2*76 
RURAL HOURS. 
is on the northern frontier, Sodus Bay, Lake Ontario. It is also 
found at one point in the Connecticut, and in the Delaware, 
below Philadelphia. Wherever it is seen, it attracts attention, 
from the great size of the leaves and the blossom. 
This noble flower belongs to a very celebrated family ; it calls 
cousin with the famous Hindoo and Egyptian Lotus, being one of 
the varieties of that tribe. In Hindoo and Egyptian fable, these 
plants were held very sacred, as emblems of the creation. In 
Hindostan, the lotus was an attribute of Ganga, the goddess of 
the Ganges, and was supposed to have been produced by Vishnu, 
before the earth was created, and when its first petals unfolded, 
they discovered the deity Brama lying within. In Egypt, the 
flower was sacred to Isis, believed to have been given her by 
Osiris, and was associated with their own sacred river, the Nile ; 
it was also the emblem of Upper Egypt, as the papyrus was of 
Lower Egypt. Very many traces of these ancient superstitions 
are still seen blended with the architecture, bas-reliefs, paintings* 
(fee, &c., and whatever remains to us of those nations. There 
appear to have been several kinds of lotus represented on the an- 
cient Egyptian monuments. One was white, with a fruit like that 
of the poppy ; another bore blue flowers, with the same fruit ; 
■the third, and the most celebrated, is mentioned by Herodotus as 
the lily-rose, and was also called the flower of Antinous ; the 
blossom was of a beautiful red, and the fruit like the rose of a 
watering-pot, with large seeds like filberts. These are all said to 
be found at present in India, but what is singular, the finest, the 
lily-rose, has now disappeared from Egypt, where it was for- 
merly in such high consideration. The blue variety is still found 
there. 
