ASPATHA
474
ASPHAR
by Sanscrit authors, and it may therefore have easily form (1 one of the early articles of commerce from the E ist to the West, together with nard, costus, and lycium from these mountains.— Kitto, s. v. See Spicehy.
As'patha (Heh. Aspatha', xriQOX, prob. San- scrit Aspadata, given by a horse, i. e. by Brahmah in the form of a horse [comp. the Persian name 'Acnra,- ddrijc or 'Arnraaic., Diod. Sic. ii, 33] ; Sept. <Paayd, etc.), the third of the sons of Hainan slain by the Jews of Babylonia (Esth. ix, 7). B.C. 473.
Aspergillum or Aspersorium, the brush or mop from which holy water (q. v.) is sprinkled in the Roman Church.
Aspersion, (1.) a name given by the early writers to baptism by pouring or sprinkling. See Baptism.
(2.) In the Roman Church, sprinkling of person or things with the so-called holy water is called " asper- sion." The water is mixed with salt, and blessed by a given form of benediction for use in the church or at the altar. — Boissonnet, Diet, des Ceremonies, p. 105. See Holy Water.
Asphaltites. See Dead Sea.
Asphaltum is probably the substance denoted by the Heb. ""ICtt, chemar' ; Arab, chomar (Sept- ua- <l>a\Tog, Auth. Vers. " slime," Gen. xi, 3 ; xiv, 10 ; Exod. ii, 3, where Luther, like the modern rabbins, translates by "clay"). The Hebrew and Arabic names probably refer to the reddish color of some of the specimens (Dioscorides, i, 99). (The Greek name, whence the Latin asphaltum, has doubtless given name to the Lake Asphaltites [Dead Sea], whence it was abundantly obtained.) Usually, however, asphal- tum, or compact bitumen, is of a shining black color; it is solid and brittle, with a conchoidal fracture, alto- gether not unlike common pitch. Its specific gravity is from 1 to 1.6, and it consists chiefly of bituminous oil, hydrogen gas, and charcoal. It is found partly as a solid dry fos.il, intermixed in layers of plaster, marl, or slate, and partly as liquid tar flowing from cavities in rocks or in the earth, or swimming upon the surface of lakes or natural wells (Burckhardt, ii, 77). To judge from Gen. xiv, 10, mines of asphaltum must have existed formerly on the spot where subse- quently the Dead Sea, or Lake Asphaltites, was form- ed, such as Mariti (Travels, iv, 27) discovered on the western shore of that sea. The Palestine earth-pitch, however, seems to have had the preference over all the other sorts (Plin. xxviii, 23 ; Discor. i, 100). It was used among the ancients partly for covering boats, paying the bottoms of vessels (comp. "Nicbuhr, ii, 336 ; Cen. vi, 14; Exod. ii, 3; Josephus, War, iv, 8, 4; Buckingham, Mesopot. p. 346), and partly as a substi- tute for mortar in buildings; and it is thought that tli.' bricks of which the walls of Babylon were built (Km. xi, 3; Strabo, xvi, 743; Herod, i, 179; Plin. xxxv, 51; Ammian. Marcell. xxiii, fi; Virtruv. viii, .".: comp. Josephus, Ant. i, 4, :;) had been cemented with hot bitumen, which imparted to them great solid- ity. In ancient Babylon asphaltum was made use of also lor fuel, as the environs (in the place called 7s or //</, Bee D'Herbelot, Bibl. Orient, s. v. Hit) have from
11 arlies( 'i""1- been renowned for the abundance of
,'"t substance (Diod. Sicii, 12; Herod, i, 179; Dion. Cass. Ixvffi, 26; Strabo, xiv, 8, 4 ; Plut. Alex. c. 35; Theodoret, Quaest. in Genes. 50; Ritter, Erdk. ii 345- Buckingham, Mesopot. p. 346). Neither were the an- cient -leu- unacquainted with the medicinal properties "t that mineral (Josephus, War, iv, 8, 4). Asphaltum f" al8° U8ed an«>ng the ancient Egyptians for em- balming the dead. Strabo (xvi) and many other an- cient and modern writers assert that only the asphalt of the Dead Sea was used for that purpose; but it has 1,1 """'■' recenl times been proved, from experiments mad.' on mummies, that tin' Egyptians employed slag- gy mineral pitch in embalming the dead. This opera-
tion was performed in three different ways: first, with slangy mineral pitch alone; second, with a mixture of this bitumen and a liquor extracted from the cedar, called cedoria ; and third, with a similar mixture, to which resinous and aromatic substances were added (Hatty, Mineral, ii, 315). See Bitumen.
Asphaltum is found in masses on the shore of the Dead Sea, or floating on the surface of its waters. Dr. Shaw (Travels in Barbai-y and the Levant) was told that this bitumen, for which the Dead Sea is so famous, rises at certain times from the bottom of the sea in large pieces of semi-globular form, which, as soon as the}' touch the surface and the external air operates upon them, burst asunder in a thousand pieces with a terrible crash, like the pulcis fulminans of the chemists. This, however, he continues, only occurs along the shore ; for in deep water it is supposed that these erup- tions show themselves in large columns of smoke, which are often seen to rise from the lake. The fact of the ascending smoke has been much questioned by natu- ralists ; and although apparently confirmed by the tes- timonies of various travellers, collected 1 y Bi'isching in his Erdbeschreibung, it is not established by the more observant travellers of recent years. Pococke (De- scription of the East, etc., ii, 46) presumes that the thick clumps of asphalt collected at the bottom of the lake have been brought up by subterranean fire, and afterward melted by the agitation of the waters. Also Strabo (xvi, 764) speaks of subterraneous fires in those parts (comp. Burckhardt, Syria, 394). Dr. Robinson, when in the neighborhood, heard from the natives the same story which had previously been told to Seetzen and Burckhardt, namely, that the asphaltum" flows down the face of a precipice on the eastern shore of the lake until a large mass is collected, when, from its weight or some shock, it breaks off and falls into tli3 sea (Seetzen, in Zaeh's Monatl. Correspond, xviii, 441 ; Burckhardt, p. 394; Robinson, ii, 229). This, how- ever, he strong!}' doubts for assigned reasons, and it is agreed that nothing of the kind occurs on the west- ern shore. He rather inclines to receive the testimony of the local Arabs, who affirm that the bitumen only appears after earthquakes. They allege that after the earthquake of 1834 huge quantities of it were cast upon the shore, of which the Jehalin Arabs alone took about 60 kuntars (each of 98 lbs.) to market; and it was cor- roboratiyely recollected by the Rev. Eli Smith that a large amount had that year been purchased at Beirut by the Frank merchants. There was another earth- quake on January 1, 1837, and soon after a large mass of asphaltum (compared by one person to an island, and by another to a house) was discovered floating on the sea, and was driven aground on the western side near Usduni. The neighboring Arabs assembled, cut it up with axes, removed it by camel loads, and sold it at the rate of four piastres the rutl, or pound ; the product is said to have been about $3000. Except dur- ing these two years, the sheik of the Jehalin, a man fifty years old, had never known bitumen appear in the sea, nor heard of it from his fathers (Robinson's Bib. Researches, ii, 230). This information may serve to illustrate the account of Josephus that "the sea in man}- places sends up black masses of asphaltum, which float on the surface, having the form and size of head- less oxen" (War, ix, 8, 4); and that of Diodorus (ii, 48), who states that the bitumen is thrown up in mass- es, covering sometimes two or three plethra, and hav- ing the appearance of islands. — Kitto, s. v. See Pitch.