Dresden via Dobeln, and at the junction of a line to Moldau . Pop . (1905), 4879 . It possesses an ancient castle crowning a height above the river, and has extensive manufactures of boots and shoes, leather and paper . In the immediate vicinity are the ruins of the Cistercian monastery of Altenzella, or Altzella, founded in 1145, and a noted school of philosophy during the 13th-15th centuries . In the chapel, which was built in 1347 and restored in 1787, lie the remains of ten margraves of Meissen, members of the family of Wettin . The foundation was secularized in 1544 . The valuable annals, Chronicon vetere Cellense majus and Chronicon minus, giving a history of Saxony during the 13th and 14th centuries, were removed to the university library of Leipzig in 1544 . They are printed in Band xvi. of the Monumenta Germaniae historica. scriptores (1859) . See E . Beyer, Das Cistercienstift and Kloster Alt-Celle (Dresden, 1855) .

NOSSI-BE, properly Nosy-be, i.e . "

Great island," an island about- 8 m. off the N.W coast of Madagascar, in 13° 23' S., 48° 15' E . It is 14 M. long by 10 broad, and has an area of 13o sq. m . Nossi-be is volcanic, the N. and S. parts of older, the central part of more modern date . Besides a number of true volcanic craters (Lokobe, the highest point, is 1486 ft. above the sea) there are numerous crater-lakes level with the ground (see Nature, March 1877, p . 417) . The i.smate is similar to that of Mayotte (see COMORO ISLANDS), and the neighbouring islet of Nossi-komba, about 2000 ft. above the sea, serves for a sanatorium . Pop . (1902), 9291 . Hellville, the chief town (so called after De Hell, governor of Reunion at the time of the French annexation), is a port of call for the Messageries Maritimes and a centre for the coasting trade along the western shores of Madagascar . There is excellent anchorage, and a pier 800 ft. long . The soil is very fertile, and there are forests of palms and bamboos .

The chief products are

coffee, sesame, the sugar-cane, cocoa, vanilla and tobacco . There are numerous sugar factories and rum distilleries . In 1837 Tsiomeko, chief tainess of one of the numerous divisions of the western Malagasy known under the common name of Sakalava, was expelled by the Hova and fled to Nossi-be and Nossi-komba . Failing assistance from the imam of Muscat, she accepted French protection in 184o, ceding such rights as she possessed on the N.W. coast of the mainland . The French took possession in 1841, and in 1849 an unsuccessful attempt was made to expel them . The administration was entrusted to a subordinate of the governor of Mayotte until 1896, when Nossi-be was placed under the administration of Madagascar (q.v.) . (J .