which, under its founder Mattathias, the greatgrandson of Asmonæus, and his five sons, liberated Judea from the yoke of Antiochus Epiphanes and his successors, and subsequently held both the high-priestly and the princely dignity, until supplanted by Herod. They are also known, though not properly, as Maccabees. Mattathias raised the standard of revolt in 167 B. C., dying soon after. His fifth son Jonathan, and his grandson John Hyrcanus, fully established the independence of the country; and the son of the latter, Aristobulus I., assumed the royal title (106). The rivalry of Hyrcanus II. and his brother Aristobulus II., nephew of Aristobulus I., brought about the intervention of Rome, and the disguised subjection to her under Herod. Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus, who was the last to fight for the rights of his house, perished by the hand of the Romans (37), and Herod successively extirpated the rest of the house, including his own wife Mariamne and his two sons by her. (See HEBREWS.) ASNIÈRES, a village of France, in the department of the Seine, on the railroad from Paris to St. Germain, nearly 4 m. N. W. of Paris; pop. in 1866, 5,455. The kings of France formerly had a castle here. The place, with its surroundings, was very conspicuous in the fights of the Paris communists with the government troops in the early days of April, 1871. ASOPUS. I. A river of Boeotia, now called the Oropo. It rises about 6 m. N. of Mt. Elatea (anc. Citharon), flows E. through Boeotia, and empties into the channel of Egripo in the territory of Attica, near the town of Oropus; length about 25 m. II. A river of Peloponnesus, now called the Hagios Georgios (St. George). It flows from the mountains S. of Phlius N. E. through Argolis into the bay of Corinth. III. A river god, identified in legend with each of the above described rivers. legends connecting him with the Asopus in Peloponnesus trace his descent from Neptune. He married Metope, daughter of Ladon, and by her had two sons and twelve or twenty daughters. Jupiter bore off his daughter Ægina, whereupon Asopus revolted, but was struck by a thunderbolt and reduced to submission. The ASP, a name given to more than one species of the venomous serpents. By naturalists it is confined to the vipera aspis (Schl.), which is a native of the European Alps. The historical asp, with which Cleopatra is believed to have destroyed herself after the death of Antony, is generally supposed to have been the cerastes Hasselquistii. From many circumstances, however, and more especially from the description of Pliny, it is evident that the asp of the Roman writers generally, and therefore doubtless the asp of Cleopatra, is the common and celebrated Egyptian species, the naya haye of the modern Arabs. This reptile was chosen by the ancient Egyptians as the emblem of the good deity, Cneph, and as the mark of regal dignity. It is closely allied with the cobra de that, in sagacity and its malicious tenacity in treasuring up a wrong to avenge it, this serpent is in no wise inferior to a man. The naya is of a dark greenish hue marked with brownish; is hooded like the cobra when it expands itself in rage, but wants the peculiar mark on the back of the neck which characterizes the Asiatic species, and which has been compared to a pair of spectacles. It varies in length from three to five feet, and is one of the deadliest serpents known. The bite produces acute local pain in the first instance; then a sense of deadly sickness; after which the sufferer falls into a comatose state, with convulsive fits, each less violent than the preceding one. In the last of these he dies, usually not many minutes after being struck. Owing to the almost instantaneous dispersion of the poison through the blood, it is not believed that excision could be of the slightest utility; nor is any certain antidote known against the deadly fluid when once in the veins. ASPARAGUS, a genus of perennial plants, of the natural order liliacea and the suborder asparagea, and differing only in the Common Asparagus (Asparagus officinalis). Root. Fruit, Flower, Shoot, and Mature Sprig. a fruit from the asphodeleæ. The genus is distinguished by tuberous root stocks, branching stems, thread-like leaves, jointed pedicels, a 6-parted perianth, small greenishyellow or white flowers, and spherical berry. It embraces 26 species, many of which become hardy shrubs, and climb with their spiny branches as if by tendrils. A few of them are common in the East Indies and around the Mediterranean; most | Athens conferred no rights upon foreign women, and allowed no actually legitimate marriage with them, has given rise to the impression that Aspasia was a courtesan. The many enemies of Pericles, especially the satirists of the time, also conveyed this idea by their attacks, but it seems to have been without foundation; she was held in universal esteem, and her union with Pericles was as close as the Athenian law allowed, and continued through his life. The enemies of Pericles attributed to her influence the outbreak of the war with Samos and of the Peloponnesian war; but the best