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to the Ladies. 2. An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex. 3.Letters concerning the Love of God . 4. Essays upon Marriage,Crosses in Love , and Friendship. 5. Moderation truly stated.C. 'Fhe Christian Religion, as professed by a daughter of theChurch of England . 7. Bart’lemey Fair, or an inquiry after wit;and some other works.

ASTER, in botany, Starwort: a genus of the polygamiasuper-flua order, and syngenoaia class of plants ; natural order, Compo-site discoides. Calyx imbricated, common ; corolla radiated ;receptacle naked, flatfish; seeds solitary, oblong, ovate ; pappussimple, capillary. There are fit) species.

ASTERABAD, a province in the north-east part of Persia ,on the south of the Caspian Sea . Also the chief town of theabove province, 200 miles north of Ispahan . Lon. 53. 35. E. Lat.36. 50. N.

ASTERIA, a gem, usually called the cat’s eye, or oculuscati. It is a very singular and very beautiful stone, and some-what approaches to the nature of the opal, in having a bright in-cluded colour, which seems to be lodged deep in Lhe body of thestone, anti shifts about, as it is moved, in various directions : butit differs from the opal in all other particulars, especially in itswant of the great variety of colours seen in that gem, and in itssuperior hardness. It is usually found between the size of a peaand the breadth of a sixpence ; is almost always of a semicircularform, broad and Hat at the bottom, and rounded and convex atthe top; and it is naturally smooth and polished.

Asteria, is also an extraneous fossil, called in English the star-stone. These fossils are small, short, angular, or falcated co-lumns, between one and two inches long, and seldom above athird of an inch in diameter: composed of several regular joints ;when separated, each resembles a radiated star. They are, notwithout reason, supposed to he a part o some sea-fish petrified,probably the aslevias or sea-star. The asteria is also called Astrites,Astroites, and Asteriscus. They may be reduced to two kinds: thosewhose whole bodies make the form of a star; and those w hich in thewhole are irregular, but are adorned as it were with constellations inthe parts. Dr'. Lister, for distinction’s sake, gives the name asteriaonly to the former sort, distinguishing the latter by the appellationof astroites; other naturalists generally use the two indiscriminately.

ASTERIAS, Star-fish, or Sea-star, a genus of the classand order vermes molltisca. Bo ly depressed, covered with a co-riaceous crust, muricate, with tentacula, and grooved beneath ;mouth central, five-rayed. There are more than 40 species, allinhabitants of the sea, and are marked with a rough, white, stonyspot above : they easily renew parts which have been lost by vio-lence, and fix themselves to the bottom by swimming on theback, and bending the rays. 'Fhe tentacula resemble the horns ofsnails, but serve the animal to walk with. The fossil world has beengreatly enriched by the fragments and remains of the severalpieces" of star-fish which have been converted into stones. Mostof the species are found in our seas. A. glacialis is/delineated inPlate V.

Astf.rion, in astronomy, one of (he Canes Venatici.

ASTEROIDS , [front «r>i», star, and form,] in astrono-my, a name given by Dr. Ilevschel to the new planets, Ceres,Juno, Pallas, and Vesta, lately discovered. From the observationsalready made on these bodies, they appear to partake of the seve-ral properties by which the planets’ in general are known and de-scribed; and therefore, with justice, some astronomers have ob-jected to this new term: And besides it is by no means an ap-propriate term, for an asteroid from its derivation, denotes “Abody resembling the fixed stars.”

ASTHMA. [wr3>ia,] a frequent, difficult, and short respira-tion, joined with a hissing sound and a cough, especially in thenight-time, and when the body is in a prone posture; becausethen the contents of the lower belly bear so against the dia-phragm, as to lessen the capacity of the breast, whereby thelun^s have less room to move. An asthma is the inflation of themembranes of the lungs, and of the membranes covering themuscles of the thorax. See Medicine.

ASTI, a city and county of Montserrat in Italy , 15 miles S.W.of Cassel.

ASTIER, St. a town of France, in the department of Dor-dogne .

AST1GI, in ancient geography, a colony, and conventus ju-ridicus, qf Bretica.

vol. 1,—no. 17.

ASTOIIGA, a very ancient city of Spain , in the kingdom ofLeon, 150 miles N.W. of Madrid . Eon. 6. 20.W, Lat. 42 . 30. N.

