to have carried the manufacture to sucn perfection, that his asbestos was soft and tractable, much resembling lamb-skin dressed white: he could thicken and thin it at pleasure, and thus either make it into a very white skin or into paper. His method of preparing it is thus described: the stone is laid to soak in warm water; then opened and divided by the hands, that the earthy matter may be washed out. The ablution being several times repeated, the flax-like filaments are collected and dried; being most conveniently spun with an addition of flax. Two or three filaments of the asbestos are easily twisted along with the flaxen thread, if the operator's fingers are kept oiled. The cloth also, when woven, is best preserved by oil from breaking or wasting. On exposure to the fire the flax and the oil burn out, and the cloth remains pure and white. The shorter filaments which separate in washing the stone, may be made into paper in the common manner. Five varieties are described: 1. Common asbestos, which occurs in masses of fibres of a dull greenish color, and of a pearly lustre. It is scarcely flexible, and greatly denser than amianthus. Specific gravity, 27. Fuses with difficulty into a grayish-black scoria. It is composed of 639 silica, 16 magnesia, 12.8 lime, 6 oxide of iron, and 11 alumina, and is more abundant than amianthus, being usually found in serpentine, at Portsoy, the Isle of Anglesea, the Lizard in Cornwall, &c. It was found in the limestone of Glentilt, by Dr. M'Culloch in a pasty state, but it soon hardened by exposure to the air. 2. Amianthus, which occurs in very long, fine, flexible, elastic fibres, is of a white, greenish, or reddish color. It has a silky or pearly lustre, and is slightly translucent; sectile; tough; specific gravity, from 1 to 2:3; it melts with difficulty before the blow-pipe into a white enamel, and consists of 59 silex, 25 magnesia, 9.5 lime, 3 alumina, and 2·25 oxide of iron. It is usually found in serpentine, in Savoy; in long and beautiful fibres, in Corsica; near Bareges in the Pyrenees; in Dauphiny and St. Gothard; at St. Keverne, Cornwall; and at Portsoy, Scotland; in mica slate at Glenelg, Invernessshire, and near Durham. 3. Mountain leather, consisting not of parallel fibres, but interwoven and interlaced so as to become tough. When in very thin pieces it is called mountain paper. Its color is yellowish-white, and its touch meagre. It is found at Wanlockhead, in Lanarkshire. Its specific gravity uncertain. 4. Mountain cork, or elastic asbestos, is, like the preceding, of an interlaced fibrous texture; is opaque, has a meagre feel and appearance, not unlike common cork, and like it too, is somewhat elastic. It swims on water. Its colors are white, gray, and yellowish-brown. Receives an impression from the nail; very tough; cracks when handled, and melts with difficulty before the blow-pipe. Specific gravity, from 0.68 to 0.99. It is composed of silica 62, carbonate of lime 12, carbonate of magnesia 23, alumina 28, oxide of iron 3. 5. Mountain wood, or ligniform asbestos, is usually massive, of a brown color, and having the aspect of wood. Internal lustre, glimmering. Soft, sectile, and tough; opaque; feels meagre; fusible into a black slag. Specific

gravity 2.0. It is found in the Tyrol; Dauphiny; and in Scotland, at Glentilt, Portsoy, and Kildrumie.

ASCALON, an ancient city, one of the five satrapies or principalities of the Philistines; situated on the Mediterranean, forty-three miles south-west of Jerusalem, between Azotus on the north, and Gaza on the south. It was the birthplace of Herod the Great, thence surnamed Ascalonites, and was famous for its escallions, which take their name from this town. It is now called Scalona.

ASCANII, in entomology, a species of curculio, of shape cylindrical, color black, and bluish on the sides.

ASCANIUS, the son of Eneas and Creusa, succeeded his father in the kingdom of the Latins, and defeated Mezentius king of the Tuscans, who had refused to conclude a peace with him. He founded Alba Longa; and died about A. A. C. 1139, after reigning thirty-eight years.

ASCANIUS, in entomology, a species of papilio. Color black, above and beneath, with a white band; posterior wings reddish; it is a native of sil.

ASCARIS, ασκαρις ; from ασκεω, to move about; in zoology, an intestinal worm so called from its troublesome motion. In the Linnæan system it is a genus of the class vermes, order intestina; thus generically characterised. Body round, elastic, and tapering towards each extremity; head with three vesicles; tail obtuse or subulate; intestines spiral, milk-white, and pellucid. Upwards of eighty species have been enumerated, generally deriving their name from the animal they chiefly infest: for the intestinal canal of most animals is affected by some species.

