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Sydney Smith, visiting Paris, satisfied himself by a fifteen-minutes' observation in the galleries of the Louvre. His mind, almost orbicular in its various capacity, took in the scene at a glance. There were pictures from almost every country, statues from almost every age, representations of the finest imaginations of the mind and of the noblest labors of history.

With these facts fresh in his memory, Karl conjectured that the water-hens seen by him and his companions were supported on a similar pedestal, and playing themselves on a like platform. His conjecture proved correct: for on visiting the place shortly after, the broad orbicular leaves of the Nelumbium speciosum were perceived almost as large as those of their South American congener.

Sometimes the peltate leaves are not at all orbicular, but are elongated, oblong or elliptic, and with only the lobes at the base united. The lemon-scented Eucalyptus citriodora is one of the most widely known cases. In other instances the peltate leaves become more or less hollow, constituting broad ascidia as in the case of the crassulaceous genus Umbilicus.

Thus the Barbarians, having contrived their marches with exactness, had come together again. But themselves surprised, they remained motionless for some minutes in consultation. The Suffet had collected his men into an orbicular mass, in such a way as to offer an equal resistance in every direction. The infantry were surrounded by their tall, pointed shields fixed close to one another in the turf.

According to Britton and Brown's "Illustrated Flora" it is glabrous or pubescent, with several or many stems, ascending or nearly erect; with green or red leaves, which are wonderfully variable in outline, from linear to orbicular, mostly opposite, the upper sometimes whorled, the lower often alternate. The glands of the involucres are elliptic or oblong, and even the seeds vary in shape.

That the world is very resplendent is made perspicuous from the figure, the color, the magnitude of it, and likewise from the wonderful variety of those stars which adorn this world. The world is spherical; the orbicular hath the pre-eminence above all other figures, for being round itself it hath its parts like itself. And in this very greatness of the world the beauty of it appears.

From the root thereof proceedeth the only stalk, orbicular, cane-like, green without, whitish within, and hollow like the stem of smyrnium, olus atrum, beans, and gentian, full of long threads, straight, easy to be broken, jagged, snipped, nicked, and notched a little after the manner of pillars and columns, slightly furrowed, chamfered, guttered, and channelled, and full of fibres, or hairs like strings, in which consisteth the chief value and dignity of the herb, especially in that part thereof which is termed mesa, as he would say the mean, and in that other, which hath got the denomination of milasea.

The other set is composed of circular fibers, which go round in the iris from the border to the pupil, and constitute the orbicular muscle, the contraction of which diminishes the size of the pupil.

There is no class of the animal kingdom which, in the actual state of things, does not include several orbicular species; that is to say, several species which are in some degree common to all parts of the globe, however they may be modified by geographical and climatic conditions.

But when the light which enters the pupil is insufficient to transmit a distinct image of objects to the brain, the orbicular muscle relaxes, and the radiated one contracts, so as to enlarge the pupil. The contraction of the pupil is readily seen when a person passes from a darkened room into a bright sunlight, or when a light is first brought into a room in the twilight of evening.