Page 127 : ASTORIA — ASTRONOMY
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his brother, a maker of musical instruments. In 1783 he sailed to America, and invested his small capital in furs, and after six years, by economy and industry, he had acquired a fortune of $250,000. He now sent out two expeditions to the Oregon territory, one by land and one by sea, to open a regular trade with the natives, and in 1811 established the fur-trading station of Astoria. From this time Astor’s ships were found in every sea. He died in New York in 1848, leaving property estimated at $20,000,000, and a bequest of $450,000 in all to found the Astor library in New York. His great grandson, John Jacob Astor, perished in the Titanic disaster (q. v.).
Astoria (as-to′ri-a), originally a fur-trading station in Oregon, on the left bank of the Columbia River, founded by the Pacific Fur Company in 1811 and named from its chief proprietor, John Jacob Astor. It was a main issue in the American claim to Oregon. It is now very extensively engaged in the canning of salmon, there being about fifty large salmon-tinning establishments in the neighborhood, in which thousands of men are employed in the fishing and packing season. Washington Irving has told the story of the beginnings of Astoria, in his book of that name. Population 9,599.
Astor Library, The, New York, now embraced in the New York Public Library, was founded under the will of John Jacob Astor, who left $450,000 for a public library in the city of New York. This munificent sum was increased subsequently to a million by gifts from his son and grandsons, one of whom, Wm. Waldorf Astor in 1882–85 was United States minister to Italy. Among the first trustees appointed by Mr. Astor himself were Washington Irving and Fitz-Greene Halleck. The library was opened in 1854 with 90,000 volumes. In 1895 it had about 300,000 volumes. In some departments, as oriental languages, it is unsurpassed by any library in the country. The Astor library was in 1895 consolidated with the Lenox library, and, with the Tilden bequest, is now housed in the New York Public Library, situated in Bryant Park, 5th avenue and 42nd street. See New York Public Library.
Astrakhan (ăs-trà-kăn′), a government in the southeast of European Russia; area 91,042 square miles; population, 1,005,460. It is watered by the Volga and washed by the Caspian Sea. The climate is severe, and the population is noticeable for the number of its nationalities. For the government of Astrakhan a reformed tribunal, but without jury, was introduced in 1894, when a reformed system of justice was organized for other departmental districts of Russia.
Astrakhan, its capital and one of the chief towns of Russia, is built on a high island in the Volga, forty-one miles from its mouth. It is surrounded by fruit trees and vineyards, and consists of the fortress, the white town and sixteen suburbs. A canal runs through the city. The population, 121,580, consists of Russians, Armenians, Tartars and Persians. Astrakhan is the principal harbor on the Caspian Sea, and its great markets every year attract many thousands of merchants, while its three bazars are among the busiest marts in Europe or Asia. Its fisheries rank among the greatest in the world. Enormous numbers of sturgeon are taken. The industries are shipbuilding, dyeing, silk-making, tallow-melting, oil-refining and soap-making. Almost the entire commerce with Persia and Transcausasia passes through the city. The main imports are wheat, barley, woolen stuffs, spirits, iron, tin, drugs, raw silk and cotton fabrics.
Astrol′ogy, the so-called science of predicting events by means of the positions of the heavenly bodies. It is one of the oldest of the sciences, being found among the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Hindus and other eastern nations at the very beginning of history. It made its way to the western nations of Europe, and reached its height of popularity in the 14th and 15th centuries, when chairs of astrology were established in some of the European universities. Bacon, Napier, Kepler and other scientists of their period believed to some extent in astrology, and Wallenstein, the great general of the Thirty Years′ War, believed in it implicitly. With the acceptance of the Copernican system and the growth of science, the belief in astrology has almost died out.
Astron′omy. There is a certain sense in which the history of each science extends back into the early periods of antiquity, and even into the prehistoric past. But in this respect astronomy has a history which is unparalleled, except possibly by that of mathematics and of medicine; for the earliest men were astronomical observers. The seasons could not be determined, the sea could not be navigated, and geography could not be written without considerable knowledge of the stars and their motions. The result is that astronomy was in a very advanced state as early as the time of Thales (640–546 B.C.); and more than a century before the Christian era it was an astonishingly complete and well-systematized science, a result mainly due to the observations of Hipparchus and to the systematic treatment of Claudius Ptolemy.
At this period the Greeks were familiar with the uniform motion of the fixed stars, and the variable motion of the planets; they knew how to measure latitude and longitude and how to compute eclipses; they had not only determined the fact of the precession of the equinoxes, but had
