THE RISE AND PEOGEESS OF TAXIDEEMY. O 



dozens of medical and other works witL. but a meagre result. 

 However, to take tliem seriatim, we can assume, I think, with 

 some show of evidence, that the Ethiopian stone, mentioned as 

 being used to make the first incision in the corpse, might have 

 been a piece of obsidian or basalt, but most probably was 

 merely an ordinary sharp flint of a dark colour. 



The first chemical used in embalming is the hardest nut of all 

 to crack, and on which I have most exercised my intellectual 

 teeth — and that is natron. Now, what is natron?* Ordinary 

 dictionaries and authors tell us, as a matter of course — carbonate 

 of soda. In support of this theory M. Rouyer writes : 



The natron would be used just as it was got from many of the lakes 

 of Egypt, where it is found abundantly in the form of carbonate of soda. 



Pereira, in " Materia Medica," though intimating that natron 

 is not to be confounded with nitre, says, in speaking of car- 

 bonate of soda : 



This salt was probably known to the ancients under the term of 



NiT^flV. 



!N"ow, as Nirpov is more likely, from its etymology, to be trans- 

 lated " nitre," we are landed into another difficulty, if by nitre 

 we mean saltpetre, for that will, as we all know, preserve animal 

 tissue for a certain time; however, I do not think we can 

 translate natron as being nitre (saltpetre), for in former days 

 many salts were included under the general term nitre; for 

 instance, our common soda and potash, the chemical composition 

 of which was unknown until Davy, in 1807, extracted the metals 

 sodium and potassium from those salts. Boitard expressly 

 states : 



II parait que ce natrum dtait nn alkali fixe, et pas dn tout du nitre 

 comme quelques auteurs I'ont pense; ce qui semblerait appuyer cette 

 opinion, c'est que les femmes egyptiennes se servaient de natrmn pour 

 faire leur lessive, comme on se sert aujourd'hui de la soude. 



In Peru the soil may be said to be impregnated with nitre, 

 but that is nitrate of soda, and not really saltpetre (nitrate of 



* Natrium is the old Latin term foi* the metal or base Tve now call sodium. The old 

 names for some of its salts were : Natron Carbonicum— or Bicarbonate of fcjoda; Natron 

 Vitriolatum-or Sulphate of Soda; discovered or re-discovered about 16("0. i.\i(/-uwt= Car- 

 bonate of Soda. 



