among geographers, an appellation given to those inhabitants of the earth who, at certain seasons of the year, have no shadow; such are all the inhabitants of the torrid zone, when the sun is verticle to them.

ASCITÆ (from æxæ, a bag or bottle), in antiquity, a sect or branch of Montanists, who appeared in the second century. They were so called, because they introduced a kind of Bacchanals into their assemblies, who danced round a bag or skin blowed up; saying, they were those new bottles filled with new wine whereof our Saviour makes mention, Matth. ix. 17.—They are sometimes also called Æcodrogiæ.