POLYGALACEAE 



POLYNE1CES 



beautiful ring into the sea, but the 

 next day it was brought back to 

 him by a fisherman, who had found 

 it inside a fish which he had caught. 

 Amu-is was now certain that such 

 luck could not possibly last, and 

 broke off the alliance. Polycrates 

 repelled the attacks of various 

 enemies, but was finally decoyed 

 to the Asiatic mainland by a 

 Persian governor, and crucified. 



Polygalaceae. Natural order 

 of herbs and shrubs, natives of 

 temperate and tropical regions. 



Polygalaceae. Leaves and flower- 

 spike and root o! P. senega 



They have chiefly alternate leaves 

 (rarely opposite), and irregular 

 flowers. They have bitter, emetic, 

 and purgative properties, and 

 Polygala senega and Krameria 

 triandra are employed in medicine. 

 See Milkwort ; Rhatany. 



Polygamy (Gr. polys, many; 

 gamos, marriage). Term commonly 

 used for a plurality of wives. 

 Strictly speaking, however, this is 

 polygyny, from Greek words mean- 

 ing many women, and its converse 

 is polyandry, having many hus- 

 bands. Polygamy really includes 

 the two, and its antithesis is 

 monogamy. Highly developed in 

 negro Africa, polygamy is well 

 established in Australia and parts 

 of Melanesia. It is of high antiquity 

 among the Semites, by whom it 

 was regulated in early times. It 

 passed into Aryan India and was 

 retained in Mahomedanism. Among 

 many peoples, whose powerful and 

 wealthy classes practise polygamy, 

 marriage is normally monogamous 

 for economic reasons. See Mar- 

 riage ; Society. 



Polygenism (Gr. polys, many ; 

 genos, kind). Theory attributing 

 to mankind descent from more than 

 one original stock or pair. In one 

 form it claims a separate ancestry 

 for the main human races now 

 extant, on the ground that their 

 physical and mental differences 

 are so fixed as not to be accounted 

 for by the alternative view, called 

 monogenism, of the unity of the 

 human species. See Anthro- 

 pology ; Monogenism. 



Polyglot (Gr. polys, many ; 

 glotia, a tongue). Term applied to 

 any book containing, in addition 

 to the original text, various trans- 

 lations of this text, arranged in 

 parallel columns. The term, also 

 used in reference to dictionaries in 

 various languages, is especially 

 applied to particular editions of 

 the Bible. 



Among polyglot Bibles are (1) 

 The Complutensian, printed at 

 Alcala de Henares, Spain (the 

 Roman Complutum), for Cardinal 

 Ximenes, 1502-17, published in 

 6 vols., 1520, and containing 

 Hebrew, Chaldee, Greek and Latin. 

 (2) The Antwerp, or Biblia Regia, 

 printed by C. Plant in, 8 vols., 

 1569-72, for Philip II under the 

 supervision of B. A. Montanus and 

 based largely on the Complu- 

 tensian. (3) Paris, 10 vols., 1628- 

 45. (4) London, or Walton's, 

 6 vols., 1654-57, ed. by Brian 

 Walton, afterwards bishop of Ches- 

 ter, one set of which, 1657, was 

 dedicated to Oliver Cromwell and 

 known as the Republican ; and the 

 other to Charles II, 1660, called the 

 Loyal. It contains Hebrew, Sama- 

 ritan, Aramaic, Greek, Arabic, 

 Chaldee, Ethiopia, Syriac, Persic, 

 and Latin texts, all except the last- 

 named with literal Latin transla- 

 tions, and a Prolegomena by the 

 editor. (5) Bagster's, in Hebrew, 

 Greek, Latin, Syriac, German, 

 Italian, French, Spanish and Eng- 

 lish, ed. S. Lee, with Prolegomena, 

 2nd ed. 1831. Among others is 

 Bielefeld's, ed. R. Stier and C. G. W. 

