222 Analyses of Booh. [Marcm^ 



cipal and Important part of the embalming process we are now 

 considering, or the neglecting to regulate the fire in using the 

 wax and bitumen, would necessarily give rise to the latter 

 results, which the covering bandages were sure to hide from 

 the eye of the surviving relatives to whom the body was to be 

 returned. It is also fair to presume, that inability or unwiUing- 

 ness on the part of friends and relatives to pay for the ingredients 

 or for the labour necessary to carry on the operations just 

 described, have, on many occasions, been the cause of mummies 

 being prepared in that imperfect manner which has been noticed 

 in so many instances. 



•* E. When the body was taken out of the warm liquid mix- 

 ture, 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 hke that of Egypt. I allude to the tanning of the inte- 

 guments, and the exposing of their surface to the additional 

 influence of those salts, the presence of which, as well as that of 

 tannin, I have most clearly demonstrated. 



" Whether an infusion of the vegetable astringent employed 

 for tanning the integuments was had recourse to in the first 

 instance, and the immersion of the body into the concentrated 

 water of the natron lakes followed, or whether the tanning liquid 

 was itself made by infusing the vegetable astringents themselves 

 in the water of the natron lakes, and the body then immersed 

 into it, are questions, which it is neither possible nor important 

 to decide ; the body was unquestionably submitted to the ope- 

 ration of both those means, but in what order it is difficult to 

 ascertain; and when the embalmers judged by the condition of 

 the integuments, that they were sufficiently impregnated with 

 the active principles employed, the body was allowed to dry for 

 a few hours, and then the bandages previously prepared with a 

 solution of tannin also, as proved by my experiments, were 

 applied to the different parts, beginning with each separate 

 limb. 



" While the operation of bandaging took place, the mummy 

 must have been in a very supple state, else the numerous deep 

 longitudinal wrinkles observed in all those parts where the inte- 

 guments are generally looser, as in the upper part of the thighs 

 and arms, as well as over the abdomen, and at the breasts, could 

 not have existed. These wrinkles, so well marked in the Plate, 

 must have been produced by the bandages at the time of their 

 application. 



" It appears also, that with a view of rendering the bandages 

 more supple in particular places^ where such a condition waa 

 required, and of obviating the inconvenience of slackness in 



