NEALING of steel, is the heating it in the fire to a blood-red heat, and then taking it out, and letting it cool gently of itself. This is done to make it softer, in order to engrave or punch upon it. See TEMPERING and ENGRAVING.
NEALING is also used for the art or act of burning or baking earthen or other ware in an oven. The miners at Mendip, when they meet with a rock they cannot cut through, anneal it by laying on wood and coal, and contriving the fire so that they quit the mine before the operation begins, it being dangerous to enter it again before it be quite cleared of the smoke.
NEALING of tile is used in ancient statutes for the burning of tile. The word is formed of the Saxon onælan, accendere, to light, burn.
NEAP or NEAP TIDES, are those tides which happen when the moon is in the middle of the second and fourth quarters. The neap tides are low tides, in respect of their opposites the spring tides. As the highest of the spring tides is three days after the full or change, so the lowest of the neap is four days before the full or change. On which occasion the seamen say that it is deep neap.