324 AST 
circumbances of the kind might be related from different 
authors, were it not already fufficiently obvious that the 
intellectual faculties of man, when cultivated by ftudy, 
and improved by experience, are capable of attaining a 
very extenfive degree of knowledge and fkill in this art. 
“ It hath been contended, in oppofition to that part of af- 
trological fcience, which determines the bodily forms and 
mental difpofition of the native from the feveral fignificators 
in his own and in his parents’ genethliacal figures, that this 
likenefs or fimilitude in body and temper, is (tamped by the 
energy or idea of the parents in the aft of copulation. Al¬ 
though I am willing to admit this doctrine in part, yet I con¬ 
tend that the primary caufe, which furnifhes that energy or 
motion in the parents, is derived from their refpedtive ligni¬ 
ficators in the heavens ; and that they imprefs their parti¬ 
cular quality in proportion as they happen to be in dignity 
and power at that precife time. If the fignificators of the 
mother are thqn fuperior in force and dignity, the mother’s 
features and difpofition will be mod vifible; if the father’s 
geniture be the broiigeb, the father’s temper and fimili¬ 
tude will be mod predominant in the offspring then begot¬ 
ten ; but, if both their fignificators are equally drong, the 
child then equally participates in the likenefs and difpofi¬ 
tion of both his parents. Let it neverthelefs be remem¬ 
bered, that, however drong the fignificators of both or 
either-of the parents might be, yet thofe proper to the 
foetus, or conceptional matter, invariably take the lead, 
and damp that peculiar form and temperature upon the 
native, which in a great meafure fupplant the fird impref- 
lions given by thofe of the parent, and form a perfon and 
mind effentially differing from both, though with fome 
vediges of hereditary fimilitude. And hence the reafon 
why'fons and daughters more or lefs depart from the da- 
tnre, features, complexion, and temper, of their parents; 
and why no two human beings, in the whole compafs of 
generation, w ere ever yet formed precifely alike ! If, how¬ 
ever, the man lives, who can fairly and completely refute 
thefe arguments, he thall have my thanks and my applaufe. 
And I will add, in the. emphatic words of an unrivalled 
author, that ‘ my heart is already with hitn.’ I am wil¬ 
ling to be converted. I admire his morality, and would 
gladly fubferibe to the articles of his faith. Grateful, as 
I am to the wood Being whole bounty has imparted to me 
this reafoning intelieif, I hold myfelf proportionably in¬ 
debted to him, from whole enlightened underbanding ano¬ 
ther ray of knowledge communicates to mine. But neither 
fhould I think the mod exalted faculties of the human 
mind a gift worthy of the Divinity, nor any abidance, in 
the improvement of them, a fubjeCt of gratitude to my 
fellow creature, if I were not fatisfied, that really to in¬ 
form the underdanding, correfts and enlarges the heart.” 
Thofe who are defirous of further information in this 
abdrufe enquiry, are referred to Dr. Sibly’s Work on the 
Occult Sciences, 2 vols. qto. who l’eems to have colledfed 
and explained the intereding parts of all the ancient wri¬ 
tings on adrology, whole works are now either wholly out 
of print, or extremely fcarce and valuable. 
Astro i. 00 y is deferibed, in painting and fculpture, as a 
woman crowned w ith bars, having pn a rich vedment em¬ 
broidered with the fame, a fun upon her bread, in her 
rio-ht hand a feeptre, and in her leti a ccelefiial globe ; at 
her feet an eagle. 
ASTRO'NIUM,/ [a?TO rov iic-lpovy from a dar, on ac¬ 
count of the radiated form ot rh.e calyx.] In botany, a 
rreims of the clafs dioecia, order pentandria. The_generic 
charactersare— 1 . Male. Calyx : perianthium five-leaved, 
coloured, (mail ; leaflets ovate, concave, obtufe, fpread- 
j iv ,r. Corolla: petals five, ovate, very obtufe, fiat, fpread- 
j n o very much ; nedlary five, roundifh, very (mall glands 
hi°the dilk of the flower. Stamina : filaments five, fubu- 
late, (pleading, the length of the corolla ; anthers oblong, 
incumbent. II. Female. Calyx : perianthium five-leaved, 
coloured ; leaflets oblong, concave, obtufe, converging. 
Corolla : petals, five, Innovate, obtufe, concave, erect, 
Pel's than the calyx, permanent. Piltillum : germ ovate, 
ebtule ; dyles three, fhort, reflex ; ftigmas fubcapitate. 
