ankle, or sling bone. It is a strong irregularly-shaped bone, and is
connected with the others by powerful ligaments.
ASTRAKHAN ([.a]s-tr[.a]-_h_[.a]n'), a Russian city, capital of government
of same name, on an elevated island in the Volga, about 30 miles above its
mouth in the Caspian, communicating with the opposite banks of the river by
numerous bridges. It is the seat of a Greek archbishop and has a large
cathedral, as well as places of worship for Mahommedans, Armenians, &c. The
manufactures are large and increasing, and the fisheries (sturgeon, &c.)
very important. It is the chief port of the Caspian, and has regular steam
communication with the principal towns on its shores. In 1919 the town was
made a naval base by the Bolshevist Government of Moscow. Pop. 163,800,
composed of various races.--The government (or province) has an area of
91,042 sq. miles. It consists almost entirely of two vast steppes,
separated from each other by the Volga, and forming for the most part arid
sterile deserts. In 1918 the district of Astrakhan proclaimed its autonomy
and independence of Moscow. Pop. 1,427,500.
ASTRAKHAN, a name given to sheepskins with a curled woolly surface obtained
from a variety of sheep found in Bukhara, Persia, and Syria; also a rough
fabric with a pile in imitation of this.
ASTRALITE. See _Explosives_.
ASTRAL SPIRITS, spirits formerly believed to people the heavenly bodies or
the aerial regions. In the Middle Ages they were variously conceived as
fallen angels, souls of departed men, or spirits originating in fire, and
belonging neither to heaven, earth, nor hell. Paracelsus regarded them as
demoniacal in character.
ASTRIN'GENT, a medicine which contracts the organic textures and canals of
the body, thereby checking or diminishing excessive discharges. The chief
astringents are the mineral acids, alum, lime-water, chalk, salts of
copper, zinc, iron, lead, silver; and among vegetables catechu, kino,
oak-bark, and galls.
ASTROCA'RYUM, a genus of tropical American palms, species of which yield
oil and valuable fibre. Tucum oil and tucum thread are obtained from _A.
vulg[=a]re_.
AS'TROLABE, an instrument formerly used for taking the altitude of the sun
or stars, now superseded by the quadrant and sextant. The name was also
formerly given to an armillary sphere.--Cf. Chaucer, _Treatise on the
Astrolabe_.
ASTROLABE BAY, an inlet on the N.E. coast of Australian New Guinea.
ASTROL'OGY, literally, the science or doctrine of the stars. The name was
formerly used as equivalent to astronomy, but is now restricted in meaning
to the pseudo-science which pretends to enable men to judge of the effects
and influences of the heavenly bodies on human and other mundane affairs,
and to foretell future events by their situations and conjunctions. As
usually practised, the whole heavens, visible and invisible, were divided
by great circles into twelve equal parts, called _houses_. As the circles
were supposed to remain immovable, every heavenly body passed through each
of the twelve houses every twenty-four hours. The portion of the zodiac
contained in each house was the part to which chief attention was paid, and
the position of any planet was settled by its distance from the boundary
circle of the house, measured on the ecliptic. The houses had different
names and different powers, the first being called the house of life, the
second the house of riches, the third of brethren, the sixth of marriage,
the eighth of death, and so on. The part of the heavens about to rise was
called the _ascendant_, the planet within the house of the ascendant being
_lord of the ascendant_. The different _aspects_ of the planets were of
great importance. To _cast a person's nativity_ (or _draw his horoscope_)
was to find the position of the heavens at the instant of his birth, which
being done, the astrologer, who knew the various powers and influences
possessed by the sun, the moon, and the planets, could predict what the
course and termination of that person's life would be. The temperament of
the individual was ascribed to the planet under which he was born, as
_saturnine_ from _Saturn_, _jovial_ from _Jupiter_, _mercurial_ from
_Mercury_, _&c._, words which are now used with little thought of their
original meaning. The virtues of herbs, gems, and medicines were supposed
to be due to their ruling planets. The history of astrology, which was the
foster-sister of astronomy, goes back to the early days of the human race.
Egyptians and Hindus, as well as the nations on the Euphrates and Tigris,
were zealous astrologers. The Christian Church strongly opposed the
teachings of astrology, but its study spread among Jews and Arabs during
the Middle Ages. Francis Bacon abused the astrologers of his day, and Swift
wrote against them his famous _Prediction for the Year 1708, by Isaac
Bickerstaff, Esq._--BIBLIOGRAPHY: E. H. Bennet, _Astrology_; G. Wilde,
_Chaldean Astrology Up-to-date_; A. Maury, _La Magie et l'astrologie a
l'antiquite et au moyen age_; A. J. Pearce, _Textbook of Astrology_.
