SAL AMMONIAC, a volatile salt, of which there are two kinds, ancient and modern. The ancient sort, described by Pliny and Dioscorides, was a native salt, generated in those large inns or caravanseras, where the crowd of pilgrims, coming from the temple of Jupiter Ammon, used to lodge; who, in those parts, traveling upon camels, and those creatures when in Cyrene, a province of Egypt, where that celebrated temple stood, urining in the stables, or (say some) in the parched sands, out of this urine, which is remarkably strong, arose a kind of salt, denominated sometimes, from the temple, Ammoniac, and sometimes, from the country, Cyreniac. Since the cessation of these pilgrimages, no more of this salt is produced there; and, from this deficiency, some suspect there never was any such thing: But this suspicion is removed, by the large quantities of a salt, nearly of the same nature, thrown out by mount Ætna. The characters of the ancient sal ammo-
Ammonite niac are, that it cools water, turns aqua fortis into aqua regia, and consequently dissolves gold.
Amomum. The modern sal ammoniac is entirely fictitious; for which, see CHEMISTRY, no 125, 189, 232, 234, 276, 331.