The species of Ascaris described by Gmelin are arranged in the following order:

Infesting man, and the mammalia.-Vermicularis, lumbricoides;-vespertilionis, in the longeared bat :-Phocæ, bifida, canis, visceralis, lupi, vulpis, leonis, tigridis, felis, cati, martis, bronchialis, renalis, mephitidis, gulonis, talpæ, muris, hirci, vituli, equi, suis, apri.

Infesting birds. Aquile, albicillæ, buteonis, milvi, subbuteonis, hermaphrodita, cornicis, coraciæ, cygni, anatis, fuligulæ, lari, ciconia tardæ, papillosa, gallopavonis, galli, gallinæ, phasiani, tetraonis, columbæ, alaudæ, sturni, turdi.

Infesting reptiles.-Testudinis, lacertæ, bufonis, pulmonalis, rubetræ, trachealis, ranæ, intestinalis, dyspnoos, insons.

Infesting fishes.—Anguillæ, marina, blennii, rhombi, percæ, globicola, lacustris, siluri, farionis, trutta, maraenæ, acus, halecis, argentina, gobionis, rajæ, squali, lophii.

Infesting worms.-Lumbrici.

We can only describe the two principally infesting man.

1. A. lumbricoides, is about the same length with the lumbricus terrestris, or common earthworm; but it wants the protuberant ring towards the middle of the body, the only mark by which they can be properly distinguished. The body is cylindrical, and subulated at each extremity; but the tail is somewhat triangular. The lumbricoides is the worm which is most commonly

ASCENSION DAY; the day on which the ascension of our Saviour is commemorated, commonly called Holy Thursday; the Thursday but one before Whitsuntide.

ASCENSIONAL DIFFERENCE, is the difference between the right and oblique ascension of the same point to the surface of the sphere. The ascensional difference of the sun, converted into time, is just so much as he rises before or after six o'clock.

ASCENSIONIS, in ichtnyology, a species of perca, found about Ascension Island; color reddish above, whitish beneath, the tail bifurcated. ASCENT, in logic, denotes a kind of argument, wherein we rise from particulars to universals: as, when we say, this man is an animal, and that man is an animal, and the other man, &c. therefore every man is an animal.

ASCENT, in physics, implies the motion of a body upwards, or the continual recess of a body from the earth. The Peripatetics attributed the spontaneous ascent of bodies to a principle of levity inherent in them. The moderns deny spontaneous levity; and show, that whatever ascends, does it in virtue of some external impulse or extrusion. Thus smoke and other rare bodies ascend in the atmosphere; and oil, light woods, &c. in water; not by any internal principle of levity, but by the superior gravity or tendency downwards of the parts of the medium where they are. The ascent of light bodies in heavy mediums is produced after the same manner as the ascent of the lighter scale of a balance. It is not that such scale has an internal principle whereby it immediately tends upwards; but it is impelled upwards by the preponderancy of the other scale; the excess of the weight of the one having the same effect, by augmenting its impetus downwards, as so much real levity in the other; because the tendencies mutually oppose each other, and that action and re-action are always equal.

ASCERTAIN', { Old Fr. acertener, from ASCERTAIN MENT. Šad and certum, cerno; gr. Kow,to distinguish, to separate. To be sure or certain, to discover the truth, to bring inquiries to a satisfactory result.

The divine law both ascertaineth the truth, and supplieth unto us the want of other laws. Hooker. Money differs from uncoined silver in this, that the quantity of silver in each piece is ascertained by the

stamp.

Locke.

Right judgment of myself may give me the other certainty; that is, ascertain me, that I am in the number of God's children.

Hammond's Practical Catechism. This makes us act with a repose of mind, and wonderful tranquillity; because it ascertains us of the goodness of our work. Dryden's Dufresnoy. He tells us that the positive ascertainment of its limits, and its security from invasion, were among the causes for which civil society itself has been instituted.

Burke on the Revolution in France.

The characters of great men, which are always mysterious while they live, are ascertained by the faithful historian, and sooner or later receive their wages of fame or infamy, according to their true deCowper's Letters.

scrts.

ASCESIS, from the verb aoke, used by the ancients in speaking of the sports and combats of the athlete, properly denotes exercise of the body. It is also used by philosophers, to denote an exercise conducive to virtue, or to the acquiring a greater degree of virtue. This is particularly denominated the philosophical ascesis, because practised chiefly by philosophers, who make a more peculiar profession of improving themselves in virtue; on the model of which the ancient Christians introduced a religious ascesis.

