Polygala

3779

Polynesia

410. He was a fellow-pupil with Myron and
Phidias. It was in the treatment of the human
figure that Polyclitus was supreme. His im-
agination and technical skill were his greatest
qualities. His most famous statue was the
Doryphonis or spear-bearer. Another famous
work was the Diadumenos, an athlete bind-
ing a fillet around his head. Polyclitus
worked chiefly in bronze; and as an archi-
tect designed the theatre at Epidaurus, which
.till exists.

Polygala, a natural order of plants, usual-
ly with milky juice, especially in their roots.
The gay little flowers are perfect but irregu-
lar, having two lateral sepals, wing - like,
larger than the other three, and colored. The
largest and handsomest species is the 'fringed
milkwort' (P. paucifolia), found in wood-
lands. One of the commonest polygalas in dry
soil is the purple-tinged (P. vertitillata), a
delicate plant with linear leaves in whorls.

Polygamy, the social arrangement whereby
a man is married to two or more wives. It
is still the marriage form in Africa univer-
sally, in Asia, and partly in Australia and
Polynesia. Judaism in Old Testament times
tolerated and recognized it. Mohammedanism
has permitted a man to have as many as four
wives. Neither in Greece, nor in Rome, nor
among the Germans was polygamy practised.
Polygamy in Christian countries is generally
regarded as a criminal offence: in the United
States and British countries it is called big-
amy, and is punishable by imprisonment.

Polyglot, a work containing the original
and various translations of a book, usually
the Bible, the several languages being placed
in parallel columns on a single or double
page.

Polygon, a closed figure bounded by
straight lines, and therefore with as many
angles as sides. The triangle is the simplest
polygon, and lies wholly in one plane. Or-
dinarily the term is applied to figures which
have more than four sides. •*

Polygonaceae, a natural order of herba-
ceous plants, bearing spikes or panicles of
small flowers, often unisexual. Among the
common species are buckwheat (Polygonum
fagopymm); the common knot grass (P.
aviculare); P. convolvulus> the climbing per-
sicaria, as well as the various docks and sor-
rels.

Polygonatum, a genus of plants belong-
ing to the order Liliacese, characterized by
the flowers having six-cleft corollas, and by
the fruits being berries. There are two similar
species, called 'Solomon's sea? in eastern Am-

erica, having slender arching stems, with
many broad leaves, and two or more bell-
shaped, greenish flowers depending from the
axils. These are succeeded by blue berries,
with a bloom.

Polygonum. A genus of the buckwheat
family including many of our common weeds
and several cultivated plants. The flowers
are small, generally perfect, white, green, or
rose-colored, in various clusters.

Polyhedron, a finite portion of space
bounded on all sides by planes. The plane
figures which bound it are called 'faces'; the
sides of these faces, 'edges'; and the points
where the edges meet, 'corners,' or vertices.
A regular polyhedron is one in which all the

Polyhedra.

i, Octahedron; 2, Dodecahe-
dron; 3, Icosahedron.

faces are equal regular figures, in which case
at least three faces must meet to form a ver-
tex; the maximum plane angle must be that
of a pentagon, since the three angles of a
hexagon cannot form a solid angle.

Polynesia, in the wider sense, is synony-
mous with the South Sea islands. But the ex-
pression is now usually confined to the e.
section, which is, roughly, limited westwards
by a line drawn from New Zealand through
Samoa to Hawaii, and extends eastwards to
Easter I. in 110° w., about 2,400 miles from
S. America. The Kanakas, as the natives of
this insular world call themselves, belong un-
doubtedly to one primitive stock, which dif-
fers essentially from both the Papuan and
the Malayan. The physical type is everywhere
marked by regular, almost European fea-
tures, tall stature (averaging about 5 ft. 10
in.), straight and very black hair, and gener-
ally light brown complexion. Their speech is
a distinct branch of the Malayo-Polynesian
stock language. Their mental characters, their
traditions, mythologies, industrial arts, and
usages are everywhere almost identical. The
Polynesians have steadily decreased in num-
bers ever since their first contact with Eu-