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within the aperture. Pistil: germ compressed-three-cornered, 
acute at the base, retuse at the top; style the length of the 
tube, bifid at the top; stigmas thickened, erect. Pericarp 
none. Seed three-cornered, crowned with a toothed rim; 
down non e.—Essential Character. Florets bundled into 
a head with scales interposed. Calyx partial two-valved, 
one-flowered. Corollets hermaphrodite; down none. 
1. Rolandra argentea.—Stem straight, woody, covered 
with a smooth reddish-brown bark ; having at every inch or 
two one, two, or three leaves, greater and smaller, the 
largest about two inches long, and three-quarters of an inch 
broad in the middle, smooth, dark green on the upper side, 
and very white underneath, on a very short foot-stalk. At 
each axil a sessile conglomerate head of flowers.—Native of 
the West Indies. - 
ROLAND’S TABLE, a flat mountain on the mainland 
of the east coast of the district of Gaspee, in Lower Canada, 
and west part of the gulf of St. Lawrence. 
ROLEIA, a petty town in the central part of Portugal 
on the coast road leading from the north to Lisbon. On 
17th August, 1808, four days before the battle of Vimiera, 
a corps of French posted here, was attacked by the British 
advancing army, and obliged to retreat. 
To ROLL, v. a. [ router , Fr. roller, Dutch ; from ro- 
tulo, of roto, Lat.] To move any thing by volutation, or 
successive application of the different parts of the surface, to 
the ground.—Who shall roll us away the stone from the 
door of the sepulchre? St. Mark. —To move any thing 
round upon its axis.—To move in a circle.—To dress, and 
troll the tongue and roll the eye. Milton. — To produce a 
periodical revolution.—Heaven shone, and roll'd her motions. 
Milton. —To wrap round upon itself.—To enwrap ; to in¬ 
volve in bandage.—By this rolling, parts are kept from 
joining together. Wiseman. —To form by rolling into round 
masses.—Grind red-lead, or any other colour with strong 
wort, and so roll them up into long rolls like pencils. 
Peacham. —To pour into a.stream or waves. 
A small Euphrates through the piece is roll'd. 
And little eagles wave their wings in gold. Pope. 
To ROLL, v. ?>. To be moved by the successive appli¬ 
cation of all parts of the surface to a plane; as a cylinder. 
Fire must rend the sky. 
And wheel on the earth, devouring where it rolls. Milton. 
I’m pleas’d with my own work; Jove was not more 
With infant nature, when his spacious hand 
Had rounded this huge ball of earth and seas, 
To give it the first push, and see it roll 
Along the vast abyss. Dry den. 
To fun on wheels. 
He next essays to walk, but downward press’d. 
On four feet imitates hi^ brother beast; 
By slow degrees he gathers from the ground 
His legs, and to the rolling chair is bound. Dry den. 
To perform a periodical revolution. — Thus the year rolls 
within itself again. Dryden. —When thirty rolling years 
have run their race. Dryden. —To move with the surface 
variously directed. 
Thou, light,. 
Revisit’st not these eyes, which roll in vain. 
To find the piercing ray, and find no dawn. Milton. 
To float in rough water. 
Twice ten tempestuous nights I roll'd, resign’d 
To roaring billows and the warring wind. ' Pope. 
To move as waves or volumes of water.—Wave rolling 
after wave. Milton. —Our nation is too great to be ruined 
by any but itself; and if the number and weight of it roll 
one way upon the greatest changes that can happen, yet 
England will be safe. Temple. 
Till the huge surge roll'd off, then backward sweep 
The refluent tides, and plunge into the deep. Pope. 
It 0 L 
Storms beat, and rolls the main; 
Oh beat those storms, and roll the seas in vain. Pope , 
To fluctuate; to move tumultuously. 
Here tell me if thou dar’st, my conscious soul, 
What diff’rent sorrows did within thee roll. Prior. 
To revolve on an axis. 
He fashion’d those harmonious orbs, that roll 
In restless gyres about the Arctic pole. Sandys. 
To be moved with violence. 
Down they fell 
By thousands, angel on archangel roll'd. Milton. 
ROLL, s. The act of rolling; the state of being rolled. 
—The thing rolling. 
Listening senates hang upon thy tongue. 
Devolving through the maze of eloquence 
A roll of periods, sweeter than her song. Thomson. 
[Rouleau, Fr.] Mass made round. 
Large rolls of fat about his shoulders clung, 
And from his neck the double dewlap hung. Addison. 
To keep ants from trees, encompass the stem four fingers 
breadth with a circle or roll of wool newly plucked. Mor¬ 
timer. —Writing rolled upon itself; a volume. 
Busy angels spread 
The lasting roll, recording what we said. Prior. 
A round body rolled along; a cylinder. — Where land is 
clotty, and a shower of rain comes that Soaks through, use 
a roll to break the clots. Mortimer. —[Rotulus, Lat.] 
Public writing. 
Cromwell is made master 
O’ the rolls and the king’s secretary. Shakspeare. 
Darius made a decree, and search was made in the house of 
the rolls, where the treasures were laid up. Ezra, vi. 1.—• 
The rolls of parliament, the entry of the petitions, answers 
and transactions in parliament, are extant. Hale. —A regis-’ 
ter; a catalogue.—Beasts only cannot discern beauty; and 
let them be in the roll of beasts, that do not honour it. 
Sidney. 
These signs have mark’d me extraordinary, 
And all the courses of my life do shew, 
I am not in the roll of common men. Shakspeare. 
The roll and list of that army doth remain. Davies. 
Of that short roll of friends writ in my heart, 
There’s none, that sometimes greet us not. Donne. 
’Tis a mathematical demonstration, that these twenty-four 
letters admit of so many changes in their order, and make 
such a long roll of differently arranged alphabets, not two of 
which are alike; that they could not all be exhausted, though 
a million millions of writers should each write above a thou¬ 
sand alphabets a day, for the space of a million millions of 
years. Bentley. —Chronicle. , 
Please thy pride, and search the herald’s roll. 
Where thou shall find thy famous pedigree. Dryden. 
His chamber all was hanged about with rolls 
And old records, from antient times deriv’d. Spenser. 
The eye of time beholds no name 
So blest as thine, in all the rolls of fame. Pope'. 
[Role, Fr.] Part; office. Not in use. — In human 
society, every man has his roll and station assigned him. 
L' Estrange. 
The ancients made all their books up in form of rolls, or 
little columns; and, in Cicero’s time, the libraries con¬ 
sisted wholly of those rolls. The dearness of parchment, 
and the cheapness of papyrus, of which- the rolls were 
made, was the reason that scarcely any but paper rolls were 
used. 
Vossius says, they pasted several sheets end to end, when 
filled on one side, and rolled them rip together, beginning - 
with 
