The period from 1823 to 1908. 



Concerning the eighty five years which elapsed betAveen the re- 

 depositing of the cranium in Swedenbokg's coffin and the bringing home 

 to his fatherland of the great man's remains, there is very little to relate. 



As early as 1823, the coffin, according to Pastor Wahlin's sta- 

 tement in Dagsländor {Appendix^ No. 5), was badly ravaged by time, 

 and when, in the year 1844, the Church Council of the Swedish Con- 

 gregation on November 10th undertook an inventory of the burial vault, 

 which was opened on the occasion of the burial of Mrs. Grill, a widow, 

 it was stated in the minutes [AppendAx^ No. 7), that Swedenbobg's cof- 

 fin was found to be half open and in a highly delapidated condition. 

 I shall return later on to the examination of the skull undertaken on 

 that occasion, and need here merely mention that Baron C. af Wet- 

 terstedt\ a member of the Church Council, offered to make a new 

 casing for the coffin out of »marine metal» (probably some kind of copper 

 layering used for sheathing vessels). This plan does not, however, 

 seem to have been carried into effect, for on the 26th of October, 1853, 

 the matter again came up in the Church Council, which then decided 

 to have a new oaken coffin made for the preservation of the remains 

 of Emanuel Swedenborg. [Appendix^ No. 8). This was, in all proba- 

 bility, the same coffin which still today encloses the leaden coffin. 



The right of depositing bodies in the vault was abolished by 

 order of the King of England on April 15th, 1856. The last time that 

 anyone was buried there must have been in 1852; the coffin then de- 

 posited was taken up again in 1874 20 (p. 100), after which date the 

 vault was not opened again until 1908. 



' Gahl af Wetterstedt, born 1778. Baron^ sublieutenant in the Royal Swedish Navy, 

 afterwards Secretary lo the Consulate in Tunis. Lived afterwards in Loudon, where be died 

 in 1855. 