 Theile, 4 vols., 4th ed. 1875. In 1819 

 a Polyglot English Prayer Book was 

 published by Bagster. See Origen. 



Polygnotus (5th century B.C.). 

 Greek painter. Born in Thasos, he 

 was the son and pupil of the elder 

 Aglaophon. He decorated the 

 temples of the chief Greek cities 

 with paintings of mythological sub- 

 jects chosen from Homer's epics, 

 and his idealistic and expressive 

 style greatly raised the status of 

 painting, hitherto subordinate to 

 other arts. The Athenians gave 

 him citizenship, and the Amphic- 

 tyonic council decreed his main- 

 tenance, in Athens and other 

 Hellenic cities, at the public ex- 

 pense. Pron. Polly-gno-tus. 



Polygon (Gr. polys, many ; 

 gonia, angle). In geometry, a closed 

 figure bounded by straight lines. 

 The triangle is the only polygon 

 which is necessarily in one plane. 

 Polygons which do not lie in one 

 plane are called gauche, those in 

 which all the angles are equal and 

 the sides equal respectively, are 

 said to be regular. See Geometry. 



Polygonaceae. Natural order 

 of herbs, shrubs, and a few trees, 

 chiefly natives of temperate re- 



gions. Forming the buckwheat 

 family, they have alternate un- 

 divided leaves, whose margins are 

 at first rolled back. The flowers 

 are mostlysmall and inconspicuous, 

 though sometimes rendered showy 

 by association, as in rhubarb 

 (Rheum). They have hard fruits 

 with floury seeds, which in the 

 case of the buckwheat (Fagopy- 

 rum esculentum) has caused them 

 to be used as food. The order 

 includes the docks and sorrels 

 (Rumex) and rhubarb (Rheum). See 

 Rhubarb. 



Polygon Wood. Wood of Bel- 

 gium in the prov. of W. Flanders. 

 It is 4 m. E. of Ypres, and is so 

 named because in its centre was 

 once the racecourse (polygone) of 

 Ypres. In the Great War it was 

 fiercely contested by the British 

 and Germans in Oct., 1914, and re- 

 mained in the possession of the 

 former until May, 1915. It was 

 stormed by Australians, Sept. 26, 

 1917, the victory setting free two 

 companies of Highland troops who 

 had withstood German attacks for 

 over 36 hours. Retaken by the 

 Germans in April, 1918, the wood 

 was finally cleared of the enemy 

 by the Allies in Oct., 1918. An 

 obelisk marks the Australian 

 victory. See Ypres, Battles of. 



Polyhedron (Gr. polys, many ; 

 hedra, base). In solid geometry, a 

 solid completely bounded by plane 

 surfaces. The bounding surfaces 

 are polygons and are called faces, 

 where they meet edges, and the 

 points where the edges meet, ver- 

 tices. When all the faces are 

 equal, regular figures, the polygon is 

 said to be regular. There are only 

 five regular convex polyhedra, the 

 tetrahedron, hexahedron, octa- 

 hedron, dodecahedron, and icosa- 

 hedron. See Geometry. 



Polymer ism. Form of isomer- 

 ism (q.v. ), defined as the power 

 which certain chemical elements 

 and compounds possess of condens- 

 ing their molecules. The product is 

 said to be a polymer or polymeride 

 of the simpler substance. Examples 

 in inorganic chemistry are oxygen 

 and acetylene. In the former case 

 the condensed oxygen molecule 

 (O s ) is known as ozone, while 

 acetylene passed through a red hot 

 tube polymerises into benzene. 



Polyneices. In Greek legend, 

 the son of Oedipus, king of Thebes. 

 When Oedipus went into voluntary 

 exile, it was agreed between his 

 two sons, Polyneices and Eteocles, 

 that each should rule by turn for 

 terms of a year. Eteocles had the 

 first term, but at the end of it 

 refused to give up the throne. 

 Polyneices took refuge in Argos. 

 whence he organized and led the 

 first expedition of the Seven against 



