324 
MUSEUMS. 
skins dried as soon as possible. Again, finding that 
the skins wanted support, they have placed inside 
of them a hard body of straw, or of tow, or some- 
times of wood, by way of a solid foundation, into 
which they might fix their wires. Such a process 
must effectually destroy every chance of success. 
The nose, and lips, and ears, &c., of the specimen 
may look well for a few days after the operation; but, 
in the course of time, they will become so hideous, 
that every connoisseur will turn from them in 
disgust. 
These remarks are just. Let us go and examine 
a stuffed monkey, for example, in any museum we 
choose. See ! its once pouting lips are shrunk to 
parchment ; its artificial eyes are starting from the 
sockets ; its ears seem like the withered leaf of 
autumn ; and its paws are quite gone to skin and 
bone. It is what it ought not to be: it is the product 
of a bad system, which ought to be exploded in 
these days of research and improvement. But how 
is this defective system to be improved, so that a 
specimen may be produced, which shall be right in 
all its parts, durable as the table on which it is placed, 
safe from the depredations of the moth, and not 
liable to injury when exposed to damp? To effect 
this, two things are indispensably necessary. The 
first is, to put the skin of the quadruped upon 
which you are going to operate in a state to resist 
putrefaction, and the attacks of the moth, without 
the use of that dangerous, and at the same time in- 
efficient, composition, known by the name of arsene- 
tical soap. The second is, to keep the skin moist 
