Ammoniac. A gum-resin, used medicinally in certain plasters. It is obtained from the Dorema ammoniacum, an umbelliferous plant found in Persia and Turkestan. The gum is made by drying the milky juice of the plant. It occurs in commerce either in tears, or in masses formed of them, but mixed with impurities. It is whitish, becoming yellow by exposure to the atmosphere, is softened by the heat of the hand, and has a peculiar heavy smell and a bitter taste.
AM'MONI'ACAL COP'PER CAR'BONATE. See Fungicides.
AM'MONITE (Derived from ammonia). A trade name of a product rich in nitrogen (thirteen to fourteen per cent.), obtained largely from rendering establishments where different portions of dead animals are subjected to treatment — usually drying and extracting the fat by means of steam. The product is also obtained in considerable quantities from beef-extract factories. It is a high-grade, nitrogenous fertilizer, practically identical with the "dried meat or meal," "animal matter," or "azotin," found on the market as a fertilizer. See article Fertilizers.
AMMONITES. A people allied to the Mo-
abites. and also (though in a minor degree) to
the Hebrews, whose settlements were on the
edge of the Syrian Desert. According to Genesis
(xix : 38) they were descendants of Ben-Ammi,
the son of Lot," and while this account is fanciful,
there is no reason to doubt the relationship
implied between Ammonites and Moabites. The
Ammonites inhabited the country east of the
.Jordan, between the rivers Arnon and Jabbok,
i.e., the desert country east of Gad. Their chief
city was Rabbath Amnion (Deuteronomy iii : 11:
Ezekiel xxi : 20), known as Philadelphia in the
Greek occupation. The relations between the
Ammonites and the Hebrews were almost contin-
uously hostile. Jephthah defeated them with
great" slaughter (Judges xi : 4-33: xii : 28 may
be a later interpolation) : they were also over-
come by Saul (I. Samuel xi : Ml), and by
David (II. Samuel xii : 26-31). After the king-
dom was divided, the Ammonites attacked Gil-
ead, perhaps together with the Assyrians (II.
Kings XV : 29: I. Chronicles v : 26), for which
they are denounced by the prophets Amos
i:i3), Zephaniah (xxviii, xxix), Jeremiah
(xlix : 1-7), and Ezekiel (xxi : 28-32). In the
davs of Jehoshaphat, the Ammonites made an
abortive attempt to attack Judah (II. Chronicles
XX : 1-30). and later they were defeated by King
Jotham (II. Chronicles' xxvii:.5). .fter the
captivity they recommenced their feuds with
the Jew"s (Ne'hemiah iv : 1-15), but in the days
of .ludas Maccabseus the Ammonites, together
with their Syrian allies, were thoroughly routed
by the Jews (I. Maccabeus v : 6). Justin
Martyr affirms that in his day (about 150 A.n.)
the -Ammonites were still numerous. The chief
deity worshipped by the Ammonites was Milcom,
which signifies "king" (I. Kings xi : 3. 7-33),
who bore the same relation to his subjects as
Chemosh did to the Moabites and Yahweh to the
Hebrews. He was the natural protector to whom
the people looked for succor in distress. Of the
rites of the Ammonites we know nothing beyond
the prejudiced references in the writings of the
Hebrew prophets, but the supposition seems
reasonable that the worship was similar to that
of the Moabites as well as to that of the Hebrews
in the early stages of their history. The Am-
monitisli language, likewise, was practically iden-
tical with Moabitish and ancient Hebrew, the
differences between them being merely of a dia-
lectical order. See the commentaries on Genesis
xix : 38. Dillmann, Delitzsch, Gunkel, and Hol-
zinger.
AMMONITES, am'o-ni'tez. A generic name
given by Lamarck and L. von Buch to a group of
tetrabranchiate cephalopod shells found in the
Mesozoic rocks of Europe. A still earlier name
applied to them by the alchemists and others of
the Middle Ages was Cornu Ammonis, from a
fancied resemblance to the horns of Zeus
Amnion. The term Ammonites lias, as a generic
name, fallen into disuse, for more recent re-
searches have shown that Von Bueh's name in-
cluded a large array of species that present
characters not only of a generic but also of
family rank. The name is, however, still ussd
in a loose way to distinguisli those Mesozoic
cephalopods, with complicated suture lines, from
the Palfeozoie Goniatites with more simple su-
tures. Von Bueh's three genera, Ammonites,
Ceratites, and Goniatites, with their numerous
species, have been broken up into a host of new
generic terms, about fifty in number, and these
latter have been grouped into about ninety fam-
ilies, all of which are included in the order Am-
monoidea. For the structure of the shell, the dis-
tribution of the species, and the geological his-
tory of the group, see Cephalopoda.
AMMO'NIUM (From ammonia), NH,. A
chemical radicle composed of one atom of nitro-
gen and four atoms of hydrogen. This radicle
or atomic group, acts like the monovalent ele-
ments, sodium and potassium, and is contained
in ammoniacal salts. An amalgam, too, has
been obtained in which it exists in direct com-
bination with mercury. Ammonium amalgam
is a pasty, lustrous, met<al-like substance formed
by passing an electric current through ammoni-
um chloride in contact with mercury. It is an
unstable body, which readily decomposes, giving
off ammonia and hydrogen.
AMMO'NIUM. See Siwah.
AMMO'NIUS (Gk. 'A/i/iuvmc, Ammonios).
An Alexandrian philosopher of the third century A.D., surnamed Saccas (sack-carrier), because, as it is said, he had been a porter in his youth. He was of Christian parentage, but according to his most eminent pupil, Plotinus, his studies led him to abandon Christianity for the old Greek religion; this is denied, however, by Eusebius and St. Jerome. Longinus says that as a philosopher he surpassed all his contemporaries; his teaching was directed chiefly toward harmonizing the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle, and through his disciples he became the founder of the Neo-Platonic school of philosophy. Among his pupils were Origen, the Neo-Platonist, Origen the Christian, Longinus, Herennius, Theodosius, Antoninus, and Plotinus. Ammonius left no writings, but his esoteric teachings were spread by Origen and Herennius, and especially by Plotinus.
Ammonius was the name of several other learned men in the later periods of Greek history: Ammonius, a Peripatetic philosopher of the first century, the teacher of Plutarch; Ammonius, a Christian philosopher at Alexandria in the third century, who wrote a work on the
