PROCEEDINGS 
OF 
THE ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY. 
1839. No. 17. 
May 13. 
SIR Wa. R. HAMILTON, A. M., President, in the Chair. 
Edward Conroy, Esq., and Nicholas P. Leader, Esq., 
were elected Members of the Academy. 
Sir James Ivory was elected an Honorary Member of 
the Academy. 
Dr. Wilde read a paper upon the Peruvian mummy, re- 
cently opened in Dublin. He stated that Captain Duniam 
a gentleman in the South American trade, having been in- 
formed that a colony of Irish had settled on the western 
coast some years since, determined on visiting them; and 
having been hospitably received, was brought on a day’s 
pleasure to a wild spot on the shore, where the party, for 
his amusement, commenced digging up several mummies, 
the most perfect of which he brought away. In a letter he 
says: ‘* This mummy was dug up from the sloping ground, 
about two miles and a-half south-east of the Morro of Arica, 
facing to the south-west on the coast of Peru, the soil 
sandy, in depth about six inches, under which is a layer of 
saltpetre about eight inches thick, and so very hard that it 
had to be broken with a pickaxe. Underneath this is a 
mixture of saltpetre and sand, out of which the body was 
dug. The face was found turned towards the west, or setting 
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