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cal, its upper broad flat surface perforated with se- 

 veral holes, opening into as many cells. Each cell 

 contains the rudiment of a seed, protruding through 

 the orifice, and crowned with an oblong, obtuse, 

 perforated, yellow, permanent stigma. The whole 

 germen becomes a coriaceous entire capsule, which 

 in process of time separates from the stalk, laden 

 with ripe oval nuts, and floats down the water. The 

 nuts vegetating, it becomes a cornucopia of young 

 sprouting plants, which at length break loose from 

 their confinement, and take root in the mud. This 

 peculiar mode of propagation has evidently occa- 

 sioned the plant, in conjunction with water, to be 

 adopted as the symbol of fertility, in which point of 

 view it has, from the remotest antiquity, been con- 

 sidered with religious veneration in India, and 

 makes a conspicuous figure in the mythology of 

 that ancient country. It is most generally known 

 to the learned of Europe under the name of Lotus ; 

 the natives of Hindustan call it TamarA; the people 

 of Ceylon Nelumbo. It has been confounded by 

 very able writers, even lately, with the Lotus of 

 Egypt, NymphtEa Lotus of Linnaeus ; see Andr. 

 Repos. t. 391, and Curt. Mag. t. 797. We pre- 

 sume the latter to have become important in the 

 Egyptian mythology, only as a substitute for the 

 former. The Lotus of Egypt is a real Nymphcea, 

 bearing its seeds much in the manner of a Poppy, 

 and scattering them in the mud. There is nothing 

 peculiar in its appearance or mode of growth which 

 could have caused it to be chosen for an emblem of 

 fertility, were it not from the general resemblance of 



