"B." writes: "I enclose a slip that I have just enjoyed from a very readable ladies' article on roses:

' Cleopatra, at one of her receptions to Marc Antony, caused roses to be massed on the floor of the hall to a depth of 18 inches. It was customary at great out-door festivals to float thousands of roses on the placid lakes, and to wind garlands of choicest blossoms around the trunks of trees. In great and distinct varieties roses abound everywhere, even within the polar circle a variety is found which blooms in the midst of snow and ice, and the sledges of the Esquimaux, as well as their reindeer and sealskins, are often decorated with large, double roses. All along the coast of this country indigenous roses adorn the marshes and fields; these differ in point of color and in the number of petals, but are alike in odor and general appearance, the five-petal pink rose being the most common.'

"I find no fault with the lady's article; it is what any graduate of a modern college might have written. But it reminds me of doubts I have had in my classical readings whether the Egyptians ever grew roses at all? I cannot now recall the passages, but I am sure there are some in the ancient writings that imply that they imported their rose flowers, as our country towns now get them from the large cities. The Egyptian climate now is unfavorable to rose culture, and I fancy it must have been more so in the past.

"Again, we are finding that our translations are not always correct. It is said that rose should have often been translated ' reed,' and perhaps the ancient roses of the Egyptians were not roses as we have them to-day. My desire, however, is to suggest that if they had real roses, and imported but did not grow the flowers, their knowledge of the art of transporting cut flowers must have been great for that early time".

[We never heard of such a suggestion before, and must leave it to those better versed in the niceties of early Latin or Greek literature than we are, to reply. - Ed. G. M].