OF ARTS AND BCIENCES. 339 



As far as I have observed, the height of the shaft compared with the total 

 height of the column (including plinth and abacus) is greater in A. than in B., 

 — .78 in the former, from .61 to .70 in the latter. 



A more decided difference between the two groups — -one quite justified by 

 the proportions of the natural types — is found in measuring the height of the 

 shaft by its greatest (not lower) diameter. In A., the shaft-height is about 5.50 

 diameters; in B., never more than 3.95, and seldom more than 3.40. 



No general statement can be made about the diminution of the shaft; for, 

 although A. and B. 1 are strongly distinguished, — the one giving the ratio 1 in 

 21, the other quite invariably 1 in 15, — B. 2 is utterly lawless in this respect, 

 oscillating from 1 in 57 to 1 in 9. This shift from uniformity to the lack of it 

 seems to signify that, although the difference in types between A. and B. was 

 distinctly understood at first, when B. 2 was designed, only the outlines of B. 1 

 were remembered, while its mathematical properties were usually forgotten. 



Plinth. — Before we proceed with the upper parts of the column, the 

 plinth demands a few words. In its simplest, and indeed almost only- 

 form, it is a circular elevation of the floor, a frustum of a cone or hemi- 

 sphere. Sometimes the lower edge is slightly under-cut, but so rarely 

 that the succision may be considered a purely fanciful alteration, a 

 sort of decoration.* Hence it will be enough to suggest the probable 

 significance of the simple form. 



If we bear in mind that these columns represent bundles of plants, 

 may we not surmise that this wide basis, so totally unlike the Greek 

 plinth, is a conventional- symbol for the artificially modified mass of 

 clay in which the stalks are conceived to be standing? May it not be 

 that the Egyptian artist in imagination — as nurserymen not infre- 

 quently do in practice — reduced the earth around the plants to which 

 he wished to call attention to a smooth surface, leaving immediately 

 about the stems, however, a circular platform to serve as a kind of 

 pedestal? The applicability of this lwpothesis is greatest in the case 

 of the papyrus columns with their constricted shafts, by which both the 

 difference in nature between shaft and plinth, and the unity between 

 plinth and floor are unmistakably affirmed. The hypothesis, further- 

 more, seems to be fully confirmed by various bas-reliefs, where the earth 

 in which actual plants are pictured as growing is symbolized by pre- 

 cisely such a rounded platform.f The plants are conventionalized after 

 the genuine Egyptian fashion ; why may not the ground be conven- 

 tional also? At all events, this plinth was evidently felt to be of the 

 nature of a pedestal quite separate from the shaft, and commissioned 

 mainly to raise it into greater prominence and stronger individuality. 



* Description, ii. 4; Schnaase, Gesch. d. bild. Kiinste, i. 331. 

 t Lepsius, i. 80, — two square pillars with three plants on each. 