AST 
Pericarpium: none; calyx increafed, coloured; its leaflets 
at fird expanded into a pendulous dar, at length dropping 
the feed. Seeds: one, oval, the length of the calyx, lac- 
tefeent.— EJJcntiat CharaEler. Male. Calyx, five leaved ; 
corolla, five-petalled ; dyles, three ; feed one. 
There is but one fpecies, called adronium graveolens. 
It is an upright tree, ft >m twelve to thirty feet in height, 
abounding every wht m-a fi j ftly glutinous terebinthine 
juice, which has a d’ greeable fmell. After the fruits in 
the female and the flowers in the male plant have fallen 
ob', new branches are put forth, having unequally pinnate 
leaves on them, with three pairs of leaflets, which are 
oblong-ovate, acuminate, quite entire or lerrulate, fmootli, 
veined, three inches in length. Panicles lax, half a foot 
long in the males, but a foot and-a half long in the females, 
(battered on the outmofl twigs. Flowers fmall, red. The 
calyxes are expanded into dars nine lines in diameter. Na¬ 
tive of woods about Carthagena in New Spain ; flowering 
in May and June, and fruiting in July. 
ASTRON'OMER,yi \_aJlronome , Fr. ajlronomus , Fat. of 
aerj-pov, a dar, and kj^oc, Gr. a law.] One that dudies the 
celedial motious, and the rules by which they are go¬ 
verned. 
ASTRONO'MIC or Astrono'mical, adj. Belonging 
to adronomy, — Our forefathers marking certain mutations 
to happen in the fun’s progrefs through the zodiac, regif- 
trate and fet them down in their agronomical canons. Brown. 
ASTRONO'MICAL CA'LENDAR, an indrument 
engraved on copper plates, printed on paper, and pabed 
on a board, with a brafs Aider carrying a hair : it (hews 
by infpection the fun’s meridian altitude, right afeenfion, 
declination, riling, fetting, amplitude, See. to a greater 
degree of exaCtnefs than the common globes. 
Astronomical Hours, are Rich as are accounted 
from noon or midnight of one natural day to noon or 
midnight of another. 
Astronomical Observations. Of thefe there are 
records, or mention, in almod all ages. It is faid that 
the Chinefe have obfervations for a courfe of many thou- 
fand years. But of thefe, as well as thofe of the Indians, 
we have never yet had any benefit. But the abronomical 
obfervations of mod of the other ancients, as Babylonians, 
Greeks, &c. amongd which thole of Hipparchus make a 
principal figure, are carefully preferved by Ptolemy, in h 13 
Almaged. About the year SSo, Albategni, a Saracen, 
applied himfelf to the making of obfervations ; in which 
he was followed by others of the fame nation, as well as 
Periians and Tartars ; among whom were Naflir-Eddin- 
Ettufi, Arzachel, who alio conlhubted a table of fines, 
and Ulug Beigh. In 1457 Regiomontanus undertook the 
province at Norirnberg ; and his difciples, J. Werner and 
Ber. Walther, continued the fame from 1475 t0 1504. 
Their obfervations were publifhed together in 1544. In 
1509, Copernicus, and after him the landgrave of HefTe, 
with his adidants Rothman and Byrge, obferved ; and af¬ 
ter them Tycho Brahe, aflided by the celebrated Kepler, 
from 1582 to 1601. All the foreging obfervations, toge¬ 
ther with Tycho’s apparatus of inbruments', are contained 
in the Hidoria Coeledis, publifhed in 1672, by order of 
the emperor Ferdinand. In 1651, was publifhed at B6- 
nonia, by Ricciolus, Almagedum Novum, being a com¬ 
plete body of ancient and modern obfervations, which he 
fo named after the work of the fame nature by Ptolemy. 
—Soon after, Hevelius, with a magnificent and well-con-, 
trived apparatus of inbruments, deferibed in his Machina 
Cceledis, began a courfe of obfervations. It has been ob¬ 
jected to him, that he only ufed plain fights, and could 
never be brought to take the advantage of telefcopic ones; 
which occationed Dr. Hook to write aniinadv-erfions on He- 
velitis’s inbruments, printed in 1674, in w hich-he tooralhly 
defpifes them, on account of their inaccuracy : but Dr. 
Halley, who at the indance of the Royal Society went 
over to Dantzick in the year 1679, to infpect his indru- 
1 merits, approved of their jubnefs, as well as of the obfer¬ 
vations made with them. Our two countrymen Jer. Horrox 
and Will. Crabtree, are celebrated for their obfervations 
from 