ASCETERIUM, in ecclesiastical writers, a monastery, or place set apart for the exercises of religion. The word is formed from ascesis, exercise; or ascetra, one who performs exercise. Originally it signified a place where the athlete or gladiators performed their exercise. ASCET'ICK, n. & adj. Į ASCET'ICISM.

Ασκετικός, ασκευ to exercise. Applied primarily to those who exercised themselves in religious contemplations and for this purpose separated themselves from the world.

None lived such long lives as monks and hermits; sequestered from plenty, to a constant ascetick course

of the severest abstinence and devotion.

South.

I am far from commending those asceticks, that out

of a pretence of keeping themselves unspotted from the world, take up their quarters in deserts. Norris.

He that preaches to man, should understand what is in man; and that skill can scarce be attained by an ascetick in his solitudes. Atterbury.

The truth is we have seen, and yet do see, religious societies whose religious doctrines are so little serviceable to civil government that they can prosper only on the ruin and destruction of it. Such are those which teach the sanctity of celibacy and asceticism.

Warburton's Alliance, book ii.

ASCETICS, persons in the primitive times who devoted themselves to the exercises of piety, in a retired life, and particularly to prayer, abstinence, and mortification. Afterwards this title was bestowed upon the monks, especially such of them as lived in solitude. This is also a title of several books of spiritual exercises, as the Ascetics, or devout exercises of St. Basil, archbishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia, &c.

ASCHAFFENBURG, a town and district of Germany, on the Maine, formerly belonging to the elector of Mentz, who had a palace there, but now included in the kingdom of Bavaria. It is memorable for being the place where king George II. took up his quarters the night before the battle of Dettingen. It stands on an eminence, in a delightful country, and is of a quadrangular form. The number of inhabitants in the town is about 6400; they received a considerable augmentation by the emigrations from Mentz, on the occupancy of that city by the French in 1798. It has four churches, and a foundation called Insignis Collegiata, the capuchin monastery; the ancient Jesuits' college is now a lyceum or public school. Aschaffenburg was taken by the French in July 1796, and again in 1800. The rivulet of this name here discharges itself into the Maine. This town is eighteen miles south-east of Frankfort, and forty east of Mentz.

ASCHAM (Roger), was born at Kirby-Wiske, near North Allerton, in Yorkshire, in the year

1516. His father was steward to the noble family of Scroop. Roger was educated in the family of Sir Anthony Wingfield, who, about the year 1530, sent him to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he was soon distinguished for his application and abilities. He took his degree of A. B. at the age of eighteen; was soon after elected fellow of his college; and in 1536 proceeded A. M. In 1544 he was chosen university orator; and, in 1548, was sent for to court to instruct the lady Elizabeth (afterwards queen) in the learned languages. In 1550 he attended Sir Richard Morysine, as secretary, on his embassy to the emperor Charles V., at whose court he continued three years, and in the mean time was appointed Latin secretary to Edward VI. But upon the death of that prince, he lost his preferment and all his hopes, being professedly of the reformed religion; yet, contrary to his expectations, he was soon after, by the interest of his friend lord Paget, made Latin secretary to the king and queen. In June 1554 he married Mrs. Margaret How, with whom he had a considerable fortune. It is very remarkable, that, though Mr. Ascham was known to be a protestant, he continued in favor, not only with the ministry of those times, but with queen Mary herself. Upon the accession of Elizabeth, he was confirmed in his post of Latin secretary, and resumed his employment as preceptor to her majesty in the learned languages. He died in 1568, not rich, but much regretted, especially by the queen. He wrote, 1. Toxophilus. The schole or partitions of shooting, contayned in two bookes, written by Roger Ascham, 1544, and now newly perused. Pleasaunt for all gentlemen and yeomen of England, &c. Lond. 1571. This treatise was dedicated to Henry VIII. who settled a pension of £10 per annum upon the author. It is said to have been written principally to promote the improvement of English prose. 2. A Report of the affairs and state of Germany, and the emperor Charles his court, &c. 4to. 3. The Schoolmaster: first printed in 1573, 4to. Mr. Upton published an edition with notes, in 1711. It has uncommon merit. 4. Latin epistles; first published by Mr. Grant in 1576: the best edition is that of Oxford in 1703. These are much admired on account of the style, and esteemed almost the only classical work of the kind written by an Englishman. 5. Apologia contra Missam, 1577, 8vo. His works were collected and published by Bennet, in one volume, 4to. 1769, with a life, by Dr. Johnson.