AS F RAGAN. a province of Russia , and the most easterlypart of Europe ; bounded on the nortii by Bulgaria and Baskiria ;on the south by die Caspian sea; on the west by the Volga, whichdivides itirom the Nagayan Tartars and Don Cossacks ; and on theeast by the great ridge of mountains which separate it from Great'l’artary. The province extends from 46’’ to 52° north Lat. Thesummer is long, and intensely hot: the winter continues aboutthree months so severe, that the Volga is frozen hard'enough tohear loaded sledges. 'Fhe soil is rich and fertile ; but the Tartars who inhabit it are strangers to agricullure. On the western andsouthern sides of the Volga are heaths of a prodigious extent,sandy, desert, and uncultivated; these, however, produce vastquantities of line transparent salt in pits, where the sun bakes andincrustatcs it tollie thickness of an inch on the surface of the water.

1 litre are pits in the neighbourhood of Astracan which yield thisexcellent salt in such abundance, that any person may carry it off,paying at the rate of one farthing a poost which is equal to 4011).

Astracan, the metropolis ct the above province, on an islandcalled Dolgoi, about 60 English miles above the mouth of theVolga . The city derives its name from Iladgee Tarkee, a Tar-tar, by whom it was founded. The number of inhabitants amountsto ;0,000, including Armenians, Tartars, and a few Persians andIndians. Long. 47. 40. E. Lat. 46. 22. X.

AS FILEA, the sign Virgo, by others called Erigon, and some-times Isis..

Astr,ea, in the mythology, the goddess of justice, and thedaughter of Jupiter by Themis ; or as others have it, by Nemesis,the goddess of vengeance. The poets ieign that Astwva quittedheaven to reside on earth, in the golden age ; but, growing wearyof the iniquities of mankind, she left the earth, and returned toheaven, where she commenced a constellation of stars, and fromher orb still looks down on the ways of men.

ASTRAGAL, the ankle, or ankle-bone,] inarchi.

tecture, a little round moulding, which in the orders surrounds thetop of the shaft or body of theYolumn. It is also called the talonand toiulino; it is used at the bottoms as well as the tops of co-lumns, and on other occasions; it properly represents a ring, onwhatever part of a column it is plaeecf; and the original idea ofit was that of a circle of iron put round the trunk of a tree,used to support an edifice to prevent its splitting. The astragal isoften cut into beads and berries, and is used in the ornamented en-tablatures to separate the several faces of the architrave. See Ar-ch ITECTUK F..

Astragal, in gunnery, a round moulding encompassing a can-non, about half a foot from its mouth.

ASTRAGALOMANCV, [from argnyaxo;, and divi-

nation,] a species of divination performed by throwing small pie-ces, with marks corresponding to the letters of the alphabet; theaccidental disposition of which formed the answer required. Thiskind of divination was practised in a temple of Hercules, inAehaia. >

ASTRAGALUS, fin anatomy. See Anatomy.

Astragalus, in botany, Milk-vetch, or Liquorice vetch;A genus of the dccandria order, and diadelphia class ; natural or-der, Papilionacxxc : flower papilionaceous; pod gibbous, bilocu-lar; seeds kidney-shaped, disposed in two rows. There are 173species. A. Communis, the common species, grows wild upon dryuncultivated places, and is recommended by Mr. Anderson to becultivated as proper food for cattle. See Husbandry. A. Traga-cantha is a thorny bush growing in Crete, Asia, and Greece , whichyields the gum tragacantli. This is of so strong a body, that adrachm of it will give a pint of water the consistence of a syrup,which a whole ounce of gum Arabic is scarcely sufficient to do.Hence its use in forming troches, and the like purposes, in prefer-ence to the other gums.

ASTRANT1A, Masterwort: A genus of the digynia or-der, and pentandria class of plants; natiual order, Umbellatie. In-volucrum lanceolated, open, equal, and coloured. The speciesare five.

ASTRARIAS IIjeres, [from astre, old French , a hearth,] isused in our old writers where the ancestor, by conveyance, hathset his heir-apparent, and his family in a house, in his lifetime.

ASTRICTION, [from astringn to bind, Lat.] in medicine,the operation of astringent medicines.

3 Y ASTRINGENT,