historians deny this. She is also said with obvious exaggeration to have instructed Pericles in oratory; but it is certain that she assisted him greatly in the government, and that her own eloquence was remarkable. When the Athenians named Pericles the Olympian Zeus, Aspasia was called Hera (Juno). Her house was the resort of all the leading statesmen and philosophers of Athens; and in many of their works her great abilities are celebrated. After the death of Pericles (429) she attached herself to a cattle dealer named Lysicles, whom she instructed in oratory and by her influence raised in position. Her son by Pericles took his father's name, being legitimated by a popular decree, and became a general of high rank. He was put to death with five others in consequence of the unsuccessful result of the battle of Arginusæ (406). ASPEN. See POPLAR. of them are rare and of little importance, and none are natives of America. Of the wild species, the most widely spread are the A. acutifolius and albus, the needle-leaved and the white, the former of which is common in France, Spain, Barbary, and the Levant; the latter is found in the same countries, France excepted, and is remarkable for its white flexuous boughs and green caducous leaves; the young shoots of both are eaten by the Arabs and Moors. The best known member of the genus is A. officinalis, the common or garden asparagus, esteemed as a delicate culinary herb from the time of the ancient Greeks. It is thought to be native both on the shores of England and in rocky and sterile districts in Europe and Asia, and when it has attained its full development is an elegant plant, from 3 to 4 feet high, with numerous branches loaded with fine and delicate leaves, and covered with small, greenish-yellow, bell-shaped, and almost solitary flowers. The young and tender shoots of the plant, cut when but a few inches from the ground, before ramification, are served for the table. It loves a dry, deep, and powerfully manured soil, and is raised from seeds either planted in seed beds in the spring and transplanted the next year, or planted at first where they are to remain. During the first two years the young heads should not be cut; half of them may be cut in the third, and after that the full crop. The supply will begin to diminish after 10 or 12 years. The beds for asparagus are usually about 4 feet broad, and should be manured and trenched at least 24 feet deep. The plants are in rows about a foot apart, and are thinned out till they stand about 6 inches from each other in the row, and in growing a cluster of heads branch from each root. The crop may be reaped as often as it appears, being cut from a little below the surface of the ground; yet the plant degenerates by being cut late in the season. The bed should be annually, in the autumn, replenished with manure, dug in between the rows as deeply as possible without injuring the roots, and covered with pulverized manure, seaweed, or other litter during the winter, as a protection from the frost. Asparagus is easily forced by the use of hotbeds, but the process of transplanting always injures or destroys the roots; and if, instead of transplanting, the bed be covered and the trenches filled with hot dung, which mode is sufficient to forward the crop one or two weeks, ASPHALTUM, or Asphalt (Gr. ǎopɑλтoç), a mixcare must be taken to give the plants time to ture of different hydrocarbons, some of which rest and recover in the later part of the season. contain oxygen, by the majority of chemists and ASPASIA, a Milesian woman who fixed her geologists supposed to be of vegetable origin, residence at Athens about the middle of the while others derive it from the remains of ani5th century B. C. By her great eloquence, mals. It is also called bitumen, mineral pitch, political and literary ability, and personal fas- and Jews' pitch (from Lacus Asphaltites). (See cination, she at once obtained a commanding BITUMEN.) It is more bituminous than the coals, position among the leaders of the state, and and when pure is of the consistence of resin; gained the affection of Pericles so far that he but the consistence varies with the temperaseparated himself from his wife and made As-ture and with the amount of liquid bitumen or pasia his consort as well in private life as in petroleum which may be mixed with it, holdpolitical affairs. The fact that the laws of ing the more solid asphaltum in solution. It ASPERN AND ESSLING, two villages lying about a league apart, on the N. side of the Danube, a short distance below Vienna, which were the principal strategic points in a desperate battle to which they have given a name, fought May 21 and 22, 1809, between Napoleon's army and the Austrians under the archduke Charles. The Austrians attacked while the two bodies of the French force were separated by the river, inflicting a severe defeat, and finally compelling Napoleon to retreat to the island of Lobau. Masséna, who secured the retreat by the defence of Essling, received from it his title of duke of Essling. The Austrian loss was 4,000 killed and 16,000 wounded; Napoleon's loss 8,000 killed