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 6 ASHFORD which frequently accompanies the eruption of a volcano. Quantities of matter resembling fine gray or black ashes are thrown aloft from the crater to prodigious heights, and borne by the winds to an astonishing distance. On the eruption of the volcano Tomboro, in the island of Sumbawa, east of Java, in the year 1815, a shower of ashes fell for 19 hours in succession. An English cruiser, 100 m. away from the island, was surrounded by the cloud, and re- ceived from it an addition to its freight of several tons' weight, and a Malayan ship was covered 3 feet deep. The ashes fell upon the islands of Amboyna and Banda, the latter 800 m. to the eastward, and this apparently in the face of the S. E. monsoon, which was then blowing, but really carried by a counter cur- rent, the existence of which in the higher re- gions of the atmosphere was then first estab- lished. A similar phenomenon was observed in the eruption, in January, 1835, of the vol- cano Ooseguina, on the S. side of the gulf of Fonseca in Guatemala. Its ashes were carried to the eastward, over the current of the trade winds, and fell at Truxillo, on the shores of the gulf of Mexico. Ashes from Etna were deposited in Malta in 1329 ; and in A. D. 79 the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, which had 16 years before been visited by an earthquake, were buried beneath the showers which fell from the neighboring volcano of Vesuvius. Volcanic ash is a mechanical mixture of min- erals and rocks abraded by trituration against each other, and consequently exhibits great difference of structure and composition. Not being a product of combustion, it can hardly be called a true ash. ASHFORD, a town of Kent, England, 45 m. S. E. of London; pop. 5,500. It has damask manufactories, and the population is' rapidly increasing in consequence of the favorable situation of the town at the junction of three railroad lines. AS11L Al>. I. A N. E. county of Ohio ; area, 340 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 21,933. It is crossed by the Ohio and Pennsylvania and the Pitts- burgh, Fort Wayne, and Chicago railroads. Its surface is hilly and undulating, and the soil is of unsurpassed fertility. In 1870 the county produced 467,684 bushels of wheat, 537,798 of Indian corn, 551,245 of oats, 117,416 of pota- toes, 83,674 tons of hay, 344,187 Ibs. of wool, 668,473 of butter, 418,011 of cheese, 733,855 of flax, and 110,742 of maple sugar. Capital, Ashland. II. A new N. W. county of Wis- consin, bounded N. by Lake Superior, and separated on the N. E. from Michigan by the Montreal river ; area, about 1,500 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 221. The county is drained in its southern portion by affluents of the Chippewa river. Iron ore is found in a ridge called Iron mountain, which is 1,200 feet high. ASIILEY, a S. E. county of Arkansas, border- ing on Louisiana, bounded W. by the Sabine and Washita rivers, and intersected in the west by Bayou Bartholomew ; area, 870 sq. m. ; pop. ASHMUN in 1870, 8,042, of whom 3,764 were colored. The surface is undulating and highly fertile. In 1870 the county produced 201,905 bushels of Indian corn, 34,269 of sweet potatoes, and 7,856 bales of cotton. Capital, Fountain Hill. ASOMOLE, Elias, an English antiquary, found- er of the Ashmolean museum at Oxford, born in Lichfield, May 23, 1617, died in London, May 18, 1692. He was a chancery solicitor. In the civil war he quitted London and settled at Oxford, adopted the royalist cause and be- came captain in Lord Ashley's regiment of horse, and after the battle of Worcester with- drew to Cheshire. On the restoration Charles II. bestowed upon him the offices of Windsor herald, commissioner of excise, and secretary of Surinam, with other appointments. He was for a tune the intimate associate of the astrol- ogers and alchemists Lilly, Booker, Sir Jonas Moore, and Wharton, and in 1650 translated and published Dr. Dee's Fasciculus Chymicus and Arcanum (on the Hermetic philosophy, &c.). He compiled a collection of the various unpublished writers on chemistry, which in 1652 he published under the title of Theatriim Chymicum Britannicum. In 1658 he an- nounced that he had abandoned astrology and alchemy in his "Way to Bliss," a treatise on the philosopher's stone. In 1650 he had made a catalogue of the coins in the Bodleian libra- ry, and in 1659 obtained from the younger Tradescant the museum of coins and curiosi- ties which he and his father had collected at their house in Lambeth. In 1672 he presented to the king a history of the order of the gar- ter, for which he received a grant of 400. He was also the author of " History and An- tiquities of Berkshire," and of an autobiogra- phy. In 1679 his chambers in the Temple were burned, and the greater part of his library, with 9,000 ancient and modern coins, de- stroyed. The rest of his valuable collection of coins was presented to the university of Oxford, which prepared a suitable building for them in 1682. His books were transferred to the same institution according to his will. ASHMl, Jehndi, agent of the American col- onization society, horn, in Champlain, N. Y., in April, 1794, died in New Haven, Conn., Aug. 25, 1828. He graduated at Burlington college in 1816, and after preparing for the ministry was chosen a professor in the theologi- cal seminary at Bangor. Removing soon after to the District of Columbia, he engaged in the service of the colonization society, at first as editor of a monthly journal, but sailed for Af- rica, June 19, 1822, to take charge of a reen- forcement for the colony of Liberia. Upon his arrival he found himself called upon to act as the supreme head of a small and disorgan- ized community surrounded by enemies. In a short time he reanimated the spirit of the col- onists, and restored their discipline. Three months after his arrival, by the aid of some fortifications he had constructed, and his own extraordinary bravery and conduct, they re-