ASTRON'OMY (from Gr. _astron_, a heavenly body, and _nemein_, to classify
or arrange) is that science which investigates the motions, distances,
magnitudes, and various phenomena of the heavenly bodies. The science may
be divided into several branches. _Descriptive astronomy_ denotes merely a
presentation of astronomical facts in a systematic but popular form;
_practical astronomy_ treats of the instruments used in observing the
celestial bodies, the methods of their employment, and the manner of
deducing results from the observations; investigation of the causes of the
motions of these bodies was formerly termed _physical astronomy_, but now
generally _dynamical_ or _gravitational astronomy_; _physical astronomy_ or
_astro-physics_ is the comparatively modern branch which deals with their
physical conditions, radiation, temperature, and chemical constitution.
Recent years have added two new fields of investigation which are full of
promise for the advancement of astronomical science. The first of
these--_celestial photography_--has furnished us with invaluable
light-pictures of the sun, moon, and other bodies, and has recorded the
existence of myriads of stars invisible even to the best telescopes; while
the second, _spectrum analysis_, now employed by many scientists, reveals
to us a knowledge of the physical constituents of the universe, telling us
for instance that in the sun (or his atmosphere) there exist many of the
elements familiar to us on the earth. It is also applied to the
determination of the velocities with which stars are approaching, or
receding from, our system; and to the measurement of movements taking place
within the solar atmospheric envelopes. From analysis of some of the
unresolved nebulae the inference is drawn that they are not star-swarms but
simply incandescent gas; whence a second inference results favourable to
the hypothesis of the gradual condensation of nebulae, and the successive
evolutions of suns and systems.
The most remote period to which we can go back in tracing the history of
astronomy refers us to a time about 2500 B.C., when the Chinese are said to
have recorded the simultaneous conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars,
Mercury, and the moon. This remarkable phenomenon is found, by calculating
backward, to have taken place 2460 B.C. Astronomy has also an undoubtedly
high antiquity in India. The mean annual motion of Jupiter and Saturn was
observed as early as 3062 years B.C.; tables of the sun, moon, and planets
were formed, and eclipses calculated. In the time of Alexander the Great,
the Chaldeans or Babylonians had carried on astronomical observations for
1900 years. They regarded comets as bodies travelling in extended orbits,
and predicted their return; and there is reason to believe that they had
correct ideas regarding the solar system. The priests of Egypt gave
astronomy a religious character; but their knowledge of the science is
testified to only by their ancient zodiacs and the position of their
pyramids with relation to the cardinal points. It was among the Greeks that
astronomy took a more scientific form. Thales of Miletus (born 639 B.C.)
predicted a solar eclipse, and his successors held opinions which are in
many respects wonderfully in accordance with modern ideas. Pythagoras (500
B.C.) and his followers formed theories of the planetary system. They
taught the sphericity and revolution of the earth, but placed an imaginary
'Central Fire', not the sun itself, at the centre of the system. Great
progress was made in astronomy under the Ptolemies, and we find Timochares
and Aristyllus employed about 300 B.C. in making useful planetary
observations. But Aristarchus of Samos (born 267 B.C.) is said, on the
authority of Archimedes, to have far surpassed them, by teaching the double
motion of the earth around its axis and around the sun. A hundred years
later Hipparchus determined more exactly the length of the solar year, and
the eccentricity of the ecliptic, discovered the precession of the
equinoxes, and even undertook a catalogue of the stars. It was in the
second century after Christ that Claudius Ptolemy, a famous mathematician
of Pelusium in Egypt, propounded the system that bears his name, viz., that
the earth was the centre of the universe, and that the sun, moon, and
planets revolved around it in the following order: nearest to the earth was
the sphere of the moon; then followed the spheres of Mercury, Venus, the
Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn; then came the sphere of the fixed stars;
these were succeeded by two _crystalline_ spheres and an outer sphere named
the _primum mobile_ or first movable, which last was again circumscribed by
the _coelum empyreum_, of a cubic shape, wherein happy souls found their
abode. The Arabs began to make scientific astronomical observations about
the middle of the eighth century, and for 400 years they prosecuted the
science with assiduity. Ibn-Yunis (A.D. 1000) made important observations
of the perturbations and eccentricities of Jupiter and Saturn. In the
sixteenth century Nicolaus Copernicus, born in 1473, introduced the system
that bears his name, and which recognized the sun's central place in the
