\ 



8'2 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I764. 



nous productions of the country, with the pitch of that tree which they had in 

 greatest plenty. 



The AA£iip«f T« KjJf8 of Herodotus,* and the K Jpi» of Diodorus Siculus,-|- was 

 most probably the tar of the cedar ; it is the substance said by these authors to 

 be used for embalming ; Galen J mentions its power of preserving bodies ; 

 and §Dioscorides calls it Nfxfs C,m. Pliny, speaking of the cedar, says that the 

 tar was forced out of it by fire ; and that in Syria it was called cedrium : cujus 

 tanta vis est, ut in Egypto|j corpora hominum defunctorum eo perfusa serventur. 

 Some branches of the cedar were procured from the physic garden at Chelsea ; 

 and, bemg treated in the manner described by Pliny, yielded tar and pitch, 

 which had no aromatic smell, and seemed in many respects similar to the pro- 

 duce of the fir-tree. There must undoubtedly therefore have been some other 

 resinous matter mixed with the cedrium. 



The pitch of this mummy was carefully distilled, but it gave no other produce 

 than what might be expected from a resinous body; the caput mortuum, when 

 burned and elixated, yielded a fixed alkali ; to this may be attributed the moisture 

 which the pitch, that was in contact with the spine, and those other parts which 

 were most burned, contracted on being broken and exposed to the air; for this 

 pitch had an alkaline taste, and had been more than melted, having been burned 

 to a caput mortuum. A great variety of experiments were made on this pitchy 

 matter; the result of them all tended to prove, that it had not the least resem- 

 blance to asphaltus, but was certainly a vegetable resinous substance. 



Mons. Rouelle, in the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences for 1750, 

 has given a very elaborate and ingenious treatise on embalming; in which he has 

 chemically analysed the pitch of 6 different mummies. From his observations, 

 and from what Pietrodella Valle,^ and Joannes Nardius** at the end of his edi- 

 tion of Lucretius, have written on this head; from what Dr. Middleton-|"|- ob- 

 served in the mummy which was opened at Cambridge; from the Memoires of 

 Count Caylus, in the 23d vol. of Acad, des Inscript. et Belles Lettres; and from 

 this present examination ; it appears that various methods of embalming were 

 practised among the Egyptians; and that they used different materials for this 



* Herodot. Euterpe, pag. II9. ed. Gronov — Orig. 



+ Diodor. Sicul. lib. i. p. 82. ed. Rhodomanni. — Orig. 



J Galen.de Simpl. Med. Facult. lib. vii. cap. 16. — Orig. 



\ Dioscorides de Mat. Medic, lib. i. cap. 105. pag. 56. Francof. 1598. — Orig. 



II Plin. Histor. lib. xvi. cap. 11. pag. 322. ed. Dalecamp. — Orig. 



i Viaggi di Pietro della Valle, Tom. 4. — Orig. 



• * Lucretii Joannis Nardil de Funeribus iEgyptiorum Animadversio 50, p. 627. These ac- 

 counts of della Valle and Nardius are also to be met with in the 3d vol. of Athanas, Kircher's 

 Oedipus /Egypt.— Orig. 



++ Middleton's works, vol. 4, Germana quaedam Antiquitatis Monumenta. — Orig. 



