further enhanced by the construction of the Trans-Caspian Railway, make Astrakhan one of the most important commercial centres of Russia and the entrepôt for goods exchanged between Russia and Western Europe on the one hand, and Persia, Bokhara, Khiva, and other Middle Asiatic countries on the other. The chief articles of import from the East are gold, embroidered silken goods, silk stuffs, woolen goods, raw silk, rice, rhubarb, and drugs. The exports include cotton, linen, leather, paper, dry-goods, glass, paints, salt, and sugar. The annual value of the imports and exports is about 68,000,000 rubles (about $34,000,000). The industries do not show much progress and include chiefly the manufac- ture of silk goods, leather, paper, soap, and brick. There are over 70 docks, accommodating more than 4000 ships annually. The fisheries in the Volga employ a great number of the inhabitants of Astrakhan. The town gives its name also to a fine quality of fur, the product of a variety of sheep found in Bokhara, Persia, and Syria. There are many charitable institutions and hospitals. Population, in 1888, 73,700; in 1897, 113,000, including about 12,000 Tartars, 6000 Armenians, and 1000 Jews. Astrakhan was important during the Middle Ages. For several centuries it was in the hands of the Tartars, and did not come into undisputed possession of Russia until 1554.
AS'TRAL SPIR'ITS. In ancient Oriental
and Greek religious systems, the spirits which
animated and controlled the heavenly bodies (Gk.
HaTpa, asira). When these notions, possibly
handed down by the Gnostics, passed into the
demonology of the Middle Ages, the astral spirits
were sometimes adapted into fallen angels — the
transition being easy from the general belief that
angels personally directed all physical manifesta-
tions, such as thunder-storms; sometimes they
were conceived of as the souls of departed men,
sometimes as spirits originating in fire, and
hovering between heaven, earth, and hell, without
belonging to any one of these provinces. Para-
celsus and others attributed to every human be-
ing an astral spirit or sidereal element in which
the human soul, or spirit proper, is thought to
inhere, and which lives for a time after the per-
son dies.
ASTREE, as'tra'. A novel. See Urfé.
ASTRIN'GENTS (Lat. ad, to + stringere,
to bind fast, tight). Medicines which cause con-
traction of tissues, and thus prevent excessive
discharges of blood, mucus, and other secretions.
They are used to arrest diarrhœa, hemorrhage,
and discharges from mucous membranes. They
act locally, although some claim that gallic acid
is a remote astringent, tending to check hemor-
rhage in any part of the body when given by
mouth. Astringents are of two classes, vege-
table and mineral. The most important of the
first class are: tannic and gallic acids derived
from nut-gall, rhatany, catechu, kino, logwood,
and white-oak bark. Mineral astringents include
nitrate of silver, the sulphates of copper, zinc,
and iron, chloride of iron, acetate of lead, alum,
sulphuric, nitric, and hydrochloric acids.
AS'TROCAR'YUM (Gk. oarpov, astron, star + K(i/ji'(ii', karyon, nut: referring to the arrangement of the fruits) . A genus of palms, of which about thirty species are known, natives of tropical America, remarkable for the abundance of
acute and formidable spines, in some cases a
foot long, with which almost every part — stem,
leaves, spathe, and fruit-stalk — is armed. They
have beautiful pinnated leaves; some of them are
lofty, others are of very moderate height, as 8
to 15 feet, while some are almost or altogether
stemless, as Astrocaryum acaule, the lu palm.
The fruit of some species is eatable — a juicy
pulp covering a stony seed — as the fruit of the Murumurú palm (Astrocaryum murumurú), the pulp of which is said to resemble a melon in flavor, has a sort of musky odor, and is highly esteemed. It is a palm only about 8 to 12 feet high, abundant about Pará and elsewhere on the Amazon. Cattle roam the forests in quest of its fruit, and swine fatten on the seed, which they crush with their teeth, although in hardness it almost resembles vegetable ivory. Another edible fruit is that of the Tucumá palm (Astrocaryum tucuma), abundant in the same regions. These fruits are about an inch long, the Murumurú ovate, the Tucumá almost globular. The Tucumá palm is 30 to 40 feet high, the stem encircled with narrow rings of black spines, which are disposed with beautiful regularity. The Tucum palm (Astrocaryum vulgare), a species quite distinct from the Tucumá, and more lofty, is of great importance to the Indians, and in places where it is not indigenous is cultivated with care for the sake of the epidermis of its unopened leaves, of which they make cordage, very useful for bowstrings, fishing-nets, etc. The fibre is at once fine, strong, and durable, and may yet perhaps become important as an article of commerce. Beautiful hammocks are made of Tucum thread, which are sold at about $15 each, or, if ornamented with feather-work borders, at twice that sum. Martius, in his great work on palms, has, by mistake, represented the Tucumá instead of the Tucum palm as yielding this fibre. (See Wallace, Palm Trees of the Amazon [London, 1853].) The fibre is obtained by cutting down the terminal bud or column of unopened leaves which rises from the centre of the crown of foliage. The tender leaflets are then carefully stripped of their epidermis, in pale, ribbon-like pellicles, which shrivel up almost to a thread. These are tied in bundles and dried, and are afterwards twisted into thread, or made into thicker cords, by mere rolling and manipulation. The mature leaves yield a coarser fibre, which varies considerably with the different species. It is used for cordage, and the split stems of the new leaves are braided into hats and baskets.
AS'TROLABE (Gk. dtr-poAo/Jov, astrolabon,
star-taker ). The name given by the Greeks to any circular instrument for observing the stars. Circular rings, arranged as in the armillary sphere, were used for this purpose. A projection of the sphere upon a plane, with a graduated rim and sights for taking altitudes, was known as an astrolabe in the palmy days of astrology, and was the badge of the astrologer. The astrolabe has been superseded by the more perfect instruments of modern astronomy.
ASTROLABE, The, or The Conclusions of. A fragmentary prose treatise by Chaucer, written probably in 1301, for the instruction of his son Lew is. It is an English rendering, from a Latin copy, of a work by the Arabian astronomer, Messahala.
ASTROL'OGY (Gk. aarpov, astron, star + 7.6-) oc, logos, science). The term meant originally much the same as astronomy, 'the knowl-