solar system, and that all the other bodies, the earth included, revolve
around it. This arrangement of the universe (see _Copernicus_) came at
length to be generally received on account of the simplicity it substituted
for the complexities and difficulties of the theory of Ptolemy. The
observations and calculations of Tycho Brahe, a Danish astronomer, born in
1546, continued over many years, were of the highest value, and secured for
him the title of regenerator of practical astronomy. His assistant and
pupil, Kepler, born in 1571, was enabled, principally from the data
provided by his master's labours, to arrive at those laws which have made
his name famous: 1. That the planets move, not in circular, but in
elliptical orbits, of which the sun occupies a focus. 2. That the radius
vector, or imaginary straight line joining the sun and any planet, moves
over equal spaces in equal times. 3. That the squares of the times of the
revolutions of the planets are as the cubes of their mean distances from
the sun. Galileo, who died in 1642, advanced the science by his
observations and by the new revelations he made through his telescopes,
which established the truth of the Copernican theory. Newton, born in 1642,
carried physical astronomy suddenly to comparative perfection. Accepting
Kepler's laws as a statement of the facts of planetary motion, he deduced
from them his theory of gravitation. The science was enriched towards the
close of the eighteenth century by the discovery by Herschel of the planet
Uranus and its satellites, the resolution of the Milky Way into myriads of
stars, and the investigation of nebulae and of double and triple stars. The
splendid analytical researches of Lalande, Lagrange, Delambre, and Laplace
mark the same period. The nineteenth century opened with the discovery of
the first four minor planets; and the existence of another planet
(Neptune), more distant from the sun than Uranus, was, in 1845,
independently predicted by Leverrier and Adams. Of late years the sun has
attracted a number of observers, the spectroscope and photography having
been especially fruitful in this field of investigation. By various methods
the sun's mean distance has been ascertained within very small limits of
error, and found to be nearly 93,000,000 miles. Many additions have been
made to the known secondary planets or satellites, including some with
retrograde motions. A vast number of asteroids has been discovered, and the
width of the zone occupied by them found to be much more extensive. Much
success has been achieved in ascertaining the parallax of fixed stars.
The objects with which astronomy has chiefly to deal are the earth, the
sun, the moon, the planets, the fixed stars, comets, nebulae, and meteors.
The stellar universe is composed of an unknown host of stars, many millions
in number. Those visible to the naked eye were in ancient times grouped
into the constellations still recognized. The nebulae are cloud-like
patches of light scattered all over the heavens. Some of them have been
resolved into star-clusters, but many of them are masses of incandescent
gas. Of the so-called fixed stars, many form binary or multiple systems,
the members revolving in orbits under each other's attractions, while other
more scattered groups are moving clusters, travelling in parallel paths
through space like flocks of birds. Variable stars and extinct or dark
stars are also known. The fixed stars preserve, at least to unaided vision,
an unalterable relation to each other, because of their vast distance from
the earth. Their apparent movement from east to west is the result of the
earth's revolution on its axis in twenty-four hours from west to east. The
planets have not only an apparent, but also a real and proper motion,
since, like our earth, they revolve around the sun in their several orbits
and periods. The nearest of these bodies to the sun is _Mercury_. _Venus_,
the second planet from the sun, is to us the brightest and most beautiful
of all the planets. The _Earth_ is the first planet accompanied by a
satellite or moon. _Mars_, the next planet, has two satellites, discovered
in 1877. Its surface has a variegated character, and the existence of land,
water, snow, and ice has been inferred. The _Asteroids_, of which over 1000
are known, form a broad zone of small bodies, at distances from a little
beyond the earth's to that of Jupiter. _Jupiter_, the largest planet, has
at least nine satellites, of which the two outermost have retrograde
motion. Its surface is diversified by spots, markings, and bands parallel
to its equator. _Saturn_, with its nine or more satellites and broad thin
rings in its equatorial plane, is, perhaps, the most striking telescopic
object in the heavens. _Ur[)a]nus_--discovered by Herschel in 1781--is
accompanied by four satellites. _Neptune_, the farthest removed from the
sun, has one satellite, the motion of which is retrograde. Besides the
planets, quite a number of comets are known to be members of the solar
system. The physical constitution of these bodies is still one of the
enigmas of astronomy. The observation of meteors has recently attracted
much attention. They are seen in largest numbers in the autumn months.
