SEVENTH MEETING. 



ROYAL INSTITUTION, January 27th, 1845. 

 JOS. B. YATES, Esq., President, in the Chair. 



The Secretary read an account, hy Dr. Watson, of a 

 visit made by several Members of the Society to a human 

 body lately disinterred from the guano at Ichaboe. It was 

 brought to Liverpool in the ship Colchester, Capt. Withers. 

 From some writing carved on the stave of a barrel, it 

 appeared to have been buried in 1791 ; and as it was found 

 about seven feet below the surface, and would, probably, be 

 buried at a depth of about three feet, some idea may be 

 formed of the rate of deposition of the guano. The chief 

 point of interest was, that a human body has thus been 

 preserved by a process of mummification, no less singular 

 than perfect; adding another instance to the records of 

 forensic medicine, of the effect of animal ordures in retarding 

 the process of decomposition 



THE APPOINTED BUSINESS FOR THE EVENING WAS, 



ADJOURNED DISCUSSION ON THE THEORY ADVANCED IN 

 "VESTIGES, &c." 



The Rev. J. Robberds, B.A., as the mover of the 

 adjournment, introduced the subject by reading a few 

 general observations, the purport of which was that some of 

 the criticisms in the paper of the previous evening, especially 

 those connected with the Nebular hypothesis, admitted of 



