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ASHOKAN BESEBVOIR 294 ASIA and later dean of the faculty of com- merce in the University of Birmingham. He has published numerous books on economic subjects. ASHOKAN RESERVOIR. See AQUiJ- DUCT. ASKRAF, a town in the Persian prov- ince of Mazanderan, near the S. coast of the Caspian Sea, 56 miles W. of Astrabad. It was a favorite residence of Shah Abbas the Great, and was adorned by him with splendid buildings, of which only a few miserable ruins now remain. It still contains over 800 houses, and has some trade in the cotton and silk produced in its vicinity. ASHTABULA, a city in Ashtabula co., 0., on Lake Erie, and several important railroads; 55 miles N. E. of Cleveland. It is in an agricultural and dairy region, and has an excellent harbor where the river of the same name enters the lake. The city is noteworthy for the facts that it receives the largest amount of iron ore of any port in the United States, and the amount of its shipment of the same is surpassed by few on the Great Lakes. Its extensive railroad and lake communi- cations give it a special importance in the industrial world, as it stands be- tween the great coal and iron mining regions and the extensive manufacturing districts of Pennsylvania. There are numerous industrial establishments and a large dry dock and ship-building plant. Pop. (1910) 18,266; (1920) 22,082. ASHTORETH (ash'to-ret), ASTA- ROTH or ASTARTE, a goddess wor- shipped by the Jews in times when idol- atry prevailed; the principal female di- vinity of the Phoenicians, as Baal was the principal male divinity. Ashtoreth is the Astarte of the Greeks and Romans, and is identified by ancient writers with the goddess Venus (Aphrodite). She is probably the same as the Isis of the Egyptians, and closely connected with the Asherah of Scripture; Ashtoreth be- ing, according to Berthau, the name of the goddess, and Asherah the name of her image or symbol. In Scripture, she is almost always joined with Baal, and is called god, Scripture having no par- ticular word for expressing goddess. She was the goddess of the moon ; her temples generally accompanied those of the sun; while bloody sacrifices or human victims were offered to Baal, bread, liquors, and perfumes were presented to Astarte. ASHURST, HENRY FOUNTAIN, United States Senator from Arizona. He was born in Winnemucca, Nev., in 1875, was educated in the public schools and took special courses in law and polit- ical economy at the University of Michi- gan. He began the practice of law in Arizona in 1897. In the same year he was a member of the Arizona Legisla- ture and was successfully re-elected, serving as speaker in 1898. He was district attorney of Coconino co., Ari- zona in 1905-1906 and again in 1907- 1908, and was elected United States Senator in 1913 and re-elected in 1917. ASH WEDNESDAY, the first day of Lent, so called from a custom in the Western Church of sprinkling ashes that day on the heads of penitents, then ad- mitted to penance. The period at which the fast of Ash Wednesday was insti- tuted is uncertain. ASIA, the largest of the land divisions of the world, occupies the northern portion of the Eastern Hemisphere in the form of a massive continent, which extends beyond the Arctic circle, and by its southern peninsulas nearly reaches the equator. The origin of its name remains unknown. Europe and Asia constitute but one continent, extending from W. to E., and having the shape of an immense triangle, the angles of which are Spain in the W., the peninsula of the Tchuktchis in the N. E., and that of Malacca in the S. E. The Arctic Ocean in the N., the Pacific in the E., and the Indian Ocean, continued by its narrow gulf, the Red Sea, which nearly reaches the Mediter- ranean, inclose the continent of Asia. The area covered by Asia and its islands is 17,255,890 square miles; that is, al- most exactly one-third of the land surface of the globe (32 per cent). Geographi- cally speaking, Europe is a mere ap- pendix to Asia, and no exact geographi- cal delimitation of the two continents is possible. Peninsulas. — -Asia has one mile of coast- line for every 337 square miles of its area; that is, three times less than Eu- rope; besides one-fifth of its shores is washed by the ice-bound Arctic Ocean (9,900 miles out of 51,000), or by the foggy and icy Sea of Okhotsk. Its pen- insulas comprise nearly one-fifth of its surface. Three immense offsets continue the continent of Asia into more tropical latitudes, Arabia, India, and the Indo- Chinese peninsula, and some likeness exists between them and the three southern peninsulas of Europei, Spain, Italy, and the Balkan peninsula, sur- rounded by its archipelago of hundreds of islands. Asia Minor protrudes be- tween the Black Sea and the Mediter- ranean as a huge mass of table-land, broken by narrow gulfs in its western parts. In the Pacific are three large