Meteor streams are supposed to represent the results of the disintegration
of comets. Among the more modern astronomers we may mention: Gustav
Kirchhoff, G. B. Donati, Christian Doppler, H. C. Vogel, Sir William
Huggins, Simon Newcomb, and Sir David Gill. See _Earth_, _Sun_, _Moon_,
_Planet_, _Comet_, _Stars_, _Asteroids_, _Celestial Photography_,
_Spectrography_, &c.--BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sir J. N. Lockyer, _Dawn of Astronomy_;
Sir G. C. Lewis, _Historical Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients_; Sir.
F. W. Dyson, _Astronomy_; Sir R. Ball, _Atlas, and Popular Guide to the
Heavens_; G. P. Serviss, _Astronomy with an Opera-glass_; _The Pleasures of
the Telescope_; A. M. Clerke, _History of Astronomy during the 19th
Century_, H. Macpherson, _Romance of Modern Astronomy_; C. A. Young,
_General Astronomy_; G. F. Chambers, _Handbook of Astronomy_ (3 vols.);
E. W. Maunder, _Astronomy of the Bible_; A. C. D. Crommelin, _The Star
World_; Agnes Giberne, _Sun, Moon, and Stars_ (popular).
ASTROPALIA, an island in the Aegean Sea. It was occupied during the Balkan
war of 1912 by the Italians under Admiral Presbitero and General d'Ameglio.
ASTROPHYSICS. See _Spectroscopy_.
ASTUR. See _Goshawk_.
ASTU'RIA, or THE ASTURIAS, a Spanish principality, now forming the province
of Oviedo, on the north coast of Spain; an alpine region, with steep and
jagged mountain ridges, valuable minerals, luxuriant grazing lands, and
fertile well-watered valleys. The heir apparent of Spain has borne since
1388 the title of Prince of the Asturias. See _Spain_.
ASTY'AGES (-j[=e]z), last king of the Medes, 593-558 B.C., deposed by
Cyrus, an event which transferred the supremacy from the Medes to the
Persians.
ASUNCION ([.a]-s[u:]n-th[=e]-on'), or NUESTRA SENORA DE LA ASUNCION (Eng.
_Assumption_), the chief city of Paraguay, on the River Paraguay,
picturesquely situated and with good public buildings. It was founded in
1537 on the feast of the Assumption. Its trade is mostly in the yerba tea,
hides, tobacco, oranges, &c. It was taken and plundered by the Brazilians
in 1869. A railway runs for a short distance into the interior. Pop.
(1920), 99,836.
[Illustration: Aswail (_Ursus labi[=a]tus_)]
AS'WAIL, the native name for the sloth-bear (_Ursus labi[=a]tus_) of the
mountains of India, an uncouth, unwieldy animal, with very long black hair,
inoffensive when not attacked. Its usual diet consists of roots,
bees'-nests, grubs, snails, ants, &c. Its flesh is in much favour as an
article of food. When captured young it is easily tamed.
ASY'LUM, a sanctuary or place of refuge, where criminals and debtors
sheltered themselves from justice, and from which they could not be taken
without sacrilege. Temples were anciently asylums, as were Christian
churches in later times. (See _Sanctuary_.) The term is now usually applied
to an institution for receiving, maintaining, and, so far as possible,
ameliorating the condition of persons labouring under certain bodily
defects or mental maladies; sometimes also a refuge for the unfortunate.
ASYLUM, RIGHT OF. See _Extradition_.
ASYMPTOTE (as'im-t[=o]t), in geometry, a line which is continually
approaching a curve, but never meets it, however far either of them may be
prolonged. This may be conceived as a tangent to a curve at an infinite
distance. See _Conic Sections_.
ASYN'DETON, a figure of speech by which connecting words are omitted; as 'I
came, I saw, I conquered', or Cicero's 'Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit'.
ATACAMA ([.a]-t[.a]-kae'm[.a]), a desert region on the west coast of S.
America belonging to Chile, partly in the province of Atacama, partly in
the territory of Antofagasta. It mainly consists of a plateau extending
from Copiapo northward to the River Loa, and lies between the Andes and the
sea. It forms the chief nitrate district of Chile, there being also rich
silver-mines, while gold is also found, as well as argentiferous lead,
copper, nickel, cobalt, and iron; with guano on the coast. The northern
portion belonged to Bolivia until 1904. The Chilian province of Atacama has
an area of 30,711 sq. miles, and a pop. of 63,893.
