THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF TAXIDERMY. V 



practised, then filling the cavities with aromatic powders, frequently 

 washing and anointing the surface, and, lastly, drying the body very 

 carefully for fifteen or sixteen days in the sun or by a stove. So complete 

 is the desiccation of these mummies, that a whole body, which Blumenbach 

 possessed, weighed only 7|lb., though the dried ekeleton of a body of the 

 same size, as usually prepared, weighs at least 91b. 



In some situations the conditions of the soil and atmosphere, by the 

 rapidity with which they permit the drying of the animal tissues to be 

 effected, are alone sufficient for the preservation of the body in the form 

 of a mummy ; this is the case in some parts of Peru, especially at Arica, 

 where considerable numbers of bodies have been found quite dry in pits 

 dug in a saline dry soil. There is an excellent specimen of a mummy of 

 this kind in the Museum of the College of Surgeons, which was brought 

 from Caxamarca by General Paroissien — like most of them, it is in a 

 sitting posture, with the knees almost touching the chin, and the hands 

 by the sides of the face. It is quite dry and hard ; the features are dis- 

 torted, but nearly perfect, and the hair has fallen off. The Peruvian 

 mummies do not appear to have been subjected to any particular pre- 

 paration, the dry and absorbent earth in which they are placed being 

 sufficient to prevent them from putrefying. M. Humboldt found the 

 bodies of many Spaniards and Peruvians lying on former fields of battle 

 dried and preserved in the open air. In the deserts of Africa the 

 preservation of the body is secured by burying it in the hot sand ; and 

 even in Europe soils are sometimes met with in which the bodies undergo 

 a slow process of drying, and then remain almost unalterable even on 

 exposure to the air and moisture. There is a vault at Toulouse in which 

 a vast number of bodies that have been buried were found, after many 

 years, dry and without a traco of the effects of putrefaction ; and in the 

 vaults of St. Michael's Church, Dublin, the bodies are similarly preserved. 

 In both cases putrefaction is prevented by the constant absorption of the 

 moisture from the atmosphere, and through its medium from the body 

 by the calcareous soil in which the vaults are dug. — Penny Cyclopcsdia, 

 vol. XV., p. 477. 



Having now given a brief sketch of tlie best-known methods of 

 preserving Nature's greatest handiwork — Man — I may mention 

 that the Egyptians also devoted their energies to the preserva- 

 tion of those things more intimately connected with our theme, 

 namely, mammals, birds, &c. A people who knew how to 

 preserve and arrest from decay the carcase of so immense an 

 animal as the hippopotamus (a mummy of which was discovered 