and 30,000 wounded. Marshal Lannes was among the mortally wounded. The success of the Austrians was more than counterbalanced soon after by their defeat at Wagram (July 5, 6). ASPHALTITES LACUS. See DEAD SEA. is often intermixed with stony substances, and sometimes even contains 80 per cent. of carbonate of lime. Pure asphaltum is soluble in oil of turpentine, naphtha, and carbonates of the alkalis, but insoluble in water; alcohol dissolves out of it about 5 per cent. of a resinous substance, and ether takes up 20 per cent. of another resin that is not affected by the alcohol. It yields also a volatile oil. The remainder is a substance named by M. Boussingault asphal-water-tight tanks, as a coating for tubes of tene, the composition of which is C20H16O3. Asphaltum burns readily, with a red smoky flame, and leaves no ashes except those due to its impurities. Its specific gravity ranges from 1 to 18; its color is black and dark brown, and it does not soil the fingers. It melts at the temperature of boiling water, and consequently is unfit for use as fuel, and cannot be economically used for gas. Most of the geological formations contain it, but it is particularly common in the secondary and tertiary calcareous and sandy strata. In the primary rocks it is found only in small veins. It is obtained in large quantities on the shores of the Dead sea, rising to the surface, where it forms solid lumps which are thrown on the shore. Some of the other noted localities are a lake on the island of Trinidad, 14 m. in circumference, which is hot at the centre, but is solid and cold toward the shores, and has its borders over a breadth of three fourths of a mile covered with the hardened pitch, with trees flourishing over it. The inhabitants powder the asphaltum and drive it by a blast upon burning coals; thus used it gives out as much heat as an equal weight of the best English coal. It is thrown over bagasse or wood fuel in the manufacture of sugar. At various places in South America are similar lakes, as at Caxatambo and Berengela, Peru, where it is used for pitching boats; in California, near the coast of Santa Barbara. It occurs in smaller quantities, disseminated through shale and sandstone rocks, and occasionally limestones, or collected in cavities or seams in these rocks, in Derbyshire, Cornwall, and the French department of Landes; and at Val de Travers, Neufchâtel, impregnating a bed in the cretaceous formation, and serving as a cement to the rock, which is used for buildings. Grahamite from West Virginia, described by Prof. Wurtz of New York in 1865, resembles asphaltum in its pitch-black lustrous appearance. A rigorous analysis applicable to all asphaltum cannot be given, as each bed may present different results. The following ultimate analyses have been made : Carbon. Hydrogen. Oxyzen. Nitreen. Ash. 1. Bastennes, 78:50 tion of any one of them is not known. They contain volatile oils, heavy oils, resins soluble in alcohol, solids soluble in ether but not in alcohol, other solids not soluble either in alcohol or ether, and nitrogenous substances.Asphaltum was used by the ancient Egyptians in embalming, and appears to have been employed in the construction of the walls of Babylon. It is now used for pavement, for making glass and iron used for conveying gas or water, and for various other purposes of like nature. Asphalt is used in Paris in two different forms: first, the natural rock, unalloyed, with which streets are paved; second, a mixture of asphalt with bitumen and fine gravel for the construction of sidewalks. The rock is found principally at Seyssel and Val de Travers, and is transported to Paris by canal and rail. Pure asphaltic rock is preferred for streets and roads. When this is heated to near 300° F., it crumbles to a mass of brown powder, which when compressed in a mould and allowed to cool recovers its original hardness and appearance. If the hot powder, instead of being placed in a mould, be spread about two inches thick on a hard foundation and pressed or packed by a hot iron pestle or roller and allowed to cool, the surface will immediately solidify, forming a crust identical with the original rock. The discovery of this application was due to accident. Fragments of asphaltum, dropping from the carts which transported it from the quarries along the road, became heated by the sun and were crushed to powder and compacted by the continual passage of carts, until they formed a hard, smooth track. The matter was investigated, and led to the present method of asphaltum road making. The sidewalks of Paris are made of mastic of asphaltum, with an addition of bitumen and fine gravel, and can be more properly described under PAVEMENT.