Manchester Memoirs, Vol. lix. (191 5), No. 10. 101 



side. The inside was then filled with cloth saturated with 

 perfumed oils, which were also injected into other parts of 

 the body, and carefully rubbed over the outside every 

 day" (pp. 400 and 401). 



"It was then clothed, and fixed in a sitting posture ; 

 a small altar was erected before it, and offerings of fruit, 

 food and flowers, were daily presented by the relatives, or 

 the priests appointed to attend the body. In this state it 

 was preserved several months, and when it decayed, the 

 skull was carefully kept by the family, while the other 

 bones etc. were buried within the precincts of the family 

 temple" (p. 401). 



Ellis makes the significant comment: — " It is singular 

 that the practice of preserving the bodies of their dead by 

 the process of embalming, which has been thought to 

 indicate a high degree of civilization, and which was 

 carried to such perfection by one of the most celebrated 

 nations of antiquity, some thousand years ago, should be 

 found to prevail among this people." The whole of the 

 circumstances attending the practice of this custom, and 

 the curious ritual and the behaviour of the mourners, as 

 described by Ellis, no less than the details of the process, 

 in fact afford the most positive evidence of its derivation 

 from Egypt. 



Ellis says " it is also practiced by other distant nations 

 of the Pacific, and on some of the coasts washed by its 

 waters." " In some of the islands they dried the bodies, 

 and, wrapping them in numerous folds of cloth, suspended 

 them from the roofs of their dwelling-houses" (p. 406). 



Ellis notes the remarkable points of identity between 

 the Tahitian account of the deluge and not only the 

 Hebrew but also those of the Mexicans and Peruvians 

 and many other peoples (p. 394). 



In Glaumont's summary (24, p. 517) five modes of 



