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 vertical to them.

ASCITÆ (from ἀσκεῖν, 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 Bacchomals into their assemblies, who danced round a skin or bag blown up, saying they were those new bottles filled with new wine whereof our Saviour makes mention, Matth. ix. 17. They are sometimes also called Ascodrogiae.