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Egyptian mummies. 
and although they state, that the degree of preservation in 
which the mummies were found varied considerably, they 
all agree, more or less, in asserting that, as far as they had 
examined them, there appeared little more than the skele- 
tons remaining. Jomard, indeed, mentions generally, that on 
removing the bandages, ‘‘ on observe un .corps noir et dif- 
forme,'' and all of them are equally silent on the fact or pos- 
sibility of the viscera being still in existence in any mummy. 
Royer, who has taken a more extended view of the subject, 
and has described with great accuracy, the appearances in 
two or three distinct classes of mummies, does not mention 
any of the facts in reference to them, such as I shall pre- 
sently relate in connection with my own mummy. This omis- 
sion induces me to believe that the French naturalists never 
met with a perfect mummy, and that, therefore, the descrip- 
tion of a mummy in every respect much better preserved 
than any that has hitherto been noticed, must be a desirable 
object to the antiquarian, the learned commentators on 
ancient historians, and to men of science in general. Baron 
Larrey's Memoirs are chiefly intended to determine the 
question of the identity of the present race of Copts with 
the aboriginal Egyptians, whose descent he traces from the 
Abyssinians and Ethiopians by a comparative examination of 
the crania of several mummies he had collected in the desert 
of Saqquarah, and of those of the modern Copts found in a 
cemetery near Alexandria. The mummies of Saqquarah, 
however, are acknowledged to be very inferior to those of 
Upper Egypt by all travellers ; and cannot, therefore, be put 
in competition with the latter, in an inquiry into the art 
of embalming among the ancient Egyptians. 
