c;i 



xii INTRODUCTION. 



tree. I believe that feafoned elm, oak, or afh, perhaps even 

 fir, laid in the dry fands of Egypt perfectly fcreened from 

 moifture, and defended from the outward air, as all mum- 

 my-chefts are, would likewife appear incorruptible; and my 

 ■reafon is, that having got made, while at Cairo, a cafe for a 

 telefcope of fycamore plank, I buried it in my garden after 

 I came home from my travels, fo as to leave it covered by 

 half a foot of earth ; in lefs than four years it was entirely 

 putrid and rotten. And another telefcope cafe of the ce- 

 dar of Lebanon appeared much lefs decayed, though even 

 in this laft there were evident figns of corruption. But even 

 fuppofe it true, that thefe planks have been found incorrup- 

 tible, a doubt may Hill arife, whether they do not owe this 

 quality to a kind of varnifh of refinous materials with 

 which I have feen ahnoft all the mummy- chefts covered, 

 and to which materials the prefervation of the mummy it- 

 felf is in part certainly owing. 1 he fycamore is a native of 

 that low warm ftripe of country between the Red Sea and 

 mountains of Abyffinia ; we faw a number of very line 

 ones before we came to Taranta; they are alfo in Syria about 

 Sidon, but inferior in fize to the former ; they do not feem 

 to thrive in Arabia, for want of moifture. 



All the other vegetable productions of Egypt have been 

 in a fluctuating ftate from one year to another. We find 

 them in Profper Alpinus, and by his authority we feek for 

 them in that country. In Egypt we find them no more; 

 throu ; neglect, they are rotten and gone, but we meet 



■m flourifliing in Nubia, Abyffinia, and Arabia Felix, and 

 l are die countries whence the curious firfc brought 



thi - nd £} »m which, by fome accident fimilar to the firfr, 

 y a gain appear in Egypt. 



4 Prosper 



