1 26* Rev. J. J. Conybeare on Mumia, [Feb. 



The specimen, therefore, may be regarded as mumia in its most 

 perfect state. It appears to differ from that examined by Neu- 

 man chiefly (supposing that I am right in considering his resi- 

 duum of two ounces as asphaltum), in the small proportion which 

 it gives of saline and extractive matter. It is probable that a 

 mass taken from any other part of the body might retain the 

 salt originally added for the purpose of preservation, and a 

 greater proportion of decayed animal or vegetable matter, either 

 of which would probably afford an extractive soluble in water. 

 The carbonate of soda obtained in the present case could not 

 have exceeded the proportion in which Neuman states himself 

 to have found an alkaline salt in native asphaltum (seven grains 

 in two ounces). Herodotus (it may be added), does not describe 

 the substance used for filling the scull ; he simply says, they 

 injected certain drugs (<pupixa.xa.). The compound used for filling 

 the body, he states to nave consisted of myrrh, cassia, and 

 other aromatics. His editor Wesseling (who yet wrote after the 

 publication of Neuman's works), has a note which insinuates a 

 doubt of the accuracy of the historian on the authority of Nar- 

 dius, and other early writers, who affirmed that they found 

 nothing in the mummies which they examined but masses of bitu- 

 men. They were probably deceived by its external appearance, 

 and unacquainted with the method of ascertaining its constituent 

 parts. It is remarkable that Herodotus does not specify the use 

 of bitumen, unless we regard him as including it in the general 

 term aromatics (©uw/wtTa). Mumia, though long since discarded 

 from the Pharmacopoeia, has, I believe, retained some value as 

 a pigment, especially with those artists who are somewhat of 

 dilettanti in the choice of their materials. I am not sufficiently 

 acquainted with the practical part of oil-painting to say with 

 what justice. It may possibly afford a somewhat richer brown 

 than the common asphaltum. 



I have during the last week had an opportunity of ascertain- 

 ing the indestructibility of common amber. A bead of that sub- 

 stance dug from a British tumulus on Mendip, where it must 

 have remained on a low computation for 1600 years, though 

 rifty, and covered externally with a thin crust nearly opaque, 

 yet retains in the rest of the mass its peculiar fracture and tran- 

 sparency, and when exposed to the action of sulphuric ether, is 

 dissolved as readily as specimens recently dug, and more care- 

 fully preserved. 



Having obtained through the kindness of a friend (T. Grimes, 

 Esq.) a further portion of the bituminous substance found near 

 Merthyr Tydvil, to which I have ventured to give the name of 





