ASTRAGAL (from the Gr. ἀστράγαλος, the ankle-joint), an architectural term for a convex moulding. This term is generally applied to small mouldings, “torus” (q.v.) to large ones of the same form. The Lesbian astragal referred to by Vitruvius, bk. iv. ch. vi., was in all probability an astragal carved with a bead and reel enrichment.
ASTRAKHAN, a government of S.E. Russia, on the lower Volga, bounded N. by the governments of Samara and Saratov, W. by Saratov and the government of the Don Cossacks, S. by Stavropol and Terek, and E. by the Caspian Sea and the government of the Urals. Area, 91,327 sq. m., of which 6730 sq. m. belong to the delta of the Volga and its brackish lagoons, and 62,290 sq. m. are covered by the Kalmuck and Kirghiz Steppes. The surface is a low-lying plain, except that in the west the Ergeni Hills (500-575 ft.) form the water-parting between the Volga basin and that of the Don. The climate is very hot and dry, the average temperature for the year being 50° Fahr., for January 21°, and for July 78°, rainfall 7.3 in., but often there is no rain at all in the summer. Pop. (1897) 1,005,460, of whom 132,383 were urban. The Kalmucks (138,580 in 1897) and Kirghiz (260,000) are semi-nomads. In addition to them the population includes nearly 44,000 Tatars, 4270 Armenians, with Poles and Jews. Fishing off the mouth of the Volga gives occupation to 50,000 persons; the fish, chiefly herrings and sturgeon, together with the caviare prepared from the latter, are sold for the most part at Nizhniy-Novgorod. Over 300,000 tons of salt are extracted annually from the lakes, principally those of Baskunchak and Elton. Cattle-breeding is an important industry. Market-gardening (mustard, water-melons, fruit) is on the increase; but pure agriculture is relatively not much developed. The government is divided into five districts, the chief towns of which are Astrakhan, Enotayevsk (pop. 2810 in 1897), Krasnyi-yar (4680), Chernyi-yar (5140), and Tsarev (8900). The Kalmucks and Kirghiz have their own local administrations, and so have the Astrakhan Cossacks (25,600).
ASTRAKHAN, a town of E. Russia, capital of the government of Astrakhan, on the left bank of the main channel of the Volga, 50 m. from the Caspian Sea, in 46° 21′ N. lat. and 48° 5′ E. long. Since the growth of the petroleum industry of Baku and the construction of the Transcaspian railway, Astrakhan has become an important commercial centre, exporting fish, caviare, sugar, metals, naphtha, cottons and woollens, and importing grain, cotton, fruit and timber, to the aggregate value of £8,250,000 with foreign countries and of £14,500,000 with the interior of Russia. The town gives its name to the “fur” called “astrakhan,” the skin of the new-born Persian lamb, and so to an imitation in rough woollen cloth. There is some tanning, shipbuilding and brewing, and making of soap, tar and machinery. Astrakhan is the chief port on the Caspian Sea and the headquarters of the Russian Caspian fleet. The city consists of (1) the kreml or citadel (1550), crowning a hill, on which stand also the spacious brick cathedral containing the tombs of two Georgian princes, the archbishop’s palace and the monastery of the Trinity; (2) the Byelogorod or White Town, containing the administrative offices and the bazaars; and (3) the suburbs, where most of the population resides. The buildings in the first two quarters are of stone, in the third of wood, irregularly arranged along unpaved, dirty streets. The city is the see of a Greek Catholic archbishop and of an Armenian archbishop, and contains a Lamaist monastery, as well as technical schools, an ichthyological museum, the Peter museum, with ethnographical, archaeological and natural history collections, a botanical garden, an ecclesiastical seminary, and good squares and public gardens, one of which is adorned with a statue (1884) of Alexander II. Vineyards surround the city. Astrakhan was anciently the capital of a Tatar state, and stood some 7 m. farther north. After this was destroyed by the Mongol prince Timur the Great in 1395, the existing city was built. The Tatars were expelled about 1554 by Ivan IV. of Russia. In 1569 the city was besieged by the Turks, but they were defeated with great slaughter by the Russians. In 1670 it was seized by the rebel Stenka Razin; early in the following century Peter the Great constructed here a shipbuilding yard and made Astrakhan the base for his hostilities against Persia, and later in the same century Catherine II. accorded the city important industrial privileges. In 1702, 1718 and 1767, it suffered severely from fires; in 1719 was plundered by the Persians; and in 1830 the cholera swept away a large number of its people. In the middle ages the city was known also as Jitarkhan and Ginterkhan. Pop. (1867) 47,839; (1900) 121,580. Eight miles above Astrakhan, on the right bank of the Volga, are the ruins of two ancient cities superimposed one upon the other. In the upper, which may represent the city of Balanjar (Balansar, Belenjer), have been found gold and silver coins struck by Mongol rulers, as well as ornaments in the same metals. The older and scantier underlying ruins are supposed to be those of the once large and prosperous city of Itil or Atel (Etel, Idl) of the Arab geographers, a residence of the khan of the Khazars, destroyed by the Russians in 969.
(P. A. K.)
ASTROLABE (from Gr. ἄστρον, star, and λαβῖν, to take), an instrument used not only for stellar, but for solar and lunar altitude-taking. The principle of the astrolabe is explained in fig. 2. There were two kinds,—spherical and planispheric. The earliest forms were “armillae” and spherical. Gradually, from Eratosthenes to Tycho, Hipparchus playing the most important part among ancient astronomers, the complex astrolabe was evolved, large specimens being among the chief observatory instruments of the 15th, 16th and even 17th centuries; while small ones were in use among travellers and learned men, not only for astronomical, but for astrological and topographical purposes. Nearly every one of the modern instruments used for the observations of physical astronomy is a part of the perfected astrolabe. A collection of circles such as is the armillary sphere, if each circle were fitted with a view-tube, might be considered a complete astrolabe. Tycho’s armillae were astrolabes. In fact the modern equatorial, and the altitude and azimuth circle are astrolabes in the strictest and oldest meaning of the term; and Tycho in one of his astrolabes came so near the modern equatorial that it may be taken as the first of the kind.
Plate.