-Artificial Asphaltum is made from bitumen or the refuse tar of the gas house. Coal tar is heated to a degree that renders it hard and brittle; of this 25 parts are mixed with 50 parts slaked lime in fine powder and 75 parts river gravel. These ingredients are thoroughly incorporated in a cast-iron boiler, heated for two hours, and drawn off into moulds. The blocks thus obtained are treated subsequently like mastic of asphalt for sidewalks, except that the temperature is carried higher. Another patent gives the following proportions: Residue of tar containing considerable non-volatile oil, 25 to 50 per cent.; carbonate of lime in dry powder, 50 per cent.; silica and clay, 25 per cent. This is stirred in a boiler over a slow fire for ter hours and run off into moulds. The mineral constituents must be previously strongly heated to expel air and moisture, in order to facilitate the thorough incorporation with the pitch. Artificial asphaltum is used for coating gas pipes to protect them from corrosion; also for sidewalks, roofing, flooring, especially for stables, and water-tight tanks. A concrete prepared of 95 lbs. asphaltum, 5 lbs. bitumen, and 150 lbs. broken stone, has been employed in France for marine constructions. The use of prepared asphaltum in the United States has been largely increased since the discovery of petroleum and of a deposit of a solid hydrocarbon called Grahamite, and also in consequence of the great extension of gas manufacture by which the supply of raw material has become practically inexhaustible. ASPHODEL (asphodelus), a genus of ornamental perennial plants belonging to the natural order liliacea, and to the sub-order asphodelea. They are all natives of the old world, and are found abundantly in Greece, Sicily, Asia, and Barbary. The genus comprises 12 species, all of which have a bulbous root, erect undivided stem, long leaves, and showy flowers arranged in clusters, which in most of the species are spikes. The luteus, or common yellow species, is an old inhabitant of European gardens, into which it was introduced from the shores of the Mediterranean. It is branchless, about 23 feet high, has scattered and almost piliform leaves sheathing the stalk, and flowers of a beautiful golden yellow. It blossoms during six weeks in midsummer. The ramosus, or white and branched asphodel, has a naked stem with ramifications near the summit, each of which is terminated by a spike of white star-shaped flowers having their petals streaked with purple. The ancients had a superstition that the manes of the dead Asphodelus ramosus. were nourished upon its roots, and they therefore planted it in the neighborhood of sepulchres, and made it sacred to Proserpine. It still covers the hills and valleys of Apulia, where it furnishes nourishment to the sheep. The albus, or upright asphodel, differs from the preceding by having a branch less stem, and also by having its flowers a little smaller and nearer together. The other species of asphodel are much less frequently cultivated in gardens. ASPHYXIA (Gr. aoovgía, from à privative and oobs, pulse), literally, a temporary or a final suspension of the motion of the heart, and the pulsation of the arteries. The word is now used exclusively to signify a condition of imperfect or suspended respiration, in which the blood is no longer arterialized by the influence of the air, irrespective of the motion of the heart, which may continue some time after respiration ceases. The immediate baneful effects of the suspension of respiration arise from the privation of oxgen, and from the retention of the carbonic acid previously formed, which becomes a blood poison. If the circulation be disproportionately augumented, carbonic acid is formed, and being morbidly retained, convulsion and death ensue. If the respiration is unduly and disproportionately augumented, the subject is cooled, for mere pulmonary respiration is a cooling process, by the difference of temperaature of the inspired and expired air; and in this case also the subject dies, but now from loss of temperature. This latter is the case in the asphyxiated patient, if the respiratory movements be unduly hastened. On the other hand, if in the asphyxiated we excite the circulation, without simultaneously and proportionately inducing the respiratory movements, we destroy the patient by carbonic acid, formed in the course of that circulation, and uneliminated by respiration. This statement explains the injurious and fatal tendency of the warm bath which was formerly recommended in asphyxia, for it is injurious, and has doubtless of itself proved fatal in cases in which the patient without it would have spontaneously recovered. ASPINWALL, or Colon, a city and seaport of the United States of Colombia, the Atlantic terminus of the Panama railway, situated on the island of Manzanilla in Limon or Navy bay, in lat. 9° 21' 23" N., lon. 79° 53' 52" W., 47 m. by rail N. N. W. of Panama; pop. in 1872, about 6,500. The island of Manzanilla (area, 650 acres) was in 1852 ceded to the railway company for ever. The harbor of Aspinwall is one of the best on the coast. The town was founded by the railway company in 1850, and was originally intended to serve merely as a port of transit; but it has become a centre of supply for many neighboring towns. The office and freight depot of the railway company, the former of brick and the latter a massive stone structure 300 by 80 ft., are the only edifices worthy of note. The railway company's wharf, 40 ft. wide, extends out from the shore upon a coral reef