342 Analysis of Scientific Books. 



main a certain number of days over a gentle fire, with the avowed 

 intention of allowing the liquefied mixture to penetrate the inner- 

 most and minutest structure ; nor can there exist any doubt, but 

 that on this part of the embalming process depended not only its 

 great preservative power, but also its various degrees of per- 

 fection. 



" E. When the body was taken out of the warm liquid mixture, 

 every part of it must have been in a very soft and supple condition, 

 wholly unsusceptible of putrefaction. The next steps, therefore, 

 to be taken, with a view to convert it into a perfect mummy, must 

 have been those, which, had they been taken before that part of 

 the process that has been just described, would have exposed the 

 body to inevitable putrefaction, in a climate like that of Egypt, 

 namely, the tanning of the integuments, and the exposing of 

 their surface to the preservative action of certain salts. The 

 body was then partially dried, and, lastly, the bandages, pre- 

 viously steeped in a solution of tannin, were applied, some lumps 

 of myrrh, resin, and bitumen, having been previously thrust into 

 the abdomen. " 



The efficacy and correctness of this view of the process, Dr. 

 Granville has experimentally verified. He concludes with the 

 following observations in reference to ancient descriptions of the 

 art. 



" The preceding explanatory description of what appears, from 

 the unquestionable facts collected in the course of my inquiry, to 

 have been the best, and, in my opinion, the primitive mode of 

 preparing mummies by the ancient Egyptians, differs from that 

 found in Herodotus, as M r ell as from those accounts which we read 

 in other writers who came after him. It does not, however, appear 

 that the eminent historian just mentioned had ever been present 

 at the embalming of a mummy, or that he ever had an opportunity 

 of examining one of them. He must, therefore, like many other 

 travellers, have noted down what he had collected from hearsay, in 

 which, amidst much that was surmised, there was something ap- 

 proaching to the truth. It is in evidence that the art was kept a 

 profound mystery among those who professed it, so that the different 

 modes of embalming described with such orderly minuteness of 

 details by Herodotus, could only have been conjectural. It is a 

 curious fact, that, with the exception of the lateral incision, and 

 immersion into a saline solution, mentioned by that historian, we 

 find no confirmatory evidence of the other steps of the supposed 

 processes of embalming detailed by him in any of the various mum- 

 mies that have hitherto been examined. And in the one now sub- 

 mitted to the inspection of the Society, by far the most perfect that 

 has yet been publicly described, we have none of the characteristic 

 features of the three several modes of embalming which we are 

 told were followed by the ancient Egyptians ; while, on the other 