ATACA'MITE, a combination of the hydroxide and chloride of copper,
occurring abundantly in some parts of South America, as at Atacama, whence
it has its name. It is worked as an ore in South America, and is exported
to England.
ATAHUAL'PA, the last of the Incas, succeeded his father in 1529 on the
throne of Quito, whilst his brother Huascar obtained the kingdom of Peru.
They soon made war against each other, when the latter was defeated, and
his kingdom fell into the hands of Atahualpa. The Spaniards, taking
advantage of these internal disturbances, with Pizarro at their head
invaded Peru, and advanced to Atahualpa's camp. Here, while Pizarro's
priest was telling the Inca how the Pope had given Peru to the Spaniards,
fire was opened on the unsuspecting Peruvians, Atahualpa was captured, and,
despite the payment of a vast ransom in gold, was executed (1533).
ATALAN'TA, in Greek mythology, a famous huntress of Arcadia. She was to be
obtained in marriage only by him who could outstrip her in a race, the
consequence of failure being death. One of her suitors obtained from
Aphrod[=i]t[=e] (Venus) three golden apples, which he threw behind him, one
after another, as he ran. Atalanta stopped to pick them up, and was not
unwillingly defeated. There was another Atalanta belonging to Boeotia, who
cannot very well be distinguished, the same stories being told about both.
ATAMAN. See _Hetman_.
AT'AVISM (Lat. _at[)a]vus_, an ancestor), in biology, the tendency to
reproduce the ancestral type in animals or plants which have become
considerably modified by breeding or cultivation; the reversion of a
descendant to some peculiarity of a more or less remote ancestor. See
_Mendelism_, _Natural Selection_, _Evolution_, _Heredity_. The term
_atavism_ is also frequently used in sociological literature, in the sense
of reversion to more primitive types, as explanation of criminal instincts
and pathological phenomena.
ATAXY, or ATAXIA, in medicine, irregularity in the animal functions, or in
the symptoms of a disease. See _Locomotor Ataxy_.
ATBA'RA, the most northerly tributary of the Nile. It rises in the
Abyssinian highlands, receives several large tributaries, and enters the
Nile about 18deg N. The town of Atbara is situated about 380 miles S.E. of
Wadi Halfa. The battle of Atbara, between the British under Earl Kitchener
(then Sir Herbert), and the followers of the Mahdi, was fought on 8th
April, 1898.
ATCHAFALAY'A ('Lost Water'), a river of the United States, an outlet of the
Red River which strikes off before the junction of that river with the
Mississippi, flows southward, and enters the Gulf of Mexico by Atchafalaya
Bay. Its length is about 225 miles.
ATCHEEN'. See _Acheen_.
ATCH'ISON, a city of Kansas, United States, on the Missouri, about 30 miles
from Leavenworth, an important railway centre with an increasing trade.
Pop. (1920), 12,630.
A'T[=E], among the Greeks, the goddess of hate, injustice, crime, and
retribution, daughter of Zeus according to Homer, but of [)E]ris (Strife)
according to Hesiod.
AT'ELES, a genus of American monkeys. See _Spider-monkey_.
ATELIERS NATIONAUX ([.a]-tl-y[=a] n[.a]-syo-n[=o]), or national workshops,
were established by the French Provisional Government in 1848. They
interfered much with private trade, as about 100,000 workmen threw
themselves on the Government for work. The breaking up of the system led to
disorders, but it was abolished in July, 1848.
ATELLA'NAE FAB'ULAE (called also OSCAN PLAYS), a kind of light interlude,
in ancient Rome, performed not by the regular actors, but by freeborn young
Romans; it originated from the ancient _Atella_, a city of the Oscans. They
were the origin of the Italian _commedie dell'arte_. Cf. Munk, _De Fabulis
Atellanis_.
ATESH'GA (the place of fire), a sacred place of the Guebres or Persian
fire-worshippers, on the Peninsula of Apsheron, on the W. coast of the
Caspian, visited by large numbers of pilgrims, who bow before the sacred
flames which issue from the bituminous soil.
ATH (aet), a fortified town of Belgium, in the province of Hainaut, on the
Dender; it carries on weaving, dyeing, and printing cottons. It was the
scene of fighting in Nov., 1918. Pop. 11,108.