ASCHERSLEBEN, the chief town of a district in the principality of Halberstadt, Prussia, is seated between the Eine and Wipper, sixteen miles south-east of Halberstadt. It was formerly a Hanse town, and the capital of the principality of Ascania, but was annexed to Halberstadt in the year 1320. Here are manufactures of frieze and flannel; and the suburbs, one of which is called the New Town, are well built. Inhabitants about 8000; and here are a Lutheran and Calvinist school; four churches, one of which, called the Market church, is possessed by the two sects in common. The castle is in ruins. ASCHILLIUS, king of the Dacians, one of

those monarchs, who is said to have assisted king Arthur in his wars.

ASCIA, in antiquity, an instrument supposed to be of the axe kind, used in the fabric of the Roman tombs, and frequently represented on them.

ASCIA, in surgery, is a kind of bandage, somewhat oblique or crooked; whose form and use are described by Sculteus, in his Armam. Chirug. ASCIBURGIUM, in ancient geography, supposed to be one of the fifty citadels built on the Rhine, is mentioned by Tacitus, who adds, that some imagine it was built by Ulysses. Here was a Roman camp and a garrison. To its situation on the banks of the Rhine answers a small hamlet, now called Asburg.

ASCIDIA, a genus of animals belonging to the order of vermes mollusca. The body is cylindrical, and fixed to a shell, rock, &c. It has two apertures, one on the summit, the other lower, forming a sheath. These creatures have the power of contracting or dilating themselves; most of them are sessile. Gmelin enumerates the following species: papillosa, gelatinosa, intestinalis, quadridentata, rustica, echinata, mentula, venosa, prunum, conchilega, parallelogramma, virginea, canina, patula, aspersa, scabra, orbicularis, corrugata, lepadiformis, con planata, tuberculum, villosa, clavata, pedunculata, mammillaris, globularis, phusca, gelatina, crystallina, octodentata, patelliformis, pyura, aurantium, globularis.

ASCINDOE, in botany, a name given by the people of Guinea to a shrub, which they use in medicine, boiling it in water, and giving the decoction in gonorrhoeas, and the like complaints. Petiver has named it the prickly Guinea shrub. The thorns on the large branches are very strong.

ASCITE; from aσkoç, a bag or bottle; in antiquity, a sect of Montanists, who appeared in the second century; so named, because they introduced a kind of Bacchanals into their assemblies, who danced round a bag or skin blowed up; saying, they were those new bottles filled with new wine, whereof our Saviour makes mention, Matth. ix. 17.-They are sometimes also called Ascodrogitæ.

ASCITES; from aσkoç, a water bottle; in medicine, dropsy of the belly; so called from the protuberance of the belly in that disease resembling a bottle. It is divided into two species, ascites abdominalis, in which there is a regular and equal intumescence of the abdomen; and ascites saccatus, when the ovaries, &c. are the seat of the disease, and the swelling. at least in the beginning, is partial. The cure is difficult, since the disease is often only the symptom of a decaying constitution; evacuations are the chief palliatives, and paracentesis (apaKEVTEW, to perforate), or tapping, relieves for a time, and, in some cases, permanently. See MEDICINE.

ASCLEPIA, a festival of Esculapius the god of physic, observed particularly at Epidaurus, where it was attended with a contest between the poets and musicians, whence it was likewise called Iɛpoç ayır, the sacred contention.

ASCLEPIAD, in ancient poetry, a verse composed of four feet, the first of which is a spondee,

the second and third choriambuses, and the last a pyrrhichius or of four feet and a cæsura, the first a spondee, the second a dactyl, after which comes the casura, then the two dactyls; as

Mæcēnās ǎtǎvis | ēdīte | rēgibus.

O et præsidium | dūlcě dějcūs měům.

ASCLEPIADES, a celebrated physician among the ancients, was a native of Prusa, in Bithynia, and practised physic at Rome, about A. C. 96. He was the head of a new sect; and, by prescribing wine and cold water in the cure of the sick, acquired a very great reputation. He wrote several books, frequently mentioned by Galen, Celsus, and Pliny; but they are now lost.

ASCLEPIADES, a famous physician under Adrian, of the same city with the former. He wrote on the composition of medicines, both internal and external.

