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POLYCYSTINA 298 POLYNESIA placed all the Samians disaffected to- ward his tyranny, but mutinying they returned to Samos, and made war against the tyrant, but without success. Thereupon they went to Sparta, and se- cured the help of both Spartans and Corinthians and embarked for Samos, and besieged Samos in vain, and Poly- crates became more powerful than ever. Oroetes, the Persian satrap of Sardis, had conceived a deadly hatred against Polycrates, and having enticed the latter to visit him at Magnesia, he seized and crucified him. POLYCYSTINA, or POLYCISTINA, in zoology, a sub-order of Radiolaria, placed by Wallich in his Herpnemata. POLYGALA, milkwort, the typical genus of Polygalacese. Flowers irregu- lar. Two inner sepals wing-shaped and petaloid; stamens combined by their claws with the filaments, the lower one keeled. Ovary two-celled, two-seeded, seeds downy, crested at the hilum. Known species 200, from temperate and tropical countries. Three are British. An infusion of P. rubella, a native of North America, very bitter, is i:sed in small doses as a tonic and stimulant, and in larger ones as a diaphoretic. The American P. senega is snake root. P. chamxhuxus from Europe, P. san- guinea and P. purpurea from North America, P. paniculata from the West Indies, P. serpentaria from the Cape, and P. crotalarioides from the Himalayas, are emetic, purgative, and diuretic. P. poaya from Brazil, P. glandulosa, and P. scopario from Mexico, are emetic. P. thesioides, from Chile, is diuretic. P. tinctoria, from Arabia, is there used in dyeing, and the Javanese P. venenosa is poisonous. POLYGAMY, the practice or condition of having a plurality of wives or hus- bands at the same time. It is commonly applied to polygyny, but, strictly speak- ing, it should include polyandry as well. It is forbidden by law in all Christian countries, but existed among the Mor- mons. See Mormons. POLYGLOT, a collection of versions in different languages of the same work, but is almost exclusively applied to mani- fold versions of the Bible. The Hexapla of Origen contained, besides the Hebrew text, several other Greek versions, but is not commonly reckoned among the poly- glots. Of modern works of this kind the most convenient is Bagster's Polyglot, first published by Bagster at London in 1831, which gives the Old Testament in eight languages (Hebrew, Greek, Latin, English, German, Italian, French, and Spanish), and the New Testament in nine (the Syriac version being added). POLYGON, in geometry, a portion of a plane bounded on all sides by more than four limited straight lines. These lines are called sides of the polygon, and the points in which they meet are called vertices of the polygon. Polygons are classified according to the number of their sides or angles. Polygons having all their sides equal are called equilat- eral; those having all their angles equal are called equiangular. Polygons whick are both equilateral and equiangular are called regular polygons. Similar poly- gons are to one another as the squares of their homologous sides. In fortifica- tion, the exterior polygon is the figure formed by lines connecting the angles of the bastion round the work. The inter- ior polygon is the figure formed by lines connecting the centers of the bastions all round. POLYGONACE.ffl, buckwheats; an order of hypogynous exogens, alliance Silenales. Herbs, rarely shrubs. Dis- tribution, world wide. Known genera 29, species 490. (Lindley.) POLYGYNIA, an order in Linnsus' artifical classification, containing plants with many pistils. POLYHYMNIA, one of the Muses, daughter of Jupiter and Mnemosyne, who presided over singing and rhetoric, and was deemed the inventress of har- mony. POLYMOBPHISM, the property pos- sessed by certain bodies of crystallizing in two or more forms not derivable one from the other. POLYNESIA, a general name for a number of distinct archipelagoes of small islands scattered over the Pacific Ocean, extending from about lat. 35° N. to 35° S., and from Ion. 135° E. to 100° W., the Philippines, New Guinea, Australia, and New Zealand being excluded. The islands are distributed into numerous groups, having a general dii^ection from N. W. to S. E. The groups of the equa- tor are the Pelew, Ladrone or Marianne, Caroline, Marshall, Gilbert or Kingsmill, Fanning, and Hawaii or the Sandwich Islands. S. of the equator are New Ire- land, New Britain, Solomon Islands, New Hebrides, Fiji, New Caledonia, Naviga- tor, Friendly, Cook's or Harvey, and the Society Islands, the Low Archipelago, the Marquesas Islands, and the isolated Easter Island. The term Polynesia is sometimes restricted to the groups most centrally situated in the Pacific; the New Hebrides, Solomon Islands, New Britain, New Ireland (Bismarck Archi-