14 > APPENDIX. 



The ftalk is of a vivid green, thickeft at the bottom, and 

 tapering up to the top* ; it is of a triangular form. In the 

 Jordan, the fmgle fide, or apex of the triangle, flood oppofed 

 to the ftream as the cut- water of a boat or fhip, or the fharp 

 angle of a buttrefs of a bridge, by which the prefliire of 

 the ftream upon the ftalk would be greatly diminished. I 

 do not precifely remember how it flood in the lakes in Ethi- 

 opia and Egypt, and only have this remark in the notes I 

 made at the Jordan. 



Tins conftruction of the ftalk of the papyrus feems to re- 

 proach Ariflotle with want of obfervation. He fays that no 

 plant had either triangular or quadrangular ftalks. Here we 

 fee an inftance of the contrary in the papyrus, whofe ftalk 

 is certainly and univerfally triangular ; and we learn from 

 Diofcorides that many more have quadrangular ftalks, or 

 items of four angles. 



It has but one root, which is large and ftrongf, Pliny 

 fays, as thick as a man's arm : So it was, probably, when 

 the plant was fifteen feet high, but it is now diminifhed in 

 proportion, the whole length of the ftalk, comprehending 

 the head, being a little above ten, but the root is ftill hard 

 and folid near the heart, and works with the turning loom 

 tolerably well, as it did formerly when they made cups of it. 

 In the middle of this long root arifes the ftalk ar right angles, 

 fo when inverted it has the figure of a T, and on each fide 

 of the large root there are fmaller elaftic ones, which are of 

 a direction perpendicular to it, and which, like the firings of 



a tent,, 



* Plin. lib. xiii. cap. 1 1, f IbicL id. 