ASCLEPIAS, SWALLOW-WORT, in botany, a genus of the digynia order, and pentandria class of plants; ranking in the natural method under the thirtieth order, contorta. The generic character is taken from five oval, concave, hornlike nectaria, which are found in the flower. There are nineteen species, of which the following are the most remarkable, viz. 1. A. alba, or common swallow-wort. 2. A. curassavica, or bastard ipecacuanha, a native of the warm parts of America. 3. A. Syriaca, or greater Syrian dogsbane. The root of the first species is used in medicine. Though reckoned by botanists a species of dogsbane, it may be distinguished from all the poisonous sorts, by its yielding a limpid juice. The root has a strong smell, especially when fresh, approaching to that of valerian, or nard; the taste is at first sweetish and aromatic, but soon becomes bitterish, subacrid and nauseous. It is esteemed sudorific, diuretic, and emmenagogue. It is also frequently employed by the French and German physicians as an alexipharmic, and sometimes as a succedaneum to contrayerva, whence it has received the name of contrayerva Germanorum.

ASCLEPIODORUS, a British prince who flourished in the third century. He killed Alectus the Roman general, who had slain the celebrated Carausius; and was elected king of the Britons, A. D. 232. He besieged and took London from the Romans, and threw Livius Gallus the Roman general into a brook, which thence received the name of Gallbrook, since changed into Wallbrook. He was at last slain by Coilus II. king of the Britons, A. D: 260.

ASCOBOLUS, in botany; from aokog, a skin, and Bolos, a cast; so called because the seeds are thrown out with elasticity; class, cryptogamia fungi. Its essential characters are, receptacle, fleshy, hemispherical; seed-cases oblong, discharged elastically; seeds moist, about eight. 1. A. furfuraceous, powdery ascobolus. Common on cow-dung late in autumn. 2. A. carneus, flesh-colored ascobolus ; found on dung in woods, rare. 3. A. glaber, smooth brown ascobolus, on cow-dung in autumn. 4. A. immersus, sunk ascobolus; in the same situations, almost entirely sunk in the dung, so that the seed-cases only are prominent.

ASCODUTE, in church history, a sect of Christians, in the second century, who rejected all use of symbols and sacraments, on this principle, that incorporeal things cannot be communicated by things corporeal, nor divine mysteries by any thing visible.

ASCOGEPHYRUS, in writers of the middle age, a bridge supported on bags made of leather, or bullocks' hides. Such bridges appear to have been in use among the ancients, and to have given the denomination to a tribe of Arabs, hence called Ascitæ.

ASCOLI, anciently called Asculum Picenum, a pretty large and populous town of Italy, in the marquisate of Ancona, and territory of the church. It is a bishop's see, and seated on a mountain between the rivers Tronto and Castellano, fortyeight miles south of Ancona.

ASCOLI DI SATRIANO, formerly called Asculum Apulum, and Asculum Picenum, a city of Naples, in the Capitanata, with a bishop's see under the archbishop of Benevento, seventy miles east of Naples, and thirty west of Manfredonia.

ASCOLIA, in Grecian antiquity, a festival celebrated by the Athenian husbandmen in honor of Bacchus, to whom they sacrificed a he-goat, and made a foot-ball of his skin, because that animal destroys the vines. See Virgil, Georg. ii. 380.

ASCONIUS PEDIANUS, an ancient grammarian of Padua; and, according to Servius, an acquaintance of Virgil's. He wrote commentaries on Cicero's Orations, fragments of which are published in Cicero's works.

ASCOPHORA, in botany; from aσkoç, bladder, and pepw, to bear; class cryptogamia fungi. Its essential characters are, thread-shaped, terniinating in a slightly inflated head. There is but one species, viz. A. perennis, perennial bladdermould.

ASCORCA, a town and valley of Majorca, six leagues from Palma, principally known by its famous sanctuary, Nuestra Senora de Lluch. This is a large and beautiful edifice, containing an image of the virgin, said to have been miraculously discovered on the spot in 1238. The number of persons connected with this establishment is 400. The canons are proprietors of the valley, which abounds in wine and olives.

ASCOUGH (William), L. L. D. appointed bishop of Salisbury in 1438, and soon after confessor to king Henry VI. He was seized by the famous rebel Jack Cade on the 28th June, 1450, who, after plundering his carriage, fell upon him the next day, while he was officiating at the altar, in Edington, Lincolnshire, and dragging him to a neighbouring hill dashed out his brains.

ASCRA, a village of ancient Greece near Mount Helicon, the birth place of the poet Hesiod.

ASCRIBE, ASCRIBABLE, ASCRIPTION. ASCRIPTI'TIOUS.

Lat. ad scribo, to write to. Primarily to practice the art of writing on any substance and with any instrument. Subsequently to charge, attribute, or place to the account of any one, whether in writing or otherwise.