CHAT. XVI. OTHER DISTINCTIONS. 473 



and when thrown upon hot coals emits a thick 

 smoke and disagreeable smell. When distilled, it 

 gives an abundant oil ; fat, and of a brown colour 

 and foetid odour. Exposed to the air, these mum- 

 mies soon change, attract humidity, and become 

 covered with an efflorescence of saline substances. 



(2.) The mummies simply salted and dried are 

 generally worse preserved than those filled with 

 resins and bitumen. Their skin is dry, white, elastic, 

 light, yielding no odour, and easily broken ; and 

 masses of adipocere are frequently found in them. 

 The features are destroyed ; the hair is entirely re- 

 moved ; the bones are detached from their con- 

 nections with the slightest effort, and they are 

 white like those of a skeleton. The cloth en- 

 veloping them falls to pieces upon being touched. 

 These mummies are generally found in particular 

 caves which contain great quantities of saline mat- 

 ters, principally the sulphate of soda. 



Of the latter also several subdivisions may be 

 made, according to the manner in which the bodies 

 were deposited in the tombs ; and some are so 

 loosely put up in bad cloths and rags, as barely to 

 be separated from the earth or stones in which 

 they have been buried. Some are more carefully 

 enveloped in bandages, and arranged one over the 

 other without cases in the same common tomb, 

 often to the nup.iber of several hundred; a visit to 

 one of which has been well described bj' Belzoni.* 



Some have certain peculiarities in the mode of 



* Page 156. Vide Pcttigrew, p. 39. 



