Note 119 — Chapter II · (continued 2)
Walter Armstrong translation
Description de l'Égypte; Hist. Naturelle, vol. ii. p. 311. Antiquités, vol. i. Description générale de Thèbes, p. 133: "Who can doubt that they wished to imitate the lotus in its entirety? The shaft of the column is the stem, the capital the flower, and, still more obviously, the lower part of the column seems to us an exact representation of that of the lotus and of plants in general."