Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/738

676 flexible and regular than in either of the above. Their colour is brown or a dirty white. Mountain leather is in thin flexible sheets, and mountain cork is so named from being not unlike common cork, and so light as to swim on water. It is found in Lanarkshire. (4.) Mountain wood is a soft, tough, opaque, brownish-coloured variety of asbestos, much heavier than the last, and melting to a black slag before the blow-pipe. It is found in Tyrol, in Dauphiny, and in Scotland at Glen Tilt, Portsoy, and Kildrummy. It has been often proposed to employ asbestos in the manufacture of fireproof goods, and it was at one time thought that an important industry would grow out of this application. In early times the art of weaving ami- anthine cloth was its chief application, and was much valued. It was accomplished by weaving the fibres along with those of flax, and then heating the cloth in a furnace to destroy the flax. It is said that Charlemagne had an amiarithine tablecloth, which he used to have thrown into the fire after dinner for the astonishment of his guests. Chevalier Aldini, of Milan, is said to have had a complete dress cap, gloves, tunic, and stockings made of asbestos cloth, and to have made very successful experiments with it by way of testing its protective power for firemen. Advantage has also been taken of its qualities for the per formance of clever tricks of fire-handling. Paper has been manufactured from asbestos, and would prove invaluable, in case of fire, for charters and other important documents, were it not that the paper is rather tender for use, and that the writing disappears after a red heat. Its feeble consistency has proved the chief obstacle to its use in textile fabrics. More success has attended its employment for fireproof roofing and flooring, for non-conducting en velopes of steam pipes, and for the packing in fireproof safes. Lately it has been proposed to use it for piston- packing in steam engines, it having been found to exceed in durability any material hitherto employed a matter of importance, especially in the case of marine engines that have to be at work night and day on long voyages.  ASCALON, now, one of the five chief cities of the Philistines, on the coast of the Mediterranean, 12 geographical miles N. of Gaza. It was a well-fortified town, and the seat of the worship of Derceto. Though situated in the nominal territory of the tribe of Judah, it was never for any length of time in the possession of the Israelites. After the fall of the Macedonian empire, it became, like the rest of Phoenicia, tributary alternately to Syria and Egypt. Herod the Great was a native of the city, and added greatly to its beauty ; but it suffered severely in the later wars of the Romans and Jews. It again became a flourishing and important place, and from the 4th to the 7th century was the seat of a bishopric. During the first Crusade a signal victory was gained by the Christians in the neighbouring plain on the 15th August 1099 ; but the city remained in the hands of the caliphs till 1157, when it was taken by Baldwin III., king of Jerusalem, after a siege of five months. By Baldwin IV. it was given to his sister Sibylla, on her marriage with William of Montferrat in 1178. When Saladin (1187) had almost annihilated the Christian army in the plain of Tiberias, Ascalon offered but a feeble resistance to the victor. At first he repaired and strengthened its fortifications, but afterwards, alarmed at the capture of St Jean d Acre by Richard Coeur de Lion in 1191, caused it to be dismantled. It was again restored in the following year by the English king, but only again to be abandoned. From this time Ascalon lost much of its importance, and at length, in 1270, its fortifications were totally destroyed by Sultan Bibars, and its port filled up with stones. The place is now a desolate heap of ruins, with remains of its walls and fragments of granite pillars.  ASCENSION, a solitary island in the Atlantic Ocean, in lat. 7 56 S. and long. 14 24 AY., about 7 A- miles in length and G in breadth, with an area of 34 square miles, and within the immediate influence of the south-east trade- wind. It is one of the peaks of a submarine ridge which separates the northern and southern basins of the Atlan tic. The whole character of the island is volcanic, and its surface is broken into mountains, hills, and ravines. To wards the south-east, the Green Mountain, the highest in the island, rises 2870 feet above the level of the sea, while the plains or table-lands surrounding it vary in height from 1200 to 2000 feet. On the north side they sweep gradu ally down towards the shore ; but, on the south, they terminate in bold and lofty precipices. Steep and rugged ravines intersect the plains, opening into small bays or coves on the shore, fenced with masses of compact and cellular lava ; and all over the island are found the usual products of volcanic action. The chief productions of the island are green vegetables. Ascension has long been noted for the abundance of turtle and turtle eggs found on its shores, the season lasting from December to May or June. The coasts abound with a variety of fish of excel lent quality, of which the most important are the rock-cod, the cavalha, the conger- eel, and the &quot;soldier.&quot; The wild ani mals are guinea-fowl, goats, cats, rats, and land-crabs; but the goats have been almost exterminated to make way for sheep and cattle. The air is clear and light, and the climate remarkably healthy. The island was discovered by the Portuguese navigator, Juan de Nova, on Ascension day 1501; but remained uninhabited till after the arrival of Napoleon at St Helena (1815), when it was taken possession of by the British Government. The garrison, with their retainers, resided in George Town, on the north-west coast, which is. abundantly supplied with fresh water from a magnificent cistern capable of containing 1700 tons of water, supplied by means of iron pipes from springs in the Green Moun tain, G miles distant, which were reached by boring in 1830. Ascension is found useful as a station and rendez vous for the vessels employed on the coasts of Africa and Brazil ; and letters were formerly often left by passing ships in a crevice in one of the rocks. Population, about 500. (See Darwin's Observations on Volcanic Islands and A Naturalist's Voyage.)  ASCENSION DAY, a festival of the church, held forty days after Easter, or ten days before Whit Sunday, in memory of Christ's ascension into heaven forty days after his resurrection.  ASCETICISM, from Greek acr/c^cris, meaning the exercise or training to which the athletes subjected them selves when preparing for the games or contests, is used metaphorically to denote the habitual practice of exercising restraint over, or subduing, the bodily desires and affections which tend to lower objects, in order thereby to advance in the higher life of purity and virtue. It is the means by which the mind withdraws itself from the hindrances and temptations of the world, and clears its vision for what is spiritual and true. In its lowest stage it consists in the mortification of the flesh by fasting, penance, and the like ; but in a higher sense it involves the uprooting of all worldly or temporal desires, and withdrawal from the natural relations of life. The origin of such a peculiar aspect of thought or mode of action is to be found in the wide-spread idea, not wholly Oriental, that in Unity or Identity alone is true goodness and happiness, while in Multiplicity or Difference is evil and misery. Unity is but the abstract expression for God, the Absolute, or Spirit, and Multiplicity for Matter, in which both Orientals and Greeks thought to find the origin of evil. Now, in man exist both spirit, which is the shadow of or emana tion from the divine, and the body, with its various desires 