432 HISTORY or 



sands of Saibah, vvhicli is a place, he supposes, i,ituate between 

 Rasem and Egypt. 



The corruption of dead bodies being entirely caused by the 

 fermentation of the humours, whatever is capable of hindering 

 or retarding this fermentation will contribute to their preserva- 

 tion. Both heat and cold, though so contrary in themselves, 

 produce similar effects in this particular, by drying up the hu- 

 mours : the cold in condensing and thickening them, and the 

 neat in evaporating them before they have time to act upon the 

 solids. But it is necessary that these extremes should be con- 

 stant ; for if they succeed each other so that cold shall follow 

 heat, or dryness humidity, it must then necessarily happen that 

 corruption must ensue. — However, in temperate climates there 

 are natural causes capable of preserving dead bodies ; among 

 which we may reckon the quality of the earth in which they are 

 buried. If the earth be drying and astringent, it will imbibe the 

 humidity of the body ; and it may probably be for this reason 

 that the bodies biuied in the monastery of the Cordeliers, at 

 Thoulouse, do not putrefy, but dry in such a manner that they 

 may be lifted up by one arm. 



The gums, resins, and bitumens, with which dead bodies are 

 embalmed, keep off the impressions which they would else re- 

 ceive from the alteration of the temperature of the air ; and still 

 more, if a body thus prepared be placed in a dry or burning 

 sand, the most powerful means will be united for its preservation. 

 We are not to be surprised, therefore, at what we are told by 

 Chardin of the country of Chorosan, in Persia. The bodies 

 which have been previously embalmed and buried in the sands 

 of that country, as he assures us, are found to petrify, or, in other 

 words, to become extremely hard, and are preserved for seve- 

 ral ages. It is asserted that some of tliem have continued for 

 a thousand years. 



The Egyptians, as has been mentioned above, swathed the 

 body with linen bands, and inclosed it in a coffin -. however, it is 

 probable that with all these precautions, they would not have 

 continued till now, if the tombs, or pits, in which they were 

 placed, had not been dug in a dry chalky soil, which was not 

 susceptible of humidity ; and which was besides covered over 

 with a dry sand of several feet thickness. 



The sepulchres of the ancient Egyptians subsist to this Jay» 



