Asch (a˙sh), a town of Czecho-Slovakia, in the extreme north-western corner of former Bohemia, with manufactures of cotton, woollen, and silk goods, bleachfields, dyeworks, &c. Pop. 21,583.
Aschaffenburg (a˙-sha˙f´en-börh), a town of Bavaria, on the Main and Aschaff, 26 miles E.S.E. of Frankfort. The chief edifice is the castle of Johannisberg, built between 1605 and 1614, and for centuries the summer residence of the Elector. There are manufactures of coloured paper, tobacco, liqueurs, &c. Pop. 29,891.
Ascham (as´kam), Roger, a learned Englishman, born in 1515 of a respectable family in Yorkshire, died 1568. He was entered at St. John's College, Cambridge, 1530, and was elected fellow in 1534 and tutor in 1537. He was Latin secretary to Edward VI and also to Mary. He was tutor to Princess Elizabeth during her girlhood, and he became her secretary after she ascended the throne. In 1544 he wrote his Toxophilus, or Schole of Shooting, in praise of his favourite amusement and exercise—archery. Between 1563 and 1568 he wrote his Scholemaster, a treatise on the best method of teaching children Latin. Some of his writings, including many letters, were in Latin. He wrote the best English style of his time. His life was written by Dr. Johnson to accompany an edition of his works published in 1769.
Aschersleben (a˙sh´ėrz-lā-ben), a town of Prussian Saxony, in the district of Magdeburg,
near the junction of the Eine with the Wipper. Industries: woollens, machinery and metal goods, sugar, paper, &c. Pop. 28,968.
Ascid´ia (Gr. askos, a wine-skin), the name given to the 'Sea-squirts' or main section of the Tunicata, a class of animals of low grade, resembling a double-necked bottle, of a leathery or gristly nature, found at low-water mark on the sea-beach, and dredged from deep water attached to stones, shells, and fixed objects. One of the prominent openings admits the food and the water required in respiration, the other is the excretory aperture. A single ganglion represents the nervous system, placed between the two apertures. Male and female reproductive organs exist in each ascidian. They pass through peculiar phases of development, the young ascidian appearing like a tadpole-body. They may be single or simple, social or compound. In social ascidians the peduncles of a number of individuals are united into a common tubular stem, with a partial common circulation of blood. In these animals evolutionists see a link between the Mollusca and the Vertebrata.
1, Perophora: a, mouth; b, vent; c, intestinal canal; d, stomach; e, common tubular stem. 2, Ascidia echinata. 3, Ascidia virginea. 4, Cynthia quadrangularis. 5, Botryllus violaceus.
Asclepliada´ceæ, an order of gamopetalous Dicotyledons, the distinguishing characteristic of which is that the anthers adhere to the five stigmatic processes, the whole sexual apparatus forming a single mass. The pollination arrangements are peculiar, recalling those of orchids. The members of this order are shrubs, or sometimes herbaceous plants, occasionally climbing, almost always with a milky juice. Many of them are employed as purgatives, diaphoretics, tonics, and febrifuges, and others as articles of food. Asclepias is the typical genus. See Asclepias, Calotropis, Stapelia, Stephanotis.
Ascle´piades (-dēz), the name of a number of ancient Greek writers—poets, grammarians, &c—of whom little is known, and also of several ancient physicians, the most celebrated of whom was Asclepiades, of Bithynia, who acquired considerable repute at Rome about the beginning of the first century B.C.