nearly 1,000 ft. The former insalubrity of the place has been in great part remedied by raising its level and by thorough drainage. The port is now (1872) visited monthly by three steamers from New York, four from English, two from German, and two from French ports. ASPLAND, Robert, an English dissenting minister, born in Cambridgeshire, Jan. 23, 1782, died Dec. 30, 1845. In 1799 he entered the university of Aberdeen, but in the following year he resigned his scholarship on account of the change in his theological opinions, which prevented him from remaining longer a beneficiary upon a Calvinistic endowment. For a year or two he tried to occupy himself with trade, but he soon resumed his theological pursuits, and in 1801 was ordained pastor of the General Baptist congregation at Newport, Isle of Wight, with liberty to preach Unitarian doctrines. He was then not 20 years old. In 1805 he was installed pastor of the Gravel Pit chapel, Hackney, where he continued until his death. Mr. Aspland stood for years at the head of the active Unitarian clergy of England. In 1806 he established a religious magazine, the "Monthly Repository," and took the lead in founding the Unitarian fund society for the support of popular preaching and the relief of indigent ministers. In 1815 he established the "Christian Reformer," a monthly magazine of considerable influence. The list of his publications numbers 50, and since his death a volume of sermons and several pamphlets from his pen have been edited by his son. ASPROMONTE, a mountain in the S. W. corner of Italy, near Reggio, celebrated for the battle of Aug. 28, 1862, between the Italian troops under Pallavicini and the volunteers of Garibaldi. The latter, who had crossed over from Sicily to march on Rome, against the warnings of the royal government, was defeated, wounded in the foot, and taken prisoner with the larger portion of his men. ASPROPOTAMO. See ACHELOUS. ASS (equus asinus), the humblest member of the horse family, known to be of eastern origin. He is first mentioned in Genesis, in the history of Abraham, who, when he went down to Egypt on account of the famine in Palestine, found that Pharaoh was possessed of "sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and man servants, and maid servants, and she asses, and camels." At that time, probably, as was the case during all the historic ages of Greece, a species of ass was wild on the mountains of Syria, Asia Minor, and throughout Persia; and in the latter country and Armenia, in the region about the sources of the Tigris and the Euphrates, and the shores of Lake Van, it exists in a state of nature to the present day. Asses are mentioned in Xenophon's Anabasis as occurring in great numbers in parts of Mesopotamia. These animals, which he simply terms wild asses (ovor dyplot, of which words the specific Latin name onager is merely a corruption), were in company with ostriches, antelopes, and bustards; they were eagerly pursued by the horsemen of the army, and are described as being possessed of extraordinary speed and endurance. The wild asses of the same country are still possessed of the same characteristics. They have always been the special quarry of the Persian monarchs, and Nadir Shah was indefatigable in his pursuit of them, and considered the running down of one with his greyhound a feat equal to the winning of a battle or conquering a province. The flesh was considered the most exquisite of venison. The wild ass of Xenophon, and that, probably identical with it, hunted by the shahs of Persia, is presumably the dziggetai, or equus hemionus of Pallas, which, as its specific name (hemionus, half-ass) indicates, possesses as much of the horse as of the ass in its character and qualities. The best breed of ass comes from the hard-hoofed, sure-footed, patient, and enduring animal, as much as it discouraged that of the delicate, fine-limbed, high-bred courser of Syria and Arabia. Lieut. Col. Smith, who has devoted much attention to the equine families of the East, found near Bassorah a breed of white asses, remarkable for their excellence, which he had reason to believe are of a breed as ancient as the time of the kings of Judah.The characteristics of the ass, as distinguishing him from the horse, are: 1, inferiority in size, although doubtless this in European countries is in great part in consequence of centuries of cruel treatment, scanty fare, and want of attention in breeding, the animal having been for ages regarded only as the drudge of the poor; 2, a rougher and more shaggy coat, capable, however, of much improvement by warm keeping and a little grooming; 3, the shortness and stiffness of his pastern joints, and the hard solidity of his sound upright hoofs, which seem almost incapable of lameness, and render him the safest and most surefooted of animals in difficult mountain passes; 4, the extraordinary length of his ears, resembling those of the hare more than those of his own race; 5, the peculiar cross which he bears on his back, formed by a longitudinal dark stripe along the course of the spine, and a transverse bar across the shoulders, which in |