Part 41 (1/2)
AS'TEROIDS, or Planetoids, small planets in orbits between those of Mars and Jupiter, surmised in 1596, all discovered in the present century, the first on Jan. 1, 1801, and named Ceres; gradually found to number more than 200.
AS'TI (33), an ancient city in Piedmont, on the Tanaro, 26 m. SE.
from Turin, with a Gothic cathedral; is noted for its wine; birthplace of Alfieri.
ASTLEY, PHILIP, a famous equestrian and circus manager, along with Franconi established the Cirque Olympique in Paris (1742-1814).
ASTOLFO, a knight-errant in mediaeval legend who generous-heartedly is always to do greater feats than he can perform; in ”Orlando Furioso”
he brings back Orlando's lost wits in a phial from the moon, and possesses a horn that with a blast can discomfit armies.
ASTON, LUISE, German auth.o.r.ess, championed the rights of women, and went about in male attire; _b_. 1820.
ASTON MANOR (54), a suburb of Birmingham.
ASTOR, JOHN JACOB, a millionaire, son of a German peasant, who made a fortune of four millions in America by trading in furs (1763-1848). His son doubled his fortune; known as the ”landlord of New York” (1792-1875).
ASTOR, WILLIAM WALDORF, son of the preceding, devoted to politics; came to London, 1891; became proprietor of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ and _Budget_ in 1893; _b_. 1848.
ASTO'RIA, in Oregon, a fur-trading station, with numerous salmon-tinning establishments.
ASTRae'A, the daughter of Zeus and Themis, the G.o.ddess of justice; dwelt among men during the Golden Age, but left the earth on its decline, and her sister Pudicitia along with her, the withdrawal explained to mean the vanis.h.i.+ng of the ideal from the life of man on the earth; now placed among the stars under the name of Virgo.
ASTRaeA REDUX, the name given to an era which piques itself on the return of the reign of justice to the earth.
AS'TRAKHAN (43), a Russian trading town on the Volga, 40 m. from its mouth in the Caspian Sea, of which it is the chief port.
ASTRAL BODY, an ethereal body believed by the theosophists to invest the animal, to correspond to it, and to be capable of BILOCATION (q. v.)
ASTRAL SPIRITS, spirits believed to animate or to people the heavenly bodies, to whom wors.h.i.+p was paid, and to hover unembodied through s.p.a.ce exercising demonic influence on embodied spirits.
ASTROLOGY, a science founded on a presumed connection between the heavenly bodies and human destiny as more or less affected by them, a science at one time believed in by men of such intelligence as Tacitus and Kepler, and few great families at one time but had an astrologer attached to them to read the horoscope of any new member of the house.
ASTRUC, JEAN, a French physician and professor of medicine in Paris, now noted as having discovered that the book of Genesis consists of Elohistic and Jehovistic portions, and who by this discovery founded the modern school called of the Higher Criticism